The Victim Contents

Chapter Three: Ascent

The Victim › Chapter Three

The narrator discovers how far public sympathy can carry her. As she rises in politics, she casts scrutiny of her own actions as persecution.

Start Chapter Three: “They burn house” →

Sections

  1. They burn house
    The narrator offers a powerful family what its troubled heir needs: a wife, and someone to clean up his messes.
  2. Water tasting
    The narrator shuts down an operation and its 64 employees in front of an old friend.
  3. Free rider
    Now practically part of the family, the narrator starts collecting favors at college.
  4. Teamwork
    A group project, a creepy professor and teammates who do nothing push the narrator to her limit.
  5. #MeToo
    Midterms end, and the narrator sees an opportunity in the college's creepy professor.
  6. Rapist
    The narrator films the police as they arrest a professor.
  7. Stand up against injustice
    A television crew comes to campus, and the narrator makes sure the story is told her way.
  8. Racist
    Protesters occupy the college as accusations multiply and its administration falls.
  9. Cleansing
    The university “cleanses” itself, and one teacher is expelled over a tweet.
  10. Mother
    The narrator learns she is going to be a mother.
  11. Favor trading
    A bribery scandal hits the incumbent mayor's campaign, and the narrator smiles.
  12. Dangerous liaisons
    The narrator makes a dangerous offer, with the election less than four months away.
  13. A postmodernist play with a bang
    A wordless postmodern play, and a night at the theatre that does not end well.
  14. Takeover
    Recovering in hospital, the narrator faces the press.
  15. Lawmaker
    The narrator takes office and starts filling it with her donors.
  16. Freedom of speech
    A student dies at a campus demonstration, and the narrator sees a chance to change the law.
  17. Weathervanes
    In her war room, the narrator counts state senators: eight for, eight against and sixteen undecided.
  18. Constitutional appeal
    A new “Committee for Campus Safety” shows how a crisis can create lasting power.
  19. Under siege
    The narrator explains why one “silly little law” about campus speakers matters so much to her.
  20. An offer you can't refuse
    Thirty-two names on two whiteboards: the party members the narrator must win over or destroy.
  21. Bait
    A secret ally warns that someone in the narrator's own party wants to burn her.
  22. Environmental terrorism
    With a strike coming, almost everyone turns against the narrator.
  23. Triggered
    The narrator confronts the firemen's union president in his office.
  24. Defeated
    A television interview paints the narrator as a victim, but it may be too little, too late.
  25. Usual suspects
    A notification on a phone shows the narrator who has been working against her.
  26. The scorpion
    Over a family dinner of pork chops, the narrator pretends that everything is normal.
  27. Fake news
    The narrator admits to the reader that she has not told the whole truth.
  28. Never, ever, ever
    A frightened party official comes to the narrator looking for a deal.