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Chapter 2

Author: Seven Sevens
A man in a slicked-back haircut and a sharp suit stepped forward holding a briefcase.

He pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up his nose and gave the camera the practiced little smile he had used a hundred times.

The chat caught him fast.

[That's Marshall Pierce!]

[Top defense lawyer in the country. Crowley group's chief counsel!]

[Oh good, let the pros handle her!]

[May Fairfax is finished! There is no escaping Marshall Pierce!]

Marshall pulled a sheet of paper out of his briefcase, cleared his throat, and read it like he was reading a verdict.

"Per the criminal code, anyone who intentionally inflicts serious bodily injury on another person may be sentenced to a multi-year term, depending on the severity and the specific circumstances. In cases involving particularly cruel methods or aggravating factors, the sentence may be longer."

He paused. He looked toward the dead, empty room.

"Ms. Fairfax. You are suspected of intentional bodily injury resulting in miscarriage, with aggravating circumstances. I recommend you turn yourself in voluntarily. It is the path that leads to leniency."

The chat went off.

[Did everyone hear that? May Fairfax, you are going to prison!]

[Marshall Pierce is right. Turn yourself in!]

[May, stop hiding and come out!]

Wendy felt the wave under her. Her chin came up.

She turned back toward the empty house. Something flickered in her eyes for half a second. Pleasure.

"Marshall. Tell her something for me." Her voice was clear now. There was no shake left in it. "I want her in prison. For three days my son has been dead. For three days I have been hearing him crying for me in my dreams."

"Why does the wicked one walk around free? I want her to pay with her life. Or I want her to scoop her own eggs out of her body.

"One egg for one of his organs. I want her to know what it feels like to watch her own flesh and blood disappear in front of her."

The chat hung for a beat. Then it broke open.

[Harvest her eggs? That's a little...]

[No, it's fair. One life for one life. She killed a six-month boy. Eggs aren't a person. A baby is a person!]

[I support this! May can't have a son anyway, can she? Make sure she never has one!]

[Take away her right to be a mother, forever!]

Tristan stood off to the side. He had not said a word.

He watched the whole thing the way you watch a stranger get sentenced. Cold.

Against the corner wall, the drunk man lifted his head.

His eyes were filmy. His voice came out dead clear.

"You're lying."

Everyone froze.

Wendy turned toward him in disbelief.

"Excuse me?"

"I said you're lying." He pulled himself up the wall and stood. "Three days ago, she did not make you miscarry. There is no way."

The chat had not registered yet. Marshall got there first. He gave a soft, mean laugh and looked the drunk up and down.

"What does a beggar know? Are you saying the wound on Ms. Crowley's belly is fake? Are you saying she opened her own stomach with a knife to frame someone?"

His voice was contemptuous.

"Have you ever been a mother? Do you know what it is to lose a child? Do you have any idea what it took for her to lift her shirt in front of this camera?"

The chat fell in.

[Is this man drunk? Why is he defending the killer? Wendy's scar isn't a deepfake!]

[Marshall absolutely roasted him!]

[I bet this drunk is in on it. Arrest him too!]

Tristan's face had gone the kind of hard you can't argue with.

He walked toward the drunk slow. Each word came out from between his teeth.

"Do you know May Fairfax?"

The drunk shook his head. "No."

"Then on what basis are you calling Ms. Crowley a liar?"

The drunk shrank a little. Then he set his jaw and got it out anyway.

"If you saw the woman in this villa three days ago, you'd know she could not have hurt anyone."
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  • The Livestream That Exposed a Corpse   Chapter 8

    Three months later.Spring came.In front of my grave, on top of the funeral flowers a thousand strangers had brought after the livestream went around, there was something new.A small bunch of wildflowers. They had been tied off with a piece of grass. There was still dew on the petals.The drunk was standing in front of the stone. He was wearing an old shirt that had been washed soft.His hair was longer than it had been three months ago. The dirt was off his face.I was beside him. The sun came through me and landed on the wildflowers.He looked at the photograph on the stone for a long time."I never knew you." His voice was rough. "They tell me your name was May Fairfax.""You used to sit out on the rooftop at night. You used to talk to the moon. You said you wanted to go home. You said you wanted to see your grandmother. You said you wanted to see Tristan."I never answered you. I thought a man like me had no right to talk to a rich woman."His eyes went red."You neve

