Chapter 65

The cold metallic clang of the cell door echoed through the narrow, sterile hallway as I sat on the hard bench, my head resting against the cold brick wall. My wrists ached from the tight handcuffs they’d slapped on earlier, and though they were gone now, the weight of them lingered—an invisible shackle holding me down. I stared blankly at the concrete floor, my mind drifting back to the moment when they took me. The flash of cameras, the gasps of bystanders, the murmurs of disbelief: “The Didina Bowman? Arrested?” They had swarmed me like vultures, feeding off my humiliation. And I hadn’t said a word—not to the press, not to the police—because the truth, my truth, was a knife I couldn’t yet pull from its sheath.