Chapter 5: The Threat

"Claire."

I cross the lobby before I know I'm moving.

The cameras swing with me.

I put my body between my sister and the lenses, and I hold her face in both hands.

Her lip is swollen to twice its size.

The blood has dried at the corner of her mouth.

"Who did this?"

"Not here," she whispers.

"Ava!" someone shouts. "Is that your sister? Was she assaulted over the debt?"

Gareth's voice floats over the crowd, gentle and sad.

"A tragedy. Debt makes people desperate."

I don't look at him.

I wrap my arm around Claire's shoulders and walk her through the staff door.

Dina holds it open and shuts it behind us.

The supply room smells like latex and bleach.

I sit Claire on a stool and run the tap over a gauze pad.

"Hold still."

She flinches when I touch the cut.

"It's not deep," I say. "It'll bruise ugly."

"I know."

"Tell me."

She stares at the floor.

Twenty-four years old, and she's chewing her cuff the way she did at six.

"I was closing up the clinic last night," she says. "A man was waiting at the back door. I never saw him before."

"What did he look like?"

"Tall. Gloves. A ball cap pulled down. He didn't give a name."

"Did he take anything?"

"He took my key. Then he hit me."

My hand stops on her chin.

"With what?"

"His open hand. Once. Like he was giving me a message he wanted me to remember."

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