1 On the smoke-choked balcony, I gripped the taut rescue rope with everything I had left. I turned and shouted at the crowd gathered behind me. “Someone help me pull! They’re about to fall!” “That’s the cheap nylon rope my wife bought because she wanted to save money,” my husband yelled. “If anyone pulls too hard, that’s basically murder.” “Don’t help her, everyone. If it snaps, who takes responsibility? We’re not getting dragged into this.” Ryan stood by the door, filming my back while I fought to save a life. His loud voice drowned out my pleas. The crowd, stirred up by him, stepped back again and again. A few men who had been about to help hesitated and withdrew their hands. My strength was nearly gone. The rope scraped little by little against the balcony edge. If everyone worked together, the person below could be saved. But my husband, a man who never knew when to shut up and always thought cruelty was a joke, stomped beside me on purpose to scare people away. Watching him stare smugly at the soaring livestream numbers, I suddenly felt my strength drain. He must have been secretly delighted. He thought the person hanging below was my elderly, paralyzed grandmother. How could I bear to tell him that the illegitimate son he treasured like a precious jewel had never gone to kindergarten today? The fire roared from the windows below. Black smoke climbed the outer wall. The nylon rope cut deep red marks into my palms. Blood ran down along the fibers. “Help me! Please, just pull!” My voice echoed on the top floor, then scattered in the wind. Ryan held up his phone, the camera almost pressed against my face. “Everyone, look. This is my penny-pinching wife. To save a few bucks, she bought some junk rope from a street stall. Now that something’s happened, she wants to drag everyone else down with her.” He smiled at the camera, teeth flashing. Several neighbors who had been about to step forward stopped, hesitant. “Is the rope really no good?” A man in a tank top stopped three yards away, rubbing his palms against his pants. Ryan stomped hard. The concrete floor gave a dull thud. “Don’t be stupid, man. The rope’s already fraying. If you touch it and it snaps, that’s on you.” “My wife is looking for a scapegoat. Her grandma’s been paralyzed for years. She’s been a burden for ages.” Then he leaned close to my ear and lowered his voice. “Elise Morgan, stop acting. That old woman should have died long ago. This fire came at the perfect time.” “Let go. I’ll cover for you. We split the insurance payout fifty-fifty.” I stared at him, teeth grinding. “Ryan Cole, this isn’t Grandma. Come here and see who it is.” Ryan sneered and took two steps back, adjusting the livestream angle. “Still pretending? I saw that old woman wearing black before I left this morning.” “You want me to go over there and take the blame? Not happening.” The rope made a sharp, grating sound. The balcony tile edge was cutting through the fibers. My arms burned. There was blood and dirt beneath my nails. From below came faint crying. It was the person hanging in midair. The voice was young, terrified. “Help… Daddy… save me…” The wind was too strong. The sound disappeared into the fire and smoke. Ryan didn’t hear it. He was staring at the gift animations on his livestream, laughing. “Thanks for the sports car, Justice Warrior. Don’t worry, everyone. I’ll supervise this closely. I won’t let this murder attempt succeed.” “We have to talk law here. Using bad rope to save someone is the same as killing them.” As he spoke, he kicked my tense ankle with the tip of his shoe. I staggered, my body pitching forward, one shoulder leaning over the railing. “Ryan! Are you insane?” I screamed and braced my legs hard against the base of the wall. He shrugged and made a helpless face at the camera. “See? She’s panicking. That’s guilt. She wants to drag me down with her.” The wavering crowd retreated to the stairwell. The man in the tank top shook his head and turned away. “Forget it. It’s a fight between husband and wife. Outsiders shouldn’t get involved. If they really blame us, we can’t afford it.” The crowd dispersed. Only Ryan’s voice remained in the hallway. Then I felt the rope drop suddenly. The fibers were breaking. Thin nylon strands snapped apart in the air. I looked back at Ryan. He was still demonstrating “risk avoidance” to the camera. “Ryan, I’m begging you one last time. Help me pull. You know the person below.” Every word tasted like blood. Ryan snorted, eyes full of contempt. “Elise, are you losing it?” “Besides that useless old woman, who else could be down there? Your secret lover?” He walked closer and looked down at me. Because of the angle, he could only see my tense back, not the figure hanging outside the railing. 