A Spark of Light

Content Warning: This section discusses abortion, sexual assault, gun violence, and post-traumatic stress disorder and mentions suicide and addiction.

The Center is the last remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi. It is a haven for those seeking reproductive care and a target for anti-abortion protestors and activists. George Goddard, a gunman, is holding several people hostage inside the clinic: Wren, Janine, Joy, Izzy, and Louie. He has already killed several people.

Inside the Center, 15-year-old Wren McElroy worries that she is going to die. She is sitting beside the body of Olive Lemay, an elderly woman who was shot by the gunman hours earlier. Wren thinks about her close relationship with her father, who wanted to be an astronaut but never left Jackson because his girlfriend, Wren’s mother, became pregnant. Instead, he became a police officer, but he still tells her facts about stars. Wren’s mother divorced her father and moved to Paris, leaving him to raise their child. Wren wishes that she could go back to being a little girl and fears that this is the last day of her life.

The gunman, George, grew up in an abusive home and worried that he would turn out like his father.