Lila. Of course.
“I forgot to mention,” she says, measured. “There’s been some online chatter. About The Watcher. Someone’s archiving old feeds, piecing together timelines.”
“Someone always is,” I say.
“I thought you might want to get ahead of it.”
“We’ll never get ahead of it,” I say. “But we will pretend.” I smile with my incisors. “That’s what we’re good at.”
Her eyes flick to the timeline where Shae’s face is frozen mid-blink. “She hates that look,” Lila says, like an instinct she didn’t mean to reveal. “Says it makes her look… unsure.”
“She is unsure,” I say. “Just not about what you think.”
Lila’s gaze sharpens. “She’s sure about you,” she says. “She thinks you see her.”
“I do,” I say, and don’t add the rest—that seeing is the first step to cutting.
Her eyes drop to the folder. “I can bring more statements,” she offers. “If it helps… tone.”
“Tone doesn’t need help,” I say. “Tone is what’s left when choice is done.”
She nods like she has any idea. “You have my number.”
After she leaves, Blake blows out a breath. “She’ll eat the world for her.”
“She wants to be eaten by the world for her,” I say. “Different love language.”
He chuckles, then glances at the shadow drive. “We’re playing with fire, Cross.”
“We film arson,” I say. “Fire is the only honest thing we have.”
“Want me to send it to Georgina?” he asks.
“Schedule it for morning,” I say. “Let me sleep with the sin.”
He stands, stretches. “She has a livestream in an hour. Q&A, redemption, gratitude. Want to come watch a baptism in real time?”
“I prefer mine in post,” I say. “But bring a hard drive.”
He taps the doorframe twice and leaves.
Alone, I scrub to the second before the baton drops. One second of black. Fifteen frames of possibility. I stare until the monitor becomes a mirror.
I can make a saint out of a riot and a riot out of a saint. I can make you weep for someone you would’ve crossed the street to avoid. I can make myself believe it’s noble.
The phone pings again.
Don’t forget: end act three with a laugh. Also—any way to get Lila on camera more? She pops.
A star emoji.
I text back:She’ll pop. Promise.
I close the bay and step into the main room. The hotel window frames Southern California the way a lens does—hard sun, sharp shadows, everything too honest. Even the air looks edited.
Somewhere in those quiet hills outside Santa Clarita, Shae is practicing her saint routine—smiling for strangers, writing statements for people who don’t know they’re characters.
And me?
