Chapter 2
Michael followed my eyes.
His face changed when he saw the camera.
Not much.
Just enough.
A tiny flicker of panic.
Patricia saw it too.
She turned slowly toward the refrigerator.
The red light blinked again.
Once.
Twice.
Like a heartbeat.
She scrambled to her feet.
“No.”
She lunged across the wet floor toward the fridge.
I moved first.
I grabbed the kitchen chair and shoved it between us.
Patricia slammed into it.
“Move!” she screamed.
Michael reached for the camera.
I grabbed the pot from the floor and lifted it like a shield.
“Touch it and I’ll scream loud enough for the neighbors to hear.”
He froze.
Patricia pointed at me.
“She burned herself on purpose. She planned this.”
I laughed once.
It came out broken.
“Planned to have you shove my hand into a burner?”
“You’re unstable,” she snapped.
“That’s the story now?”
“That has always been the story.”
Her words landed too cleanly.
Too ready.
I looked at Michael.
“What does she mean?”
He swallowed.
“Anna, calm down.”
My name in his mouth sounded like a warning.
Not love.
Patricia wiped blood from her forehead and lifted her chin.
“You think a camera saves you? You think one little video makes you innocent?”
“It makes you exposed.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“You have no idea what we have.”
We.
There it was.
Not mother and son.
Partners.
My hand throbbed.
The burn was red and angry across my skin.
I reached for my phone on the counter.
Michael stepped forward.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“Are you going to stop me?”
For a moment, he looked like he might.
Then someone knocked on the front door.
Three hard knocks.
All of us froze.
A woman’s voice called through the door.
“Anna? It’s Mrs. Flores. I heard screaming.”
Bless that woman.
She lived next door, watered her basil every morning, and noticed everything.
Patricia’s expression shifted instantly.
She pressed one hand to her forehead and began to sob.
“Oh, thank God,” she cried. “Please help us!”
I turned toward the door.
Michael grabbed my arm.
Not hard.
But enough.
“Don’t make this worse,” he whispered.
I looked down at his hand.
He let go.
I opened the door with my uninjured hand.
Mrs. Flores stood on the porch in slippers, holding her phone.
Her eyes went from my burned hand to Patricia’s wet clothes to the water on the floor.
“What happened?”
Before I could answer, Patricia wailed.
“She attacked us!”
Mrs. Flores looked at me.
I lifted my hand.
“She tried to burn me.”
Michael stepped beside Patricia.
“She’s lying.”
Mrs. Flores did not look surprised.
That chilled me.
“What?” I whispered.
Her jaw tightened.
“I heard what she said before the crash.”
Patricia stopped crying.
Mrs. Flores raised her phone.
“And my back patio camera records audio when the kitchen window is open.”
My heart stumbled.
The kitchen window.
I had opened it while boiling water because Patricia said the house smelled like onions.
Mrs. Flores looked at Michael.
“I heard your mother say pain would teach her to be a proper wife.”
Michael went pale.
Patricia pointed at her.
“You are trespassing on family matters.”
Mrs. Flores stepped back.
“I already called 911.”
Sirens sounded faintly down the street.
Patricia’s whole body stiffened.
Then she turned on Michael.
“Do something.”
He looked trapped.
Like a boy caught cheating on a test.
Not like a husband whose wife had been hurt.
The police arrived five minutes later.
By then, Patricia had a new story.
I had insulted her.
I had burned myself by accident.
I had panicked.
I had attacked.
Michael repeated it.
Word for word.
The officers separated us.
A young officer named Harris looked at my hand.
“Do you need medical treatment?”
“Yes,” I said. “And I need that camera preserved.”
He glanced at the refrigerator.
Patricia shouted from the living room.
“That camera belongs to my son!”
Officer Harris looked back at me.
“Does it upload to cloud storage?”
I turned to Michael.
He looked away.
That told me enough.
I gave the officer the login Michael had once bragged was “impossible to guess.”
His college mascot.
His birth year.
His ego.
Officer Harris pulled up the footage on his tablet.
His expression hardened almost immediately.
He didn’t say much.
He didn’t need to.
He watched Patricia grab me.
He watched Michael stand there.
He watched my hand nearly touch the burner.
Then he looked at Michael.
“You said she attacked without cause?”
Michael’s mouth opened.
May you like
Nothing came out.
Patricia tried to run.
