Then he removed Patricia, Scott, and Melissa from the group.

Thirty seconds later, Patricia screamed in the hospital lobby as reporters received screenshots of the messages from an unknown source. Daniel had no idea who leaked them.

Downstairs, near a pillar by the gift shop, Melissa Brennan stood looking at her own phone. The photograph of Lily sat at the top of the thread, and Patricia’s message sat directly beneath it, and Melissa looked at the two of them together for some time.

Then she began to delete, carefully, one item at a time, until there was nothing on her phone at all.

She did not tell anyone what she had done with it first. Nobody thought to ask her, that night or for a long time afterward.

Chapter 6 — Who’s Watching Now

By sunrise, the story had become something larger. Lily Brennan was no longer only the teenager who had rescued eleven children. She had become the center of a national conversation about family loyalty, public hypocrisy, and the cruelty people reveal when they believe no one is watching.