2 He lifted his foot and stepped on my bloodied hand. “Let go. Stop struggling. Look at the livestream. A hundred thousand people are watching your performance.” “If you don’t let go, the rope snaps and you’ll fall too. Then all your secret savings will be mine.” His shoe ground down hard. Pain exploded. I didn’t let go. Instead, I wrapped the rope around my wrist one more time. “Ryan, did Charlie really go to kindergarten today?” My voice was suddenly cold. Ryan froze, then spat impatiently. “Of course. I put him on the school bus myself. Why are you bringing Charlie up? I’m warning you, don’t you dare target my son.” Charlie was the child he claimed belonged to a distant relative. In truth, he was the illegitimate son Ryan had hidden for five years. Half a month ago, Ryan used the excuse that the child’s parents had been in a car accident and brought him home temporarily. Looking at Ryan’s malicious face, I almost laughed. “Really? Then look at this.” I released one hand, pulled something from my pocket, and threw it at his feet. It was half of a burned superhero watch. Ryan’s face stiffened. He stared at the watch, his breath stopping for a moment. It was a limited-edition watch Ryan had secretly bought for Charlie’s fifth birthday. He told Charlie every day to wear it carefully, saying it was Daddy’s love. “How… how do you have this?” Ryan bent to pick it up, fingers trembling. Before he touched it, the livestream comments flooded the screen. “Why did the host stop? Look at his wife. Her hand is about to snap.” “That rope is so thin, and it still hasn’t broken. His wife is strong.” Ryan glanced at the screen, and his face darkened again. He straightened and kicked the watch away. It hit the corner, the casing cracking apart. “Elise, stop playing mind games.” “Charlie is fine at kindergarten. You grabbed some cheap fake watch and think you can trick me? Are you trying to push me when I lower my head?” He backed up three steps, aiming the phone at my back again. “Everyone, look closely. This woman not only wants to kill her grandmother, now she’s making up lies to fool me.” “She just tried to scare me with a fake watch. This is terrifying behavior.” My wrist had gone numb. Blood ran down my sleeve. The sound of the rope snapping grew more frequent. “Help… help… hurts…” The crying below weakened. Smoke had damaged the child’s throat. I gritted my teeth and shouted with all my strength. “Charlie! Hold tight! Don’t let go!” Ryan’s face shifted. But soon, he burst into wild laughter. “Elise, are you addicted to acting? Charlie?” “Why not shout for angels while you’re at it? You think if you yell Charlie’s name, I’ll help you pull up that old woman?” He waved at the camera, tone light. “Don’t believe her, everyone. She’s desperate.” “To get me blamed, she’ll even use a child’s name. Everyone, be careful of women like this.” The livestream count broke one hundred and fifty thousand. Abuse and doubt filled the screen. “This wife is terrifying.” “Host, run. If she pulls you down with her, you’re done.” Ryan watched his follower count soar, his face flushed with excitement. He danced strangely on the balcony, stomping deliberately. Every stomp made my body sway. The rope scraped against the railing edge. “Ryan, come look. Just look once, and I’ll give you the deed to the house.” I spoke softly. Ryan stopped. Greed flashed in his eyes. “The deed? You’d give it up?” “As long as you come here and help me pull.” I buried my face in my arm so he wouldn’t see the impatience in my eyes. Ryan hesitated. He took two steps forward, the camera moving with him. But when he was still three feet from the railing, he stopped. “No. You’re a wicked woman.” “You must be waiting for me to get close so you can drag me down with you to die with that old woman. Nice try.” He retreated