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At the staircase, Nora paused and looked back once.
“No,” she answered quietly. “No tears.”
Then she shut her bedroom door and made three phone calls.
One to a doctor.
One to her attorney.
And one to the security company whose cameras had captured everything.
She packed lightly.
No handbags.
No jewelry case.
No electronics Violet had spent months eyeing greedily.
Just clothes.
Her passport.
Medical paperwork.
And her father’s necklace.
Everything else stayed behind exactly where it was.
Downstairs, Violet celebrated loudly.
“She finally learned her place.”
Her mother scoffed. “She’ll come crawling back before morning.”
Nora stood silently in the hallway listening while fresh bandages cooled the burns across her face.
The urgent care doctor had carefully photographed every injury.
Thermal injury caused by hot liquid.
The report already sat in her lawyer’s inbox.
When Nora finally walked downstairs, her mother barely looked up.
“Keys,” she demanded.