Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Shae
There’s something cathartic about watching a woman’s face bleed.
And me? I stood in the corner, clutching my ribs, pretending to tremble. All wide eyes and innocence—close enough to the chaos to be counted as collateral.
Cue: Officer Declan Ridge.
He comes into the block like he’s been cast in a B-grade prison procedural.
Square jaw tight, brows drawn like storm clouds, eyes sweeping the wreckage like it personally offends him.
His name is Declan, which tells you everything about what his mother imagined for him.
Clean-cut. Morally conflicted. Haunted by something that keeps him just edgy enough to be interesting.
A failed engagement, maybe. An affair. A dead brother in Afghanistan. Something noble and manly and unusable.
He kneels in front of me, hand gently cupping my chin. “You okay, Halston?”
I blink. Just once. Let my lip tremble, let the corner pull down.
“I… I tried to get away.”
His nostrils flare. He cups the back of my head like I’m glass and tips my face up to the flickering fluorescents. There’s a tiny gash on my cheek I barely noticed—a souvenir from Keisha’s elbow when she went for Trina’s throat. It’s already crusting. To Declan, it might as well be a war wound.
“You need medical?”
I shake my head. “Just… need to breathe. Alone.”
He nods—slow, thoughtful—and helps me to my feet like standing might shatter me further.
God, men are predictable.
Declan leads me into the corridor, his hand light on my back. If this were a date, I’d let him pay. Instead, I let silence bloom between us, just long enough to make him wonder what I’m not saying.
“You shouldn’t be in that block,” he mutters, unlocking the observation room.
I step inside like I’m grateful. Like I’m fragile.
“Tell Warden Griggs that,” I say, voice hoarse. “She’s been so busy fielding podcast requests she barely knows what tier I’m on.”
Declan chuckles. He shuts the door and I slide into the plastic chair, crossing my legs slowly—letting the hem of my orange pants ride up just enough to show the scar on my ankle.
“It’s always the quiet ones,” he says, half-sighing, half-smiling as he crouches again.
I tilt my head. “What is?”
He shrugs. “The ones who get the media’s attention. The beautiful ones. The sad-eyed girls who end up front-page heroes.”
“I’m not a hero,” I whisper.
He studies me—hard. “No. You’re something else entirely.”
I don’t answer. I don’t have to.
Instead, I glance past him through the narrow window slit. Trina’s on a stretcher. Keisha’s being cuffed. And me? I’m exactly where I want to be—quiet, clean, and lodged in Declan’s peripheral vision. That sweet, morally bankrupt no-man’s-land.
“You need anything else?” he asks after a beat.
“Just sleep.”
He nods, stands, then hesitates at the door.
“I get off shift at seven,” he says. “I’ll stop by before I leave. Just to check in.”
“Thank you.” I let softness touch my voice. “You’ve always been so kind.”
He swallows that line like communion.
After he leaves, I stare at the ceiling—pale blue tile, speckled with rust and hairline cracks like spider veins.
It reminds me of the closet ceiling when I was a kid.
The one my father locked Sophie and me in after our mom left.
I can still smell the dried blood and salty tears.
I can still hear Sophie’s quiet sobs, soft as a lullaby.
My parents didn’t fail me.
They curated me.
They showed me what real love looks like—the kind that bites and leaves gaping wounds that never heal. And I learned to weaponize it.
I blink the memory away.
No time for nostalgia. Not when I’m three moves ahead.
I think of Pismo—when I got trapped in the past, when the lines between Sophie and me blurred because grief is a hallucinogen with good PR.
I think of how my public defender tried to sell my spiral as a psychotic episode.
I didn’t buy it for a second, but mental illness forgives a lot, so I let the jury chew on it.
And this? The girl fight. The bruises. The little gash on my cheek.
All part of the plan.
Public sympathy spikes when you look like prey.
Harper’s probably already outlining an episode around tonight’s “incident,” like I’ve been mauled by a corrupt system.
Evelyn—the documentary producer—will salivate over the footage.
She loves a gritty visual. Maybe she’ll even send a care package.
Last month it was a Chanel lip stain, because she thinks women are plants that perk up when you water them with luxury.
She told me I should “feel like a woman again.”
I reach under my cot and pull out the folder I’ve been building: letters, printouts, fan mail.
I flip through them like they’re stock options.
Each one proof I’m winning. Proof public opinion is shifting.
Proof I’m no longer Shae Halston, Convicted Killer—I’m Shae Halston, Victim of a Broken System.
A teenage girl in Kansas who says she sees herself in me. A woman whose husband “gaslit her” the same way “they” did to me. Harper and Evelyn have done their jobs. They’ve painted me as the Mona Lisa of martyrdom, and all I had to do was sit still and let them varnish me.
From Mia Starr: L.A. influencer to Shae Halston: feminist icon.
People don’t expect predators to be nice.
So I was.
I listened. I nodded. I cried on cue. I asked questions no one had ever asked them before.
I remembered birthdays, complimented lipstick shades, held hands during hard moments.
I gave Harper the intimacy she craved, gave Evelyn the access she needed, gave the public vulnerability they devour like fast food.
I made myself palatable.
Soon, I’ll be free.
Dean, Kelly, and Isaac fear me.
And Declan? Declan will vouch for me.
He’ll say I was quiet. Polite. A victim of circumstance. He’ll remember my trembling hands and the way I thanked him for his kindness. He won’t remember the look I gave Keisha right before she snapped.
I slide the folder back beneath my cot and climb into bed. Moonlight cuts across the floor in a clean, perfect line. I close my eyes and picture Declan’s face at dawn.
He’ll come.
They always do.
And when he opens that cell door, I’ll tilt my head, smile soft, and tell him how safe he makes me feel.
He’ll eat it up.
Because men like Declan don’t want dangerous women.
They want women who make them feel like heroes.
And I’ve always been good at pretending.