On the right was a grainy screenshot from graduation. Tessa on the stage. The wet stain on her blue graduation gown. Her face twisted in a sob.
The comments were exactly what I had come to expect from the internet.
"Writes about Alphas because she can't handle reality. Look at the puddle. #Cringe"
"Imagine being a billionaire author and still being the girl who peed herself on stage."
"Heading to the coordinates. Who wants a signed copy?"
"Fuck," I gasped, dropping the phone into my lap as if it had burned me.
The nausea hit me hard. I doubled over, clutching my stomach, my forehead pressing against the back of the driver's seat.
It wasn't a leak. It was a dissection.
They were flaying her alive. They were taking the one thing she had protected for a decade, her anonymity, her shield, and shattering it. And they were using her trauma to do it.
And she was alone.
The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow.
We had left her. We had walked out the door, kissed her goodbye, and promised we'd be back in two hours. We left her defenseless in a glass box while the entire world converged on her location.
She'll see it,I thought, panic scrambling my synapses.She has the internet now. Anders reconnected the lines. She has the sat-phone. She’s going to look.
And when she looked... what would she see?
She would see that ten minutes after we drove away, the leak dropped.
She would see that the men who claimed to protect her left the premises just before the coordinates went live.
"She's going to think it was us," I whispered, the horror of it expanding in my chest until I couldn't breathe. "She's going to think we sold her out."
I scrabbled for the door handle. My hands were shaking so bad I couldn't find the latch. I clawed at the plastic, desperate to get out, desperate to get air.
I shoved the door open and tumbled out onto the wet asphalt.
The cold air hit me, but it didn't help. The scent of Burnt Sugar was pouring off me in waves, thick enough to taste. I grabbed the roof rack of the SUV to keep from falling.
"Anders!" I screamed.
People in the parking lot turned to look. A woman loading groceries into a sedan stared at me with wide, frightened eyes. I didn't care. I looked like a madman, hoodie stained with charcoal, eyes wild, screaming at the sky.
"Daniel! Anders!"
I fumbled with my phone again. My fingers were clumsy, slipping on the screen.
I texted Anders and Daniel.
GET BACK TO THE CAR. NOW.
I hit send.
Every second that ticked by was a second the drones were getting closer. Every second was a comment added to the thread. Every second was Tessa, alone in that house, watching her life burn down.
I drew her,I thought, a jagged sob tearing out of my throat.I drew her as a survivor. I drew her as a queen. And I left her to the wolves.
The glass doors of the pharmacy flew open.
