Fear screams.
Assessment counts.
Michael stood over me with his pistol aimed at my face.
“Who do you think you are?” he shouted.
My mother’s hands were pressed over her mouth.
Tyler had stopped smiling.
His phone was still recording, but his face had changed.
He looked less like a spectator now.
He looked like someone who had finally realized footage does not care who you meant to humiliate.
It records what happened.
I spit blood onto my mother’s clean kitchen floor and smiled.
“They already told you.”
The secure phone went silent for half a beat.
Then another voice came through the speaker.
Different from the first.
Lower.
Controlled.
Close enough that everyone in the kitchen heard it.
“General Mitchell, stay down. Response team is inbound.”
Michael’s eyes cut to the phone.
Tyler backed away from the refrigerator.
My mother whispered, “Oh my God.”
Outside, at the end of the driveway, the first set of headlights appeared.
