POV: Evelyn

By sunrise, nine thousand strangers had watched a police officer carry an illegal gun into the Blackwood Reapers clubhouse.

By seven, Grant was standing outside my hospital room, demanding that everyone stop calling it evidence.

His voice reached me before I saw him.

"My wife is confused. She has attached herself to a criminal because she is frightened. If you keep reinforcing the delusion, this hospital will be liable."

The words were polished from years of practice. Concerned husband. Unstable wife. Dangerous outsiders.

He could build a cage from three sentences and make people thank him for protecting me inside it.

This morning, the nurses did not lower their eyes.

One of them held a phone beneath the medication cart. On its screen, Officer Bell's trouser cuff caught on the grip of the filed gun. Silas's voice came through the tiny speaker.

Before you remove that weapon, tell Camera Seven whether you filed off the serial number yourself.

The nurse looked at Grant.

Not with admiration.

With suspicion.

The change was small enough that no one else might have noticed it. I felt it like sunlight through a crack.

Paula Reed entered my room and closed the door behind her. The hospital social worker wore yesterday's gray suit, now wrinkled at the elbows, and carried a blue folder against her chest.

"The court has suspended Mr. Quinn's access to Sophie until the ten o'clock review," she said.

"You said that last night."

"He filed an amended petition at six twelve this morning."

Of course he had.

Grant did not sleep after losing. He revised.

"What does he want now?"

"He is requesting that Sophie be transferred to his mother's home under police protection. He claims the viral video proves the motorcycle club poses an organized threat to your family."

I almost laughed.

The movement pulled at the stitches in my side, turning it into a gasp.

"His officer brings a planted gun into their building, and that makes them dangerous?"

"I did not say the argument was persuasive." Paula opened the folder. "I said he made it."

Through the narrow window in the door, Grant appeared at the nurses' station. His uniform was immaculate. The bruise Silas had left along his jaw had darkened overnight, but he had covered half of it with makeup.

He caught me watching.

His expression softened for the audience.

Then he raised two fingers and tapped his own wrist.

Our old signal.

Time is running out.

He used it when dinner was not ready. When Sophie took too long putting on her shoes. When I spoke to another parent after school.

My pulse monitor began climbing.

Paula followed my gaze. "Do you want the door covered?"

Yesterday, I would have said yes.

Today, I watched the nurse replay Bell's humiliation.

"No," I said. "I want witnesses."

Grant reached the door ten minutes later with Sergeant Mercer and a hospital attorney. Security blocked the entrance.

"Evelyn." Grant pitched his voice low and tender. "Sweetheart, this has gone far enough."

I pressed the button that raised my bed.

Pain burned beneath my ribs. I kept moving until I was sitting upright.

"Do not call me that."

Mercer glanced toward the attorney. Grant smiled as if I had made his point for him.

"You see how agitated she becomes?"

"Mrs. Quinn is allowed to be agitated," Paula said.

"She is my wife."

The sentence entered the room like a hand closing around my throat.

For nine years, those four words had ended arguments before they began. Doctors told him my test results. Teachers called him first. Neighbors handed him spare keys because a husband was supposed to know where his wife belonged.

Silas appeared at the far end of the corridor.

His shirt was damp from the rain. A shallow cut marked one cheek, and powdered glass clung to the shoulders of his leather vest. He must have come directly from the clubhouse.

Grant saw him and stepped toward my door.

Silas stopped.

He did not shove past security. He did not bare his teeth. He looked through the glass at me and waited.

My choice.

I turned back to Grant.

"I am not your wife in this room."

His smile vanished.

"Excuse me?"

"In this room, you are the man accused of cutting my seat belt, driving our daughter off a mountain, and firing a gun while I was trapped below the road. You don't get to use our marriage as clearance."