Chapter 5 - The Glass PartitionThe Cook County Department of Corrections female maximum-security facility was a brutalist labyrinth of poured concrete, reinforced steel bars, and the ceaseless, echoing clang of sliding iron gates. It smelled of industrial pine cleaner, floor wax, and the cold, mineral dampness of institutional despair.
On Tuesday afternoon, three days after the Grand Delmonico reception, I sat on a hard metal stool behind a two-inch-thick sheet of scratched polycarbonate glass in Visitation Booth 4.
The compression bandage still covered the left side of my face and neck, but the swelling had begun to recede, replaced by the deep, itchy ache of new cellular tissue forming under the silvadene dressing. I wore a simple black turtleneck sweater and dark jeans, my posture upright, my hands resting calmly on the stainless-steel counter.
A heavy metal door on the other side of the partition buzzed and clicked open.
A correctional officer guided Fallon into the booth.
The transformation was absolute, visceral, and horrifying.
The social media star who had commanded four million followers seventy-two hours ago was gone. In her place was an inmate dressed in a coarse, oversized bright-orange jumpsuit with CCDOC stenciled across the back in black block letters. Her bleached-blonde hair was limp, unwashed, and pulled back with a standard-issue brown rubber band; her porcelain skin was pasty, gray, and breaking out in angry red blemishes from the harsh institutional soap.
Her manicured acrylic nails had been clipped down to the quick during intake, leaving her fingers looking raw and stubby. She had no makeup, no filters, no soft ring lights to soften the sharp, predatory lines of her face.
Fallon dropped heavily onto the metal stool across from me. Her hands were shackled together with heavy steel chains linked to a leather transport belt around her waist.
She stared at me through the glass, her eyes bloodshot, ringed with dark, bruised circles of total sleeplessness.
Slowly, her trembling hand lifted the heavy plastic telephone receiver off its wall cradle.
I picked up the matching receiver on my side and pressed it to my right ear.
“Are you happy now, Sloan?” Fallon rasped into the receiver. Her voice was cracked, stripped of all the melodic, condescending music she had used on her broadcasts. “Look at me! Look where you put me! I’m in a holding tank with twenty-four women! They took my clothes! They took my jewelry! They won't even give me moisturizer for my skin!”
I looked at her through the glass. I didn't blink. I didn't speak. I simply let the silence stretch between us, heavy and cold as ocean water.
“Say something!” Fallon screamed, slamming her cuffed fists against the metal counter. The heavy chains rattled violently. The guard behind her took one sharp step forward, his hand resting on his baton, and Fallon instantly shrank back, cowering against the stool.
“You ruined my entire life, Sloan,” Fallon sobbed, the tears cutting clean, ugly streaks through the grime on her pale cheeks. “Chase filed for an annulment this morning. His lawyers are demanding ten million dollars from me. The beauty brand dropped me. TikTok banned my account permanently. My name is trending worldwide as the 'Acid Bride.' Do you know what people are saying about me on the internet? They’re calling me a monster! They’re saying I deserve to rot in a cage!”
“You do,” I said.
The two words fell between us like lead weights dropped onto marble.
Fallon stopped crying. Her mouth hung open slightly, her eyes widening in disbelief. “What? I’m your sister! We share the same blood! Dad would never have allowed you to do this to me! Dad loved us!”
“Dad loved us enough to tell us the truth, Fallon,” I said, my voice dropping into an icy, razor-sharp whisper that cut straight through the static of the intercom line. “And the truth is that you and Sibil are predators. You spent your entire life believing that people exist solely to be consumed by your vanity. When we were children, you broke my toys because you couldn't stand seeing me smile. In college, you tried to steal my fellowship money to pay for a vacation to Cabo. And on your wedding day, when you realized that I wouldn't let you plunder Dad’s trust to fund your fake cosmetics company, you tried to blind me with industrial acid.”
“It was just a joke!” she shrieked, her voice pitching into that familiar, hysterical lie. “I was going to pay for your surgery! I was going to tell everyone how brave you were! We could have done a joint recovery campaign! We would have made millions on the engagement!”
A profound, sickening wave of disgust rolled through my chest. Even here, sitting in prison orange with chains around her waist, her diseased brain was still calculating reality in clicks, views, and engagement metrics. She didn't see human tissue; she saw viral content.
“There are no campaigns, Fallon,” I said coldly. “The grand jury returned a true bill an hour ago. You and Sibil have been indicted on four Class X felonies: Aggravated Battery with a Toxic Substance, Conspiracy, Criminal Environmental Endangerment, and Consumer Fraud. The state’s attorney is not offering a plea deal. You are facing fifteen to twenty-five years in the Illinois Department of Corrections without the possibility of early parole.”
Fallon’s face turned the color of skim milk. Her grip on the telephone receiver weakened until the plastic slipped an inch through her trembling fingers.
“Fifteen... years?” she breathed, the horror finally breaking through the narcissistic fog that had encased her entire existence. “Sloan... please. Talk to the prosecutor. Tell them it was an accident. I can't survive in prison, Sloan! Look at me! I’m Fallon Ward! I belong on runways! I belong in magazines!”
“You belong right where you are,” I said, leaning closer to the glass until my reflection mirrored hers. “In a room without mirrors. In a room without cameras. In a world where nobody claps for you, nobody likes your posts, and nobody cares what you look like.”
“Sloan! Don't hang up! Please! Sloan!” she wailed, pressing her face against the scratched polycarbonate partition, leaving a greasy smear of sweat and tears on the surface.
I slowly hung the telephone receiver back onto its metal cradle.
I stood up from the stool, smoothed down the front of my black wool coat, and turned my back on her.
Behind me, through the glass, I could hear her frantic, muffled shrieks echoing through the concrete corridor as the guards hauled her toward the iron gates, her heavy chains clattering against the linoleum floor until the heavy steel door slammed shut, cutting off the noise forever.
I walked through the sally port, out the heavy blast doors, and stepped into the crisp, clean October afternoon.
The air was cold, biting, and utterly pure. Across the parking lot, Clara was waiting beside my car, holding two warm paper cups of black coffee from our favorite bakery in Lincoln Park.
She looked at my face, then offered a quiet, knowing smile. “How is she?”
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I took the warm cup of coffee, feeling the heat seep into my fingers through the cardboard sleeve.
“She’s an actuarial liability, Clara,” I said softly, looking up at the wide blue sky. “And she has officially been written off.”
