Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Shae
Ipick white because it’s the loudest lie.
Not cream, not pearl—white like a flare.
The dress is sleek with a hint of sexy: bias-cut silk, a high clean neckline that says who, me?
and a slit that says try me. My hair coils into a soft, obedient chignon.
A thin diamond tennis bracelet kisses my wrist—Blake’s suggestion.
“Understated money,” he’d said, adjusting the clasp.
“You’re everyone’s redemption fantasy tonight. ”
I smile at myself in the mirror thinking how much Declan would have loved to be here, his hand at my back like my doting partner in crime. Instead, he became the victim in this narrative. Corner the beast and it bites back.
Blake waits by the door in all black, camera hanging across his chest like a priest’s stole. He looks at me with that private grin that pretends it’s only admiration. “Saint Shae of Silence,” he murmurs, lifting the lens. “Hold it.”
I turn my face a fraction off-center and give him a slow blink. The camera makes the same small click it did the first time he filmed me in prison—when I pressed my palms to the phone glass and cried when I wasn’t sad. Funny how practice turns fraud into pity.
“Ready?” he asks.
“I was born ready.”
The gala venue is a restored citrus packing house on the edge of the Santa Clarita Valley—the kind of faux-rustic, mission-adjacent palace Southern California adores.
Whitewashed brick. Exposed beams. String lights.
A drink station—spritzers branded “Faithful Fizz”—waits near the entrance like an altar, a halo of dry-ice mist hissing above the buckets.
The banner reads: Hearth the real estate couple who name their dogs after wines; the influencer who sells grief candles and has a million followers who apparently trust her nose.
Each one says I cried watching your story.
Each one wants me to bless their version of me.
Meanwhile Blake keeps the Live humming: me signing programs, me hugging survivors, me laughing like I’m light. Hearts keep bubbling—proof people still confuse proximity with knowing.
In a corner, a string quartet plays a pop song. Faithful Fizz pops in sequenced pssts. Catering staff wheel a cart with glittering cupcakes, each one staked with a tiny flag that says HEAL in block font. Lila mouths we did it, tears shimmying on her lashes that somehow don’t fall.
My phone buzzes again—a text from an unknown number with a cheap black-hole icon:
Still playing in white, Shae? Cute. Bleach doesn’t fix blood. What really happened to Declan?
I let the phone sit cold in my hand. Whoever it is, they’ve gotten better at the anonymous thing—VPNs, burners—but people always leave fingerprints in the rhythm of their words.
I slide the phone back into my clutch and smile at a donor who wants a selfie. “Chin down,” I tell her sweetly. “Eyes up. There you go.” We look like forgiveness.
Harper scurries back, face pale. “They’re trending,” she whispers. “The Watcher. The Real Shae Halston.”
“So are we.” I nod toward Blake’s screen, which now resembles a slot machine that only pays hearts. “And we brought better snacks.”
“Shae,” she insists, fingers biting my elbow. “They’re claiming there was a second phone inside the prison. That clips were edited. They’ve got a guard on tape—voice distorted—talking about staged violence. They’re going to say the riot was planned.”
I let my mouth fall open—a perfect micro-gasp. “That’s monstrous,” I say evenly. “To exploit survivors like that for downloads.”
“You should address it,” she urges. “Head on.”
“I will,” I say, and I mean it. Just not here. Not until I choose the stage, the lighting, and whose hands hold the knives.
Blake catches my eye again. I tilt my head—a cue he’s learned: follow.
We slip behind a curtain near catering: industrial sinks, trays of cooling sliders, a harried chef barking hands! at a line cook. I flatten against the wall and tip my chin up to the lens.
“Hey, it’s me again,” I say to the Live.
“We’re hearing noise tonight. A new episode from an anonymous podcast—The Watcher.
If you’re listening, please be careful. People make money sowing doubt.
Trauma is not entertainment. My story is not a puzzle for strangers to solve on a Tuesday night. It’s my life.”
Comments fire:
— DRAG THEM
— we stand with you
— the watcher is jealous, babe
— say their name. call them out
“I’m not going to give them oxygen,” I continue. “We’re giving it to survivors here.” I slice a glance off-camera and dip my voice. “And to anyone cashing in on hate? We see you. We always see you.”
I soften my mouth into a saintly curve and end the Live.
Blake lowers the rig. “Glorious,” he says. “You made God trend.”
“I prefer Satan,” I say. “He works faster.”
Harper materializes in the wing like a ghost who can’t stop haunting her own house. “Your speech,” she prompts, grabbing for something solid. “We’re ready.”
Lila taps the mic, feedback chiming like a blade. “Everyone, thank you for being here,” she sings, sincerity trembling through her vowels. “Our work matters because stories like Shae’s remind us that—”
Blah blah. She’s pretty when she’s earnest. A shame to waste it on belief.
Then my name, the lightning clap of applause, and the hush that follows when people remember they’ve ached all week to hear a woman speak about pain and make it sound like prophecy.
I take the stage.
“Thank you,” I begin, hands loose at my sides. I drop my gaze to the floorboards. “I wore white tonight because I don’t feel clean.” A chuckle—sad and sonic—ripples politely. “Some days I still smell bleach.”
Silence. Hooks in skin.