Chapter 4

Blood kept pouring from the wound even as I pressed my hand against it.

Emma and the others stood frozen.

None of them had expected one shove to leave me bleeding like this.

My head spun, and my vision faded in and out.

I pulled out my phone to call an ambulance.

Emma thought I was calling the police.

She rushed over, grabbed the phone from my hand, and yelled, "You want to call the police? Not a chance!"

Even Julian thought she'd gone too far. He tugged at her sleeve. "That's enough. Look at her face. We should take her to the hospital before this gets worse."

Emma whirled around and glared at him. "What are you so worried about? It's just a cut. She's not going to die. She's obviously playing it up so she can make a scene and milk us for money!"

Julian wanted to argue, but Emma shut him down with a glare. "Shut up and stay out of it!"

Julian backed off without another word.

I was barely conscious by then.

Their faces blurred in front of me.

My knees gave out, and I collapsed.

Just before everything went black, I thought I heard Margaret cry, "Clara!"

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a hospital bed.

I was alone.

I tried to sit up, but a sharp pain tore through my head, like someone was drilling into my skull.

A nurse walked past my room.

I called out weakly, "Nurse, who brought me in?"

She hurried over when she realized I was awake.

After checking that I wasn't hurting anywhere else, she finally answered, "You and an elderly teacher from your high school were brought in together."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Where is she?"

The nurse hesitated. "She was injured too. They're treating her in the orthopedic ward."

My mind went blank.

Injured? Margaret had been perfectly fine when I left. "How did she get hurt?"

The nurse was about to answer when a doctor shouted from the hallway, "Bed five's blood pressure is dropping fast! Get over here!"

She immediately ran off.

A terrible feeling came over me.

My hands started shaking.

I yanked the IV from my hand.

Blood beaded where the needle had been, but I didn't care.

I ran out barefoot.

The orthopedic treatment room was at the end of the hallway.

Its door stood half-open.

I stopped outside, too afraid to go in.

I leaned against the wall, trembling from head to toe.

Then I remembered my dashcam automatically uploaded its recordings to the cloud.

I grabbed my phone and opened the app.

The footage picked up right after I'd collapsed.

Margaret came rushing into view, gasping for breath.

Her face went pale when she saw me lying on the ground.

She hurried over and stood between me and the others. "What the hell are you doing?! Right out in public! Do you think you're above the law?!"

Emma rolled her eyes. "Stay out of this, you old fool! She tripped and fell on her own. That's got nothing to do with us!"

Margaret had always been gentle and soft-spoken, but the woman on the screen was furious.

Her eyes were bloodshot, and veins stood out on her forehead.

She shouted, "You've gone too far! Give her phone back!"

Emma shrieked, "What do you think you're doing?! Julian, get this crazy bitch away from me!"

Julian moved immediately.

He picked up a brick from the ground.

At first, it looked like he only meant to scare Margaret.

But Emma screamed, "Hit her! Just do it! We'll say she attacked us first! She's old and sick anyway. If she gets hurt, that's on her!"

Then everything happened at once.

Julian shoved Margaret with all his strength.

Her frail body flew backward.

Her head slammed against the curb with a sickening crack.

Blood immediately pooled beneath her head.

Margaret didn't move.

The dashcam had caught everything.

I gripped my phone until my nails dug into my palm.

Tears blurred my vision as rage burned through me.

I called Theodore Grant, the chief legal counsel at my firm. "Theodore, I want you to represent me. I'm pressing charges against my former classmates for assault. I want every last one of them to pay a price."