From Shadows, I Rise

em home. I needed to be alone with the wreckage. I knelt on the cold concrete floor, my fingers tracing the bent an

w," Mr. Sterling said softly from the doorway.

d, not looking up. "They'll jus

replaced by a chilling clarity. I had to get away from them, but just

had fallen against the sharp corner of a display pedestal. A deep, throbbing pain in my side had grown stea

irony wa

ike an extension of the emptiness inside me. My phone buzzed with a series of missed calls and te

ked. She didn't care if I was hurt. She only cared that I was off-s

had rushed me to the hospital himself, holding my hand the whole way, telling me how brave I was. He had sat by my bed until th

David were whispering poison in his ear? The memory, once a source of

sk many questions, just drove me back to my apartment an

id, his voice grim. "They are

't just about sabotaging my show. It was about discrediting me completely. If I try to challenge them about the auct

uth on our side

we have is your word against theirs. And they have t

art school application that went "missing" in the mail. The gallery owner who suddenly lost interest after a "chance" lunch with Olivia. The collector who backed out of a majo

smiles, clinking champagne glasses. The caption read: `Celebrating a successful night! So grateful for all the love and support.

spital getting my rib taped, she was dri

that filled my veins. The last vestiges of sisterly affection, the last echoes of a shared childhood, died in that moment. I saw her n

my phone and opened Mr. Ste

aid, my voice low and hard. "We're g