It was the first real smile he had given me all day.
“Now you’re going to learn respect.”
He slammed my hand onto the table and snapped one cuff around my wrist.
The metal bit cold into my skin.
My mother cried out.
“Michael, no!”
“Stay out of it, Emma.”
He yanked my other arm back and cuffed me to the chair.
Tyler kept recording.
“This is getting good,” he muttered.
That was when I saw the objects on the table in a clean line, the way my mind always arranged rooms under stress.
The secure phone, still live.
My mother’s grocery receipt stamped 3:17 p.m.
A half-empty coffee mug with lipstick on the rim.
The folded copy of my temporary duty order, brought inside only because the call had interrupted lunch.
A butter knife.
A napkin holder.
No cover.
No clean exit.
Michael picked up the secure phone and pressed it to his ear.
