Chapter 11: The Clip

Calvin put a hand to his cheek.

His mother did not look at him again.

"Get out," she said to Selena, in a voice Elise had never heard her use. "Take that child and get out of my house."

Selena clutched the baby and wept.

"Aunt, please. I raised him as a Fairchild. I don't know what Nolan did, he must have..."

"Out."

The cousins parted to let her through.

Selena stopped beside Elise on her way to the door.

She was crying, but her eyes were dry, and she was looking straight at Elise.

"You did this," she whispered. "You'll pay for it."

Then she was gone.

Elise walked out with her mother on one side and Nolan on the other.

On the front steps, Margaret stopped and looked back at the lit windows.

"That went well," she said.

"She'll come back at us," Nolan said. "Selena strikes first. She always has."

"Let her," said Margaret.

Elise held her daughter against her chest and said nothing.

She had not expected to feel so tired, or so clean.

By seven the next morning, the video was everywhere.

Jodie shoved a phone into her hands at the breakfast table of her small apartment.

The clip was half a minute long.

It showed the Larkspur corridor, a pale woman in a black coat pulling her arm free, and a woman in a gown falling to the floor with a cry.

The caption read: A new mother, one month postpartum, shoved to the ground by her own cousin's jealous wife.

It had four million views.

The comments ran in a flood.

Monster. Postpartum women need protecting. Someone find this woman.

Elise watched it twice.

Her own face was hidden by the mask, but her name was already in the replies. Someone had matched her to the Tower.

Jodie swore. "She cut out the part where she dug her nails in."

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