The Fatal Frame

Chapter 1

Clara

“Well, look what we have here.”

The voice slices through the stink of wet garbage and rust. It’s slick, coated in an arrogance so thick I can almost taste it over the bile climbing my throat. My body is a statue, crammed between a overflowing dumpster and the grimy brick wall of the alley. Every muscle screams, locked in place by a terror so pure it feels like ice water in my veins.

“A little rat, hiding in the shadows.”

I see his shoes first. Polished leather, gleaming under the single, flickering safety light. They cost more than my entire semester’s tuition. They take a slow, deliberate step closer. I squeeze my eyes shut, as if not seeing him will make me invisible. It’s a child’s logic, pathetic and useless.

The camera in my lap feels like a block of lead. My thesis. My project on ‘unseen cityscapes,’ the beauty in the decay. This alley was perfect. The way the late afternoon light cut through the fire escapes, the graffiti that looked like a wounded rainbow bleeding down the brick. I had the shot perfectly framed. Then they came.

It was supposed to be a drug deal. That’s what I told myself. Gritty, real, the kind of footage that would make my professor forget I was the quiet girl who always sat in the back. I kept filming through my long lens from my hiding spot, my heart hammering a filmmaker’s thrill. A man in a cheap suit, sweating. A man in a tailored coat, his face a mask of cold boredom. Then the sound. A soft thud, nothing like the gunshots in movies. The man in the cheap suit just… folded. A puppet with its strings cut. No drama. No final words. Just a quiet, efficient deletion.

Now the clean up crew is here. And they found me.

“Come on out, sweetheart. We don’t bite. Much.” The voice is closer now. I can smell his cologne, something sharp and expensive that can’t quite cover the metallic tang of blood in the air.

A second pair of shoes enters my sliver of a view. Black, practical boots. They are worn, but clean. They stop a few feet away from the polished leather ones. They make no sound.

“What is it, Leo?” A new voice. Deeper. Calmer. It’s the kind of voice that doesn’t need to be loud to be heard. It carries an authority that chills me more than the first man’s taunts.

“We’ve got a witness, Ghost.” The first man, Leo, lets out a low chuckle. “And you’re not gonna believe it. It’s the coffee girl.”

My blood runs cold. Coffee girl. He knows me. My mind flashes to the cafe, to the endless parade of faces I serve every day. The polite ones, the rude ones, the ones who look through me like I’m part of the furniture. And him. Leo. Always with the flashy watch and the smirk. He orders a macchiato, extra foam, never makes eye contact, and never, ever tips.

He crouches down, and I’m forced to meet his gaze. His eyes are bright, amused. He sees my uniform under my thin jacket, the familiar green apron stained with a bit of chocolate syrup. His smirk widens. “See? Serves me that overpriced garbage every morning. Probably got a little camera, making one of her student films.”

He reaches for my camera. My hands tighten on it instinctively.

“Tsk, tsk.” He wags a finger. “Don’t be like that. Just let me see what you’ve been shooting, you little pest.”

Behind him, the man called Ghost remains silent. I can’t see his face, only his boots, planted firm on the wet asphalt. He is a presence. A block of granite in the middle of this filthy alley.

“Leave her,” Ghost says. The words are clipped, final.

Leo stills. He glances over his shoulder. “What? Are you kidding me? She saw it all. She’s a loose end. A nobody. We snip it, we go. It takes two seconds.”

Snip it. The casual cruelty of his words makes my stomach clench. He’s talking about my life like it’s a stray thread on his designer suit.

“I said, leave her.”

“Adrian, be reasonable.” Leo stands up, turning to face the other man. His voice drops, a conspiratorial whisper that carries in the quiet alley. “Marcus wants these things clean. No witnesses. You know the protocol. A barista with a camera is not part of a clean scene.”

Adrian. Ghost. The names don’t fit together. One is normal, the other is a threat.

My hand is shaking so badly I’m afraid I’ll drop the camera. It’s my life’s work. Everything I’ve saved for, everything I’ve dreamed of. And inside it, on a tiny plastic chip, is proof. Proof of what they did. The footage. My thumb, slick with sweat, fumbles along the side of the camera body. It finds the slight indentation of the memory card slot.

Leo is still arguing. “Look at her. She’s terrified. She’s nobody. We pop her, dump her in the bin with the rest of the trash, and we’re gone. Problem solved.”

The man in the boots takes a step forward. Now I can see him. He’s tall, dressed in a simple dark jacket. His face is all sharp angles and shadows, his expression unreadable. But his eyes. His eyes are a pale, piercing gray, and they are locked on me. They don’t hold the sadistic amusement Leo’s do. They hold a terrifying stillness, an intelligent assessment. He’s not looking at a problem. He’s looking at me.

My thumb presses the edge of the SD card. It makes a tiny, satisfying click as it pops from its slot.

“She’s a loose end, Adrian,” Leo insists, his voice rising in frustration.

“No,” Adrian says, his gaze never leaving mine. “She isn’t.”

He sees something. I don’t know what. Maybe it’s the way I’m not crying. Maybe it’s the way my knuckles are white around my camera. Maybe he sees the defiance I’m trying so hard to hide beneath the fear. My heart is a trapped bird beating against my ribs, but my jaw is set.

He takes another step. He’s in front of me now, blocking my view of Leo. He crouches down, his movements fluid and precise, like a predator. He smells of cold night air and something clean, like soap. It’s a strange contrast to the filth around us.

“What’s your name?” he asks. His voice is low, almost gentle, which is somehow more frightening than Leo’s shouting.

My throat is sandpaper. “Clara.”

“Clara.” He says my name like he’s testing it, tasting it. “You’re a film student.” It’s not a question. He glances at the professional-grade camera, the worn strap, the way I’m holding it like it’s a shield.

I nod, a tiny, jerky movement.

My fingers close around the warm plastic of the memory card in my palm. My other hand, still clutching the camera, is a decoy. Leo is fidgeting behind Adrian, radiating impatience.

“We don’t have time for this, J,” Leo snaps. “Just let me handle it.”

Adrian ignores him completely. His focus is entirely on me. “You saw what happened.” Again, not a question.

I just stare at him. The image is burned into my mind. The slump of the body, the dark pool spreading slowly on the pavement, the killer’s face as he turned away, utterly blank.

“She’s got it all on film, man!” Leo’s voice is sharp with panic now. “This is a massive risk. Let’s just go.”

Adrian’s gray eyes hold mine. I see a flicker of something in them. Curiosity? Annoyance? I can’t tell. My palm is sweating around the tiny card. My jeans have a small watch pocket, tight and deep. It’s a stupid, desperate move, but it’s the only one I have. While his eyes are on my face, my hand moves, a slow, trembling journey from my camera to my hip. The plastic square scrapes against the denim. It’s in. Hidden.

“Get up,” Adrian says softly.

I don’t move. My legs are water.

He sighs, a sound of faint exasperation. “Leo is right about one thing. We are out of time.” He reaches for me. I flinch back, pressing myself harder against the brick. His hand stops. He doesn’t touch me. He holds his hand out, palm up.

“The camera bag,” he says.

My worn canvas messenger bag is slung over my shoulder. It holds my lenses, my spare batteries, my wallet