Part 2: As she lay bleeding on the floor with her artwork scattered in pieces, her sister leaned over and whispered, "Tell them she slipped."

I didn’t scream when Natalie tore the final sheet of my printed artwork down the middle.

I didn’t charge at her.

I pulled out my phone.

The camera opened in less than two seconds. I held the lens steady, capturing the torn paper fluttering from her hands onto my bedroom carpet, the scattered pieces of my six-month showcase project lying around her feet, and the cold, defiant smirk resting on her face.

"Take all the pictures you want," Natalie said, stepping over a ruined illustration of the Scioto River at dusk. "Mom and Dad will just say you left them where they could get damaged."

"I took a photo before I went into the shower," I said, keeping my voice utterly level. "My portfolio folder was zipped shut on my desk. You unzipped it, opened the protective sleeves, and ripped six prints."

Natalie’s smirk faltered for half a second. "You're a psycho."

"No," I said. "I'm documented."

She stepped toward me, her shoulder intentionally clipping mine as she passed into the hallway. "Good luck showing blank paper to your little art club tomorrow."

The second her bedroom door slammed shut down the hall, I dropped to my knees and began gathering the torn pieces.

My hands were shaking, but not from tears.

I brought the torn prints into my closet, placed them under the sweater stack where she wouldn't look, and unlocked my secondary cloud storage app—the one Micah had helped me set up three months ago.

I uploaded the photo I had just taken.

File Name: 20261020_2114_Natalie_Artwork_Destruction.jpg

Then I opened my notebook app and typed out the entry:

October 20, 9:14 PM. Natalie entered my room while I was showering. Unzipped my portfolio folder and destroyed six final prints for the Franklin Arts Collaborative showcase. Mom and Dad are downstairs watching TV.

Below it, I attached the time-stamped photo of the ruined prints and a screenshot of the Franklin Arts Collaborative confirmation email showing the monetary value of the prints: $450 in archival printing costs.

My phone chimed in my hand. A text from Micah:

Micah: Everything ready for tomorrow? I bought a card for your showcase.

I took a breath, typing back with cold, steady fingers:

Ella: Natalie just shredded six of my showcase prints.

Micah: Is she still in your room?

Ella: No. She walked out.

Micah: Did you take photos?

Ella: Already uploaded to the drive.

Micah: Good. I’m driving over. Meet me at the side gate in five minutes.

I slipped on my jacket, pocketed my phone, and tiptoed down the back stairs. My father was sitting in his leather recliner in the family room, his glass of scotch resting on the side table, while my mother folded laundry on the couch. Neither of them looked up as I slipped through the laundry room door into the chilly October air.

Micah was waiting by his truck at the edge of the driveway, his hands shoved deep into his denim jacket pockets.

"Show me," he said as I reached him.

I pulled up the photo on my phone.

Micah looked at the screen, his jaw tightening until the muscle near his cheek twitched. "She did that on purpose. Twelve hours before the showcase."

"She knows the showcase is open to the public," I said. "She knows people from the local galleries are coming."

"Where are the backups?" Micah asked.

"On my external drive," I said. "I can reprint them at the 24-hour Kinko's near campus, but it's going to cost another two hundred dollars for high-gloss archival paper. Money I don't have."

Micah reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and handed me a debit card. "Use this. My dad gave it to me for truck parts."

I stared at the card. "Micah, no. I can't take your truck money."

"Ella," Micah said, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made the cold air feel suddenly warm. "Your sister has spent twenty-one years treating you like a punchline because your parents let her. You are going to that showcase tomorrow, and your art is going to be on that wall. We deal with Natalie after."

I looked at the card in his hand, then back up at his face.

"Okay," I whispered. "Thank you."

What neither of us knew as we stood in the dark driveway was that Natalie wasn't finished.