Part 2

By 10:12 p.m., Daniel had received seventeen calls.

Nine came from Patricia.

Six were from Scott.

Two came from Scott’s wife, Melissa, who had not contacted Lily for almost a year.

Daniel silenced his phone and placed it face down on the windowsill.

Lily had fallen asleep again.

Her breathing remained shallow but steady, while the monitor beside her bed continued its quiet, regular rhythm.

Daniel sat holding her hand as reporters gathered outside the hospital entrance.

At 10:26, a nurse entered.

“Mr. Mercer, your mother and brother are downstairs,” she said. “Security stopped them because you requested no visitors.”

Daniel looked toward the doorway.

“Keep them downstairs.”

The nurse hesitated.

“Your mother is telling people she raised Lily.”

Daniel nearly laughed.

Patricia had attended only two of Lily’s birthdays in seventeen years.

She had missed school plays, basketball games, Christmas dinners, and the funeral of Daniel’s wife.

When Lily was ten, she once asked why Grandma lived thirty minutes away but never visited.

Daniel had no answer then.

He had one now.

“She didn’t raise her,” he said. “She barely knows her.”

Downstairs, Patricia stood before several television cameras wearing the blue coat she usually reserved for church.

“My granddaughter has always been extraordinary,” she told a reporter. “Our family is extremely close.”

Scott stood beside her and nodded gravely.

“She gets her courage from us,” he added.

Neither mentioned what they had written only hours earlier.

Their performance might have succeeded if Melissa had not appeared.

She pushed through the crowd, breathless and furious.

Scott tried to pull her away, but she raised her phone.

“Tell them what you wrote,” she said.

Scott’s expression changed.

“Melissa, not here.”

“You told Daniel to handle it because you were busy watching a football game at Murphy’s Bar.”

The cameras swung toward him.

Patricia stepped closer.

“This is a private family matter.”

Melissa stared directly at her.

“You said Lily was not your problem.”

Silence fell instantly.

A reporter raised her microphone.

“Mrs. Mercer, did you send that message while your granddaughter was in emergency surgery?”

Patricia opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

Upstairs, Daniel watched the live coverage without expression.

At 10:41, Senator Rebecca Chase arrived through a restricted entrance.

She wore no makeup, and her eyes were swollen from crying.

Owen walked beside her carrying a folded piece of paper.

He had suffered mild smoke inhalation and wore a bandage above his eyebrow.

When he entered Lily’s room, he became very quiet.

“That’s her,” he whispered.

Senator Chase embraced Daniel.

“Your daughter went back for my son,” she said. “The teachers told her to stay outside, but she heard him crying.”

Daniel looked at Lily’s pale face.

“She has always been stubborn.”

“Then tonight, stubbornness saved eleven families.”

Owen placed the folded paper on Lily’s blanket.

It was a drawing of Lily wearing a red cape and carrying children away from a burning school.

Daniel swallowed hard.

Outside the room, Patricia began shouting that she had a legal right to see her granddaughter.

Scott demanded that security bring Daniel downstairs.

Their voices echoed through the lobby until a hospital administrator warned that they would be removed.

At 11:03, Patricia sent Daniel a message.

“We made a mistake. Don’t punish us publicly.”

Scott sent another.

“The media is twisting everything. Come downstairs and fix this.”

Daniel read both messages twice.

Neither contained the words, “We are sorry.”

Neither asked whether Lily was awake.

Neither asked whether Daniel needed help.

They were not concerned about Lily.

They were concerned about themselves.

Daniel opened the family group chat.

Beneath Patricia’s cruel message sat the photograph of Lily unconscious in her hospital bed.

He typed slowly.

“You had the truth before the news did. The only thing that changed was that now the world is watching.”

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, Melissa quietly deleted the screenshots from her phone.

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