Page 144 of Stay Scared

His mouth hardens.

Good, because I need him furious and useful, not cooperative because half a million strangers might approve of it.

The broadcast continues behind me. Rook has returned to Cade’s footage. A false subtitle claims I stopped resisting.

I close my hand around the camera switch. “Owen.”

His hand settles over the relay control. “Say when.”

I slide the lens cover away. The local monitor wakes. My face fills it beneath ugly projection light, bruise along my shoulder and hair sticking to my skin. Nothing has been framed to make me prettier or more helpless.

“Put me through.”

Owen throws the connection.

The public stream tears apart. Rook’s footage fractures into blocks of static, and my face replaces it. The comments stop for less than a second, then the feed erupts:

IS THIS LIVE? / GET AWAY FROM THEM / SALEM BLINK TWICE / CALL 911 / MOVE AWAY FROM THE MEN

I almost laugh. Instead, I look straight into the lens. “My name is Salem Sterling. I am alive.”

The image flickers. Owen braces one hand against the relay. Rook is already fighting him.

“I am inside Crimson Night. The man calling himself Rook has control of parts of the property, and he has edited the footage you’ve been watching.”

A line of static slices through my face.

Owen swears quietly. “Stay exactly there.”

“Keep me there.”

“I am.”

I look back at the lens. “Some of what he showed you happened.”

Cade looks toward me from the doorway. Ash gives away nothing. Owen keeps working. I am not going to clean these men up for strangers or hand an audience a list of sins so they can decide which ones I am allowed to want.

“Other parts are missing.”

I reach toward Owen. “Give them the hallway.”

Owen knows which one. A second window opens beside me, and the memory-house footage plays raw. Cade has my wrist. My first tap lands against his chest, then the second and the third. His grip opens. He backs away. The house lights rise.

I face the camera again. “Rook cut that part.”

The comments tear upward too fast to read.

“Show the start of the Blind Maze.”

Owen hesitates. His eyes meet mine.

“The part before the wall closes,” I say.

He routes it. I choose Owen’s hand in the dark. The footage ends before anything intimate begins.

“Show Ash taking off his mask.”

Ash turns sharply toward me. I give Owen the order myself.