Detective Beckett stood.
“No one touches it until law enforcement collects it.”
Wyatt nodded.
“We’ll meet your officers there.”
Lena Morris packed away the documents.
“Sadie, we’ll place security outside your room.”
“Because Melanie is still missing?”
“Yes.”
“She won’t come here.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because she thinks I’m weak.”
The prosecutor studied me.
“And is she right?”
I looked at Wyatt.
At the torn shirt he still had not changed.
At Detective Beckett’s evidence file.
At the bandages covering the face my mother believed would destroy my future.
“No,” I said.
“She’s never been more wrong.”
By afternoon, the swelling around my eye had worsened, but my vision began to return in fragments.
Light first.
Then color.
Then the blurred outline of Wyatt’s face.
He cried when I told him I could see him.
I tried to smile, but the stitches pulled painfully.