  • The Livestream That Exposed a Corpse   Chapter 7

    Wendy was convicted on falsification of evidence, defamation, fraud, and inducing perjury, charges combined. She was sentenced to twelve years.The day they brought her out of the courtroom, a taxi stopped at the curb.The door opened. A woman in her fifties got out.Grandma.I came up out of the bench so fast I forgot I had no body.She had lost weight. Her hair had gone the color of paper. Her eyes were swollen and red. She held an envelope in her hand."Wendy..." She called her by name.Wendy turned. The instant she saw who it was, her pupils tightened.Grandma walked over. Her hands shook as she opened the envelope and pulled out a photograph.The photograph was of a girl with a high ponytail and a wide, easy smile.Eighteen-year-old me."This was May." Grandma's voice was small. "She didn't have her parents. I raised her. After she married into your family, she sent me money every month. She never let me know she was struggling."Tears were running down Grandma's face.

  • The Livestream That Exposed a Corpse   Chapter 6

    A week later. Wendy's case opened.I sat in the gallery. No one could see me.The prosecution put forward stack after stack of evidence.They proved Wendy had not just produced a deepfake. She had taken a scalpel to her own belly to fake the wound.When the medical examiner took the stand and said the depth and angle of the cut were inconsistent with an attack and consistent with self-inflicted injury, the gallery went up in a roar.Tristan and Wendy's mother sat in the gallery, sobbing into her hands.She had believed every word her daughter had ever told her. She had believed the pregnancy, the miscarriage, the attack.She had not known the whole thing was theater.Marshall Pierce sat at the defense table looking gray.He had been one of the top criminal-defense attorneys in the country. He had been Crowley Group's chief counsel.In this case, he had not only failed to keep Wendy out of prison. The investigators had also confirmed that he had taken a substantial bribe fro

  • The Livestream That Exposed a Corpse   Chapter 5

    The officer sent the surveillance file off for analysis.The technicians came back fast. The hospital footage that had supposedly shown me attacking Wendy was a deepfake.The original clip was from a different incident at the same hospital a week earlier. The woman in the original footage was a stranger. Wendy had paid someone to swap that woman's face for mine, and to swap the patient's face for her own. The seam was clean. Edited well. The whole thing was a fabrication.When the lab's findings hit the livestream, the chat detonated.[The video is fake! Wendy was lying!][So the wound on her belly is fake too! She was never pregnant!][We got played. Wendy, you horrible woman!][I was just cursing at May… I was cursing at a dead woman…]There was no blood left in Wendy's face.She watched the chat she had whipped into a frenzy turn on her one comment at a time. Her lips were shaking."That isn't… That isn't what happened."She turned to Tristan."Tristan, you believe me, r

  • The Livestream That Exposed a Corpse   Chapter 4

    The officer's words hit the courtyard like a charge."Dead?" The color was already going out of Tristan's face. "You said May is dead?"The officer glanced at him. His tone was flat."Yes. The owner of this house. May Fairfax. Time of death roughly seven days ago. The neighbors called us in because no one had come or gone for a long time. We found the body. The initial assessment is suicide. Multiple injuries on the body. The fatal wound was to her wrist. She lost too much blood."I stood between them and watched.Nobody could see me.I had been dead a week. There was just a weightless thing left of me, walking around the world.Wendy's eyes shifted. Then she shrieked."She killed herself out of guilt! She knew she could not get away with what she did to my baby! She ran first!"She threw herself into Tristan's arms. Her shoulders were shaking."Tristan, she is dead! Does that mean my baby's death does not get justice? Does she walk away from this just by dying? That isn't ri

  • The Livestream That Exposed a Corpse   Chapter 3

    Wendy's eyes flickered at the drunk's line.She bit down on her teeth, dug into her pocket, pulled her phone out, and turned the screen at the camera."You want to call me a liar. I have proof."It was a piece of hospital surveillance from three days ago.A woman walked into frame.Hair loose around her shoulders. Fruit knife in her right hand.It was supposed to be me. May Fairfax.The footage had me with murder on my face, kicking a hospital room door open, walking straight to the bed.Then in one motion, the knife came down across Wendy's belly.Wendy's voice came out of the speakers, raw."Help! Somebody! She's killing my baby!"The pitch of it could have cut glass.The nurse station lights started flashing. White coats came running into the frame.In the video, I turned and ran. The end of the corridor swallowed me.The footage cut.The chat lost its mind.[Holy sh*t! She actually did it!][What is there left to debate? The proof is right there! May is a murderer!

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