CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY SIX – THE MENTAL BREAKDOWN

"Oh, Jasmine," Claire whispered, her hand pressed against her lips as if to stifle the torrent of anguish that welled within her. "What have they done to you?" Beside her, Gordon remained silent, his jaw clenched and his eyes blazing with a righteous fury that burned brighter with every cutting remark, every caustic jeer that filtered through the speakers. This had gone on for far too long, he realized with a sickening lurch of clarity. The trolls, the online vitriol – it had metastasized into a malignant force that threatened to devour Jasmine from the inside out. And if they didn't act, if they didn't find a way to pull her back from the brink, there was no telling how far she might spiral. His hands curled into white-knuckled fists at his sides, his every instinct screaming at him to shelter her, to protect her from the onslaught of cruelty that had reduced her to this shattered, hollowed-out shell of her former self. But how? How could he hope to shield her from the demons that