“She’s exactly what we want her to be,” I say. “That’s the problem.”
Harper looks down at her hands. She’s taken the ring off. I watch the ghost of it on her finger. Noted.
She grabs the tote and stands. “Okay. Recording at five. I’ll… watch the cut again tonight.”
“Send notes before midnight,” I say. “Georgina sleeps with her phone on her face.”
Harper gives a small laugh and is gone.
Blake watches the empty doorway. “She’s cracking,” he says softly.
“She’s editing her conscience,” I say. “We all are.”
We go back to the work. I drop a shot of Lila’s hand on a can of peaches, the label half torn. I like ripped labels; they imply history. I bridge to a close-up of Shae’s wrist—faint white lines like someone once kept score on her skin. Real or cosmetic? Doesn’t matter. The world sees what it wants.
The door snicks again. Lila, with two coffees.
“Fuel,” she says, setting one by my elbow. Her eyes sweep the timeline and snag. “Not that one.”
She means the closet confession. The hair tuck. The micro-ownership.
“Why not?” I ask.
“It makes her look…” Lila searches, then fails on purpose. “It makes her look powerful in the wrong way.”
“Is there a right way?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, surprising me. “When people give her power on purpose. Not when she takes it.”
Blake shifts, watching her. “And are you one of the people giving it?”
“I’m one of the people making sure she doesn’t choke on it,” Lila says. “Some of us prefer our saints alive.”
She leaves before I can catalogue the sentence. I sip the coffee. It’s annoyingly perfect.
Blake’s mouth curves. “She’s in love with your subject.”
“Everyone is,” I say. “Different love languages.”
He doesn’t answer. The donor-dinner USB sits like a dare on my desk. Chemistry is accelerant; editors are professional arsonists.
“Play the pantry prayer,” I say, and he cues the circle. Volunteers bow their heads. The cross stays crooked.
Pastor: “Lord, bless the hands that serve and the mouths that ask. May we meet need with compassion and fame with humility.”
Shae keeps her eyes open through the prayer. It reads as attentiveness. It reads as hunger.
I cut to Lila on amen. Her eyes are on Shae, not God. She mouths the wordamen.
The episode snaps into place with a mean, satisfying click. We’ve made our saint. I park the playhead on Shae’s laugh and let it fill the bay—short, disarming, a promise with a blade inside.
“Good?” Blake asks.
“Sharp,” I say.
He doesn’t look at me when he says, casual as he can fake, “Evelyn, if there were… allegations. About me. About lines. Would you?—”
“Cut you out?” I ask. “Or cut around you?”
