Chapter 5

"Who is this?"

I stared at the text and called the number back immediately.

It rang three times before a voice answered.

"It doesn't matter who I am. I saw you rip your dress open on the live stream. I started screen-recording before they could cut the feed. The whole thing, from the moment you stepped on the scale to the blackout. Four minutes and seventeen seconds."

The voice was male, young, and fast-talking.

"Why did you record it?"

"Because I saw the exact same thing happen two years ago."

My heart skipped a beat.

"What do you mean?"

"The 2022 East Coast Supermodel Search. A girl named Becca Rivers. Her weight data was altered too. She wasn't as fierce as you; she didn't dare rip her dress open on live TV. She tried to go through official channels. The result—"

He stopped.

"What happened to her?"

"Her complaint was rejected. The committee produced certified calibration reports, and Becca's accusation was turned into a defamation lawsuit. She was blacklisted from the entire industry. Three months later, she jumped from the fourteenth floor of her apartment building."

My grip on the phone tightened.

"Was Becca in the same competition as Chloe?"

"Yes. Chloe won that year. Becca was the only one who publicly questioned the data, and she was completely destroyed for it."

The cold night air hit my face, sending a shiver down my spine.

"What can your video prove?"

"It proves that your body shape before you stepped on that scale had absolutely nothing to do with two hundred and thirty pounds. In that four-minute-and-seventeen-second video, your bones, your ribs, your collarbones are all on display. No sane person would believe that number."

"That's not enough."

"I know. But you just need to get the video seen. Public outrage will do the rest."

"They've flooded the internet with deepfakes and fake medical evaluations. My accounts are blocked. I don't even have a platform to post a tweet—"

"I have a platform."

His voice suddenly dropped.

"But before that, Valerie—you need to survive tonight."

"What do you mean?"

"The court just signed the 72-hour psychiatric hold order. The officers are on their way to serve it to you tonight. Where are you?"

I gave him the street name.

"You're three blocks away from Serenity Care. Your mom is there, right?"

He went quiet for two seconds.

"They won't come for you first. They're going to use your mother."

It felt like someone had pushed me off a cliff. I lunged into the street, waving down a cab.

"I can't explain everything now. Get your mom out of there. I'll meet you at the south gate of the hospital. I'm driving a gray van."

Who was this guy? Was he trustworthy? I didn't have time to think.

The only thing that mattered was that Richard Sinclair's people were about to move my mother to a locked ward. Once she was in there, I would lose all legal rights to see her.

Fifteen minutes later, I burst into the lobby of Serenity Care. The elevators were too slow, so I ran up the stairs—seven flights. My knees were shaking by the time I reached the top.

Room 708 was wide open.

The bed was empty.

The sheets were tossed aside, and my mother's slippers were still under the bed.

"Mom!"

I ran into the hallway, looking left and right.

The nurse's station was abandoned.

At the far end of the hall was a heavy glass door with a digital keypad. A sign on it read: *Intensive Care & Psychiatric Hold Unit—Restricted Access.*

Through the glass, I saw my mother.

She was in her wheelchair, her back to me. A male orderly in green scrubs was pushing her deeper into the ward.

"Mom!" I pounded on the glass door. The sound echoed down the corridor.

My mother turned her head and saw me.

Her lips moved, but I couldn't hear her through the thick glass.

I slammed my finger onto the intercom button.

"Hello? This is restricted access. State your name."

"That is my mother! Who authorized you to move her in there?!"

"We have a signed consent form from her legal guardian, Valerie Miller."

"I never signed anything!"

"Our system shows an electronic signature submitted today at 3:00 PM. If you have questions, please contact our legal team."

I pulled out my phone—at 3:00 PM, I was on the curb talking to that stranger. I hadn't signed a single thing.

They had forged my digital signature.

Through the glass, my mother was being pushed further and further away.

"Mom! Mom!"

I slammed my fist against the glass. Once, twice—on the third strike, a crack spiderwebbed across the pane, and blood began to seep from my knuckles.

The click of high heels echoed from behind me.

"Valerie, sweetheart, are you here to see your mom?"

Chloe stood at the other end of the hall, holding a bouquet of lilies, her smile sweet and toxic.

Behind her stood two men in dark suits. They didn't look like hospital staff.

"Her old room was so basic, so I asked the director to move her to the VIP psychiatric wing. It has 24-hour private care. She’ll be much more comfortable there."

"You forged my signature to lock my mother in a secure ward, and you call that comfortable?"

"Oh, Valerie, look at you getting hysterical again."

Chloe sighed, turning to the men behind her.

"Mr. Pendelton, please show Valerie the court order."

One of the men stepped forward, handing me a document stamped with a red court seal.

"Ms. Miller, this is a court-ordered involuntary psychiatric evaluation. Under state law, your immediate family has requested this assessment."

"My family? My mother is locked behind that door! When did she request this?"

"Signed and dated at 3:15 PM today."

"She didn't even know what she was signing!"

Chloe tilted her head slightly, positioning herself perfectly so the security camera above would capture her most innocent profile.

"Calm down, Valerie. Your mom signed it willingly. We have video proof. Your behavior right now... honestly, it's making me really worry about you."

She glanced at the men.

"If Valerie refuses to cooperate with the court order, do we need to call the police to assist?"

I took a step back, my spine pressing against the cold, cracked glass door.

At the end of the hall, two security guards were walking toward me, their walkie-talkies buzzing.

To my left was a locked ward; to my right was a wall of security guards. I was trapped.

Chloe's eyes welled with beautiful, perfectly timed tears.

"Don't be scared, Valerie. It's just an evaluation. If you're not sick, you'll be out in thirty days."

Thirty days.

In thirty days, they could announce to the world that I was mentally incompetent. They would strip me of every ounce of credibility.

Behind my back, my fingers brushed against the crack in the glass. The sharp edge sliced my finger, a sudden, stinging pain.

My phone was still in my pocket.

Before running up here, I had done one thing—something the stranger on the phone had instructed me to do.

*“Keep your voice memo recording active,”* he had said. *“Let it run in your pocket. It automatically uploads to my cloud.”*

"There's no need to call the police," I said.

I pulled my hand from the glass, wiped the blood on my coat, and looked Chloe dead in the eye.

"Chloe, when you were on the phone outside my dressing room, you told your dad to swap the chip in the scale with the backup. Did you think I forgot?"

Chloe's pupils contracted.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do."

I took a step forward.

"You also said—'Who's going to audit a scale for some third-tier nobody?'"

The hallway went dead silent for three seconds.

Chloe's smile didn't waver, but her left hand began to tremble.

"See? This is exactly why you need that evaluation, Valerie. You're hallucinating."

She turned to the lawyer, her voice firm. "Let's go. Call security to escort her."

"Understood."

The two guards grabbed my arms.

The phone in my pocket remained silent, recording every second.

I knew there was no point in arguing here. I couldn't win this fight in this hallway.

But a small smile tugged at the corner of my lips—the first real smile I’ve had in days.

"Chloe, do you know what cloud storage is?"

Her footsteps faltered.

"It means—even if you smash my phone right now, everything we've said is already saved online."