They Left Her to Bleed, So She Healed the Untouchable novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Eleven Minutes

I sat on my cot with my grandmother's tin in my lap until the stove burned down.

Nobody came for me. Nobody called.

At two in the morning there was a knock, two knuckles on the door, and I knew whose they were.

I opened it with the crutch under my arm.

Keir stood in the snow without a hat, and his gloves were in his hand.

"I'm not asking to come in," he said.

"Good."

"I'm not asking for anything."

"Then you can stand there." I leaned on the doorframe. "I broke the third rule this afternoon. I might as well finish. Why?"

He looked at the gloves.

"Six years ago I was in a burn ward," he said. "My father signed a paper that said the fire was an accident on dry land. The Brantleys paid him, and he took it, because I was screaming and he wanted it to stop."

"And Colson?"

"Was never charged. Nobody ever asked him anything. The ban sign went missing from the evidence."

"So you built a show."

"I built a company. Then I built a show, and I put him on it." His voice stayed flat. "I needed him on live air, uncut, saying something cruel and false, with a clock on it. The Brantleys delete whatever they can reach. They can't reach four million people watching at once."

"And that was me."

"That was the hope," he said, "and I hated it from the day I read your name."

The cold came in around my ankles.

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