Chapter 100
End of Volume 1
The phone call with my mother left my nerves scraped raw. I clung to the thin hope that Mr. Lee could still contain the fallout, that this storm might somehow pass before it reached our door.
But as we drove back from dinner, unease settled deep in my stomach. It wasn't panic. It was worse. Like, an instinctive certainty that something had already gone wrong.
When we turned onto my street, that certainty hardened into truth.
My house was under siege.
The road that was usually quiet was choked with bodies and light. Neighbors stood frozen on their lawns, whispering, pointing. News vans crowded the curb. At the center of it all, a tight restless ring of reporters and cameramen pressed against my front yard, their lenses trained on my home with predatory focus.
The air buzzed. Full of shouted questions, overlapping voices, the relentless stutter of camera shutters. Chaos, contained only by its own greed.
"Oh my God," I breathed.
