Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Shae
I lean back against the cold metal of the phone booth wall, curling the cord around my fingers, watching my reflection warp in the glass. I look like a shadow of a woman the world should fear.
And Harper? She’s too blinded by her own benevolent glow to notice the razors behind my smile.
She’s the kind of girl people protect instinctively—which tells me she’s never had to protect herself.
She’d never see it coming.
“Oh my God, Shae, I can’t believe we’re recording again already. The feedback on last week’s episode was insane. You are literally trending.”
I roll my eyes. The only thing trending in this hellhole is soggy meatloaf and the guards’ inability to keep their dicks in their pants.
But Harper can’t hear my eye roll. She’s too busy falling deeper in love with the character I’ve carved for her—a phoenix in prison orange.
The misunderstood heroine of a digital fairytale.
“I just speak from the heart,” I purr into the receiver, sweet as poison. “I think people are tired of being lied to. They want truth. Raw, unfiltered truth.”
“Oh, I know. It’s why your story resonates. It’s not just the injustice—it’s your resilience. You’re a survivor, Shae.”
That word. Survivor. Like I narrowly escaped a car crash, not orchestrated it.
A vision flashes—Jesika’s platinum hair stained a sickly green in the Chicago River.
Harper’s hair is the same platinum shade.
Sophie’s, too.
I fake a sniffle. “You’re too kind.”
She giggles. “Don’t cry, you’ll make me cry. And James already thinks I’m emotionally unstable from all this.”
James. The finance-bro fiancé. Five years younger than me, from what I’ve pieced together. Hair like wheat, heart like mayonnaise. He proposed last week—Harper blurted it out before a session like a teenager high on prom-night champagne.
I gave her a heartfelt congratulations.
I fantasized about pushing them both down an elevator shaft.
“He should be proud,” I murmur. “You’ve made something real out of all this noise. You’ve helped change lives, Harper.”
Harper practically squeals. “You think so?”
No, darling. I know so. A good sixty percent of the country believes I was framed by a misogynistic justice system now, thanks to your episodes titled things like Broken But Brave: The Shae Halston Story.
I should be paying you commission.
Instead, I feed her crumbs. “You believed in me when no one else did. I’ll never forget that.”
“Oh, Shae…” she sighs, and I can hear her melting through the line. “I’m just doing what’s right.”
Ah—the guiding light of every little lamb I’ve ever led to slaughter: the belief they’re righteous.
Harper’s biggest flaw isn’t naivety. It’s confidence in her own goodness.
She never judges me. She just listens—calm, open, unbearably decent—like she’s taking inventory instead of notes. No accusations. No gasps. Just that soft, steady gaze that makes me feel measured. Weighed. Found wanting by some invisible moral scale.
It’s worse than being called a monster. At least monsters get honesty.
The thought cuts in, sharp and ugly: mirrors are dangerous things. Sometimes it’s easier to break the glass than admit you don’t like what’s staring back.
“You’ve got a good heart, Harper,” I say. “People like you… you don’t come around often.”
She goes quiet, and when she speaks again her voice is smaller, edged with emotion. “That means a lot. Especially right now. Everything’s been so… intense.”
I tilt my head. “Oh?”
“It’s James. He wants us to take a step back. From the podcast. From you.”
My mouth tightens. “From me?”
“Not like that. He just worries I’m… too close to the story. That I’m—what did he say—emotionally enmeshed. And that new podcast from The Watcher dropped…”
I laugh, low and dangerous. “Whoever’s behind that voice changer is spinning bullshit and raking in ad dollars. Besides—no such thing as bad press, right? If they’re watching me this closely, I must be doing something right.”
I let the sweetness sharpen.
“And as for James… if he knew the first thing about journalism, he’d know the best stories are the ones you feel. The ones that ruin you a little.”
Harper swallows. I hear it.
“That’s what I told him,” she says. “And besides—we’re about to break everything wide open with this Netflix project. It’s all happening, Shae. You’ll be free. I know it.”
I picture her: cross-legged in her tiny Chicago apartment, legal pads everywhere, coffee gone cold. James in a hotel room across the country on a work trip. I’ve noticed how often she’s alone—how safe she assumes that is.
I have Harper wrapped around my pinky.
James is a complication.
One I’ll handle later.
“How’s house hunting going?” I ask.
She brightens. “We saw this little place in Hyde Park. Big backyard, lots of light. James wants kids right away, but I’m so busy with the podcast… settling in one place feels… difficult.”
“How lovely,” I murmur, pretending to care that she’s uprooted her life to spend days at a time with me here in California for interviews. “You’ll be an incredible mother.”
“Oh God. Do you think so?”
No. You devote your life to interviews with murderers and psychopaths. But I say, “Absolutely.”
Harper exhales like she’s savoring it. “You know, sometimes I feel guilty. Planning this… happy life, while you’re in there.”
Ah, my favorite flavor of pity: guilt-drenched.
“Don’t feel guilty for being loved,” I say softly. “Just don’t forget who helped you find your voice.”
The silence stretches—just long enough for the idea to root.
“I won’t,” Harper whispers.
Damn right, you won’t.
The timer buzzes. My hour’s up. I press my palm to the glass, mock-somber. “Same time next week?”
“Of course,” she breathes.
I hang up the receiver, my smile turning into something sharper.
As the guard calls me back to the block, I replay the conversation—Harper’s tone, her pauses, her little slip about James trying to pull her away.
He’s starting to wonder.
Good.
Let him.
The more doubt Harper faces, the tighter she’ll cling to me. To the story we’ve built together. And when she finally breaks—when the guilt swallows her whole—I’ll be the only one who can absolve her.
After all, I’m the survivor.
And she’s just the storyteller too na?ve to realize she’s written herself into a tragedy.
One that doesn’t end with a wedding and a white picket fence.
But a body.
Maybe two.