Chapter 5 - Trial by Public FireBy 7:00 AM, the digital lynching was complete.
Daniel sat in his car parked across the street from Irene’s suburban house. Through the windshield, he watched the surreal spectacle unfold.
News vans from three major regional networks were parked haphazardly across neighbor’s lawns, their satellite dishes pointed toward the sky. Neighbors stood on their porches in pajamas, pointing phones and cameras at Irene’s front door. Someone had already spray-painted the word LADRÓN (Thief) across Leonel’s brand-new pickup truck in bright red industrial paint.
Inside the house, the phones wouldn’t stop ringing. Daniel could see silhouettes moving frantically behind the sheer curtains, pulling down blinds, trapped inside a fortress of their own greed.
His phone buzzed continuously. Unknown numbers, media requests, messages from distant relatives expressing absolute horror, and a series of frantic, weeping voice notes from Irene begging him to take the posts down.
He blocked every single one of them.
He looked down at the passenger seat. There sat Capitán, the gray rabbit with one long ear, resting peacefully next to a fresh, warm box of pepperoni pizza.
Daniel smiled faintly, a single tear cutting a clean path through the stubble on his cheek.
May you like
—Hey, chaparrita —he whispered to the empty car—. Look at that. I kept my promise about the pizza. And I made sure nobody will ever hurt you again.
He put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb, leaving the circus behind him. He had a long road ahead, but for the first time in months, the air in his lungs felt clean.
