I Held Her Broken Glass While He Pretended He Came To Save Us...

I didn't see the camera at first because I couldn't lift my head off the tile.

The floor was cold under my cheek. That was the first thing that came back after Marcus shoved Vanessa down. Cold seeping through the sequins on my shoulder. A sharp bite in my right palm where I'd caught myself on glass. I could hear myself breathing, too fast through my nose, and I told myself to slow it down before I threw up right there on the black-and-white squares.

Vanessa was on her hands and knees a few feet from me. I could see the long spill of her magenta dress twisted around her legs and one bare foot. The beige shoe she'd been holding was gone. It had skittered past the wall sconce and lay on its side near the double doors, the heel pointing up. She had her left hand pressed to her cheek and she wasn't shouting anymore. Her mouth was half open and her eyes were fixed on Marcus.

Marcus stayed standing over her. His tuxedo jacket had pulled open. His chest was moving hard under his shirt and bow tie. He didn't look at me. He looked down at Vanessa the way you look at something you dropped and can't decide whether to pick up.

For a few seconds nobody moved. The warm light from the sconces made everything too bright. I could see specks of broken glass glittering around my forearm, tiny red lines beading up along the skin. My arm stung when I tried to shift my weight. I stopped trying.

Then Marcus breathed out through his teeth and lifted his chin.

It wasn't at Vanessa. It wasn't at me. His eyes went past us, up toward the ceiling in the middle of the hallway. His jaw tightened. The stern look dropped off his face and something else moved in behind it, quick and careful, like he'd remembered where he was.

I followed his gaze because I had nothing else I could do. I couldn't turn my whole body, so I rolled my eyes up and tipped my head just enough to see past the white paneled wall and the glow of the sconce.

The dome was right above us.

White, round, set flush into the ceiling. Smaller than I'd expected for a place like that. A thin dark ring around the glass and, underneath it, a red light. Blinking. Steady. Blink. Blink.

I stared at it until my eyes watered. The hallway had felt private when Vanessa cornered me in it — just the two of us and the glass breaking and my own breath loud in my ears. Seeing that red light changed the shape of it. The double doors open to the dark outside. The checkered floor. Our bodies on it. The shoe by the door. All of it sitting under that dome in warm light, framed.

Recorded. That was the word that came, and it landed heavy in my stomach.

Vanessa saw it next. I watched her notice Marcus wasn't looking at her anymore. She turned her head, still holding her cheek, and looked up. Her hand dropped an inch. Her lips pressed together. She didn't say anything, but her shoulders pulled in, and she shifted her knees like she wanted to get her dress down over her legs. For the first time since she'd raised that shoe over me, she looked aware of how she looked from above.

Marcus glanced back down at us. I could tell he'd done the same math I had. His eyes went from the camera to the shoe by the doors to the blood on my arm. He took one short step back, away from Vanessa, putting space between his polished shoes and the broken glass. He didn't bend to help either of us. He just stood there, breathing, listening to that red blink like it was making a sound only he could hear.

The quiet didn't last.

From way down the hall, past the paneled walls, past the turn I hadn't made it to, came sound. Rubber soles on marble. Fast. More than one set. A man's voice, low and clipped, and then a woman answering. I couldn't make out words, just the cadence — urgent, work voices, staff voices. Someone called out, short, and the footsteps sped up.

Vanessa heard it. Her head snapped toward the sound. Then back to the camera. Then to me. Her eyes held on my face for a second too long. No apology in it. Fear, maybe. Calculation. She pressed her hand harder against her cheek and stayed down.

I wanted to push myself up. I wanted to say what happened before anyone else got to decide it. But my palm was bleeding onto the tile and my head felt light every time I inhaled, and the red light kept blinking above us. Blink. Blink. Holding us there.