Chapter 3

Brenda' s attack was vicious and immediate. She grabbed a fistful of Evelyn's hair and yanked, hard. Pain shot through Evelyn's scalp, and she cried out, stumbling forward.

"You bitch!" Brenda screamed, her voice raw with manufactured rage. "You did this to him! You abandoned him!"

Todd, the disgruntled ex-employee, moved to block the door, a grim smile on his face. Mark and the interns just stood there, frozen in shock, watching the assault unfold.

No one moved to help.

In fact, some of the interns looked on with a kind of grim satisfaction.

"Yeah, get her!" one of them muttered.

"She deserves it," whispered another.

The crowd's silent permission fueled Brenda' s fury. She wasn't just an angry relative; she was an executioner carrying out the public will. She shoved Evelyn against a supply counter, and medical instruments clattered to the floor.

"We heard what he said!" Brenda shrieked, her face inches from Evelyn' s. Her breath smelled of stale coffee and cigarettes. "You were his wife! You took his money, and when he got sick, you threw him away like trash!"

Evelyn struggled to break free, her hands pushing against Brenda' s shoulders. "That's a lie! I'm not his wife! I've never been his wife!"

"Liar!" Brenda slapped her across the face. The sound echoed in the small room. "You probably tried to kill him to get the rest of his money faster! Is that it? Did you poison him?"

The accusation was insane, a wild escalation of the lie. But in the charged atmosphere of the room, it landed with a sickening weight. Todd nodded eagerly from the doorway.

"I wouldn't put it past her," Todd chimed in, his voice thick with malice. "She was always cold. Cared more about the animals than people. The type to have no heart."

Evelyn finally managed to wrench herself free from Brenda's grasp, shoving her back. She staggered, breathing heavily, a lock of her hair torn loose in Brenda's hand.

"You are all insane," Evelyn gasped, her voice shaking with a mix of fear and fury. "This is assault. I am calling the police."

She looked around desperately for her purse, her phone.

"Oh, no you don't," Brenda sneered. She spotted Evelyn' s phone on a small side table where she' d left it. In two quick steps, Brenda snatched it up.

"You're not calling anyone, you gold-digging whore," Brenda hissed.

Evelyn lunged for her phone. "Give that back!"

Brenda held it out of reach, a cruel smile spreading across her face. "You want it?"

Then, with deliberate force, she threw the phone to the hard tile floor. It shattered on impact, the screen spiderwebbing into a thousand pieces before going black.

"Oops," Brenda said with fake surprise.

Todd laughed out loud.

A profound sense of hopelessness washed over Evelyn. They had isolated her. They had physically attacked her. They had destroyed her only way to call for help. She was trapped in a room with her accusers, her betrayers, and a group of silent onlookers who believed she was a monster.

She looked at Mark, her last hope for any semblance of sanity or authority. "Mark, are you going to let this happen? This is a crime. They just assaulted me and destroyed my property."

Mark finally stirred, but not in the way she hoped. He looked at Brenda and Todd, then at Evelyn, his face a grim, calculated mask. He was weighing his options, not based on right and wrong, but on damage control.

"Brenda, Todd, let's all just calm down," he said, his tone placating. But he didn't move toward them. He moved toward Evelyn.

"Evelyn, maybe it's best if you just cooperate," he said quietly, his voice low so only she could hear. "Don't make this any worse for yourself."

The betrayal was complete. He wasn't going to help her. He was siding with them. He was telling her to surrender.

Her heart felt like a block of ice in her chest. She was utterly, terrifyingly alone.