Chapter 103:


    “I’m here, Mommy.” Effie was crying, holding Isolde’s face in both hands. They were stained red. “You’re bleeding. There’s so much blood.”


    Tires screeched.


    A low-slung sports car jumped the curb and tore through the grass.


    And Roth vaulted out of the driver’s seat before the car had fully stopped. He had followed Isolde from the office, troubled when she’d run out without exnation.


    He saw the blood.


    “Isolde!”


    He hit his knees beside her, his expensive suit ruining against the dirt. He saw the shredded fabric of her sleeve. He saw the white sh of bone or tendon deep in the wound at her wrist.


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    “Oh god,” And breathed. He ripped off his tie and wrapped it around her upper arm, pulling it taut as a tourniquet.


    “And,” Isolde whispered, her eyes losing focus. “He… he left.”


    “I know,” And said. His voice shook with a rage so profound it had gone quiet. “I saw.”


    He looked up at the crowd. “Did anyone film that? Did anyone see him leave her?”


    “I did,” the injured boy’s father said, holding up his phone. “I got all of it.”


    “Send it to me,” And said.


    He lifted Isolde into his arms. She was limp against his chest.


    “Effie,e with me,” And said gently.


    He settled Isolde into the passenger seat and buckled her in. Effie climbed into the back.


    “Stay with me, Isolde,” And said, gripping her hand. “Don’t you dare close your eyes.”


    Isolde looked at him. The world was fading at the edges.


    “My hand,” she whispered. “My drawing hand.”


    Then the darkness took her.


    The lights of the Trauma Center were harsh and unforgiving.


    Isolde was on a gurney being rushed down a corridor. Nurses were cutting away her clothes.


    “BP is dropping! Eighty over fifty!”


    “Deepceration to the left forearm. Flexor tendons severed. Radial artery nicked. We need stics and ortho immediately!”


    And ran alongside the gurney until the double doors of the operating room swung shut in his face.


    He stood there, chest heaving, Isolde’s blood drying on his white shirt.


    Effie sat on a stic chair in the waiting room, hugging her knees. She looked impossibly small.


    And walked over and crouched down. He pulled a wet wipe from a dispenser and gently cleaned the blood from her small hands.


    “Is Mommy going to die?” Effie asked, her voice utterly t. It was the voice of a child who had seen too much.


    “No,” And said fiercely. “She is the strongest person I know.”


    “Daddy didn’t help,” Effie said. “He stepped on her.”


    And closed his eyes. He stepped on her.


    “I know, Effie.”


    His pocket buzzed. It was Isolde’s phone — he had picked it up from the grass. A text from Target.


    And unlocked the screen. He knew the passcode. It was Effie’s birthday.


    Belle is very shaken by your outburst at the school. Your reckless actions resulted in the destruction of Kaiden’s property. If you have any sense of responsibility left, you wille to Lenox Hill and address the chaos you’ve created.


    And stared at the screen. The words blurred.


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