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Chapter 8
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When the Smiles Faded Chapter 12
The article was published the next day. I had not come up with the headline. Ella had.[Firefighter Prank Follow-Up: Informant Offered Money to Keep Quiet but Was Threatened After Refusing]The photo showed the settlement agreement.Ella had chosen a clever angle that made the contents perfectly clear while keeping my name hidden. At the bottom of the article was also a link to an audio recording. I clicked it.Shane's mother's voice came through perfectly clearly. "You know the kind of connections Shane's father has in Cascade City. Letting this matter get any bigger won't end well for a young woman who just graduated."Within an hour of the article going live, it had been read more than a million times.The comments exploded.[I seriously can't believe what I'm reading. What kind of messed-up parent is this?][Her son almost caused a fire in the entire building, and instead of dealing with him, she's trying to pay off the person who reported it?][Connections in Cascade City
When the Smiles Faded Chapter 11
"Your son locked me in a storage room."Her brows furrowed together."Your son and a group of his friends set off smoke bombs at 3:00 am, triggering the fire alarms throughout the entire building. Three fire trucks, 30 firefighters. An elderly woman living alone upstairs was so frightened that she had to be taken away by ambulance. Your son, at the scene…"I looked straight into her eyes and uttered each word slowly, "... even tried to push all the blame onto me."Shane's mother's expression changed.It was not guilt. It was irritation."Janet, I know all of that. However, the problem now is that Shane and his friends are all saying you knew what was happening. Do you know what it means to be a person who knew?"They're saying you knew about the prank from the very beginning. You didn't stop them, which means you effectively approved of it."She paused for a second."Yoel's family has already hired a lawyer. The lawyer says that if they can prove you knew about the plan and fa
When the Smiles Faded Chapter 10
Shane stayed silent for a long time.Then a second text came through.[Are you really going to be happy only after you watch everyone else go down?]I deleted the message without replying. Instead, I opened the news alerts on my phone.The hashtag #GraduatesPrankFirefighters had already racked up more than 200 million views.Yvette's social media accounts had been picked apart completely. Someone dug up the prank announcement she had posted three days earlier. Someone else screenshotted her reply in the comments:[Come on, we're just having fun. Besides, maybe the firefighters will think it's funny too.]People started piling on underneath.[Funny? Three fire trucks are funny? Thirty firefighters responding in two minutes is funny?][What about the elderly woman who lives upstairs? She was so scared she had to be taken to the hospital. Is that funny?][Your so-called first 'reverse-prank' documentary on the internet? So your big twist was making a joke out of fire safety?]T
When the Smiles Faded Chapter 9
The interview was scheduled for the following afternoon, and I chose the location myself. Not my apartment, and definitely not a coffee shop. I chose the property management office's conference room instead.In my previous life, that was where Shane had brought Yvette's family to corner me.That day, they cornered me against the wall. One person splashed water on my face while another screamed that someone like me did not deserve to live.Shane stood at the front, his hands in his pockets, his eyes cold as ice. He said, "Janet, you killed Yvette. Don't expect to have a good life ever again."Now, I sat in that same conference room, a glass of untouched water sitting in front of me.The reporter from The Morning Legal Review was named Ella Carter. She was in her forties, wore glasses, and spoke in a calm, measured voice.A cameraman sat beside her with the equipment already set up."Ms. Chapman, we've put together the timeline."Ella opened her notebook."You called the propert
When the Smiles Faded Chapter 8
Julian stood in the doorway, the cold glow of his phone reflecting off his face."I watched the live stream." His voice suddenly turned serious. "I saw it in the news. Those young people pulled that prank and ended up bringing three fire trucks out…"He paused. "They're the same people you reported."I said nothing.He turned his phone around and held the screen toward me. The headline read: [Graduates Prank Firefighters, Person Who Reported Them Gets Harassed Online]The photo was the last screenshot from Yvette's livestream before it was taken down.The comments were exploding.[Wasn't the person who called the police the only one acting like a normal human being?][And this girl is crying? What is she crying about? The firefighters are the ones who should be crying after she wasted two minutes of their time.][Found out who reported them. She's the girlfriend of one of the participants.][Her name is Janet, right? She posted a statement at the scene saying she wasn't invol
When the Smiles Faded Chapter 7
Shane's lips moved, but no words came out.At that moment, my phone buzzed with a message from Larisse.[Janet, Mrs. Brooks upstairs was taken away by an ambulance.]My fingers tightened around the phone.[What happened?][She heard the alarm, and her blood pressure shot up. Her heart was racing really fast. Her son came over and took her to the hospital. Thank goodness you warned her ahead of time. She didn't go downstairs. Her bones are so fragile at her age. If she had fallen…]Thank goodness.I gripped my phone until my knuckles turned white. Then I turned toward Shane in the hallway. My voice went icy."Shane."He looked up."Mrs. Brooks was taken away by ambulance."His pupils contracted.Yvette stopped crying.The hallway fell completely silent for a full five seconds. Then she leaned toward Yoel and whispered something. Her voice was barely audible, but the hallway was so small. Everyone heard her."Do you think Janet deliberately made Mrs. Brooks call the police?
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