to a safe distance and shut the sliding glass door. Through the glass, he pointed at me. “Elise, give up. When the rope snaps, I’ll call the police for you.” “When the cops come, I’ll say you insisted on saving someone and wouldn’t listen.” “I’m a witness. The hundreds of thousands in this livestream are witnesses too.” I turned and looked at him through the glass. He was greeting the camera with a grin like a madman. He didn’t know that Charlie had never gone to kindergarten. This morning, Charlie had demanded sticky rice cakes from downstairs. Ryan found him annoying, dumped the boy on Grandma while she napped at home, and ran off to meet Sabrina. And Sabrina was hiding right now in the storage room downstairs. The fire started from that storage room. To escape, Sabrina had used Charlie as a stepping stone. Now Charlie was holding onto the rescue rope I had lowered, hanging outside the fourteenth-floor window. And his biological father was celebrating on the balcony. “Look! The rope is about to snap.” Ryan suddenly screamed. He yanked open the glass door and shoved his phone over the railing. “Everyone, time to witness the truth.” He even reached out, trying to flick the cracked rope. “Let me help it finish the job.” Before Ryan’s fingers touched the rope, I turned my head sharply and bit into his wrist. The taste of blood filled my mouth. “Ah! You psycho!” Ryan screamed. His phone dropped onto the balcony floor. He ignored it and struck my shoulder with his other hand. “Let go! Let go!” I didn’t. My teeth sank into his flesh. I could almost feel bone. The rope, still clutched in my hands, made its final breaking sound. The livestream camera faced the sky. It only picked up crashing sounds and Ryan’s curses. “Elise Morgan, you’re dead.” He grabbed my hair and yanked backward. My scalp screamed with pain, forcing my head up. But I still did not release the rope. Instead, I slid closer toward him. “Ryan… look… look down…” I released my bite and spat out blood. Then I suddenly let my strength go, my body sliding strangely to the side. Ryan, who had been pushing me from behind, lurched forward with his own momentum. His phone camera happened to point downward. “Everyone, look closely. The rope is about to break… Char… Charlie?” Ryan’s voice changed instantly. His hands began to shake. I wiped blood from my face, stepped hard on the back of his hand, and leaned close to his ear. “Ryan, you guessed right. This rope really is street-stall junk. But I didn’t buy it for your grandma. I bought it for your son.” “Every stomp you made just now landed on Charlie’s life. Was it fun?” He collapsed against the railing. His phone continued livestreaming on the floor. The viewers heard that name too. “Who’s Charlie? Didn’t he say it was the grandma?” “The host’s face is wrong. He looks like he’s about to lose his mind.” Ryan snapped back to himself and reached for the rope. “Charlie! Daddy’s here. Daddy will pull you up.” His movements were frantic. He nearly pushed me down with him. I looked at him and shifted slightly to the side. “Ryan, didn’t you say the rope was defective?” My voice was clear. Ryan didn’t hear me. He was desperately pulling upward. But he had never done hard labor in his life. After only two pulls, he began gasping, arms shaking violently. “Help me… Elise, help me pull! That’s Charlie. That’s my son!” He turned and screamed at me. Tears and snot covered his face. I slowly rubbed my swollen wrist and stood aside. “Don’t help him, everyone. If it snaps, who takes responsibility? We’re not taking the blame.” I repeated what he had said earlier, calm and steady. Ryan froze. He looked at me, eyes full of terror. “Elise Morgan, are you even human? That’s Charlie. He’s only five.” “Oh. Five.” I nodded and walked to the balcony edge. “When you were stomping to scare people earlier, did you think about the fact that the person below was only five?” Ryan opened his mouth but couldn’t speak. He turned back and clawed at the rope with all his strength. “Charlie! Hold on! Daddy is going to…” A crisp snap. The last few nylon fibers broke under Ryan’s stare. Because he had pulled too violently, the friction against the railing had worsened. “No!” Ryan let out a scream.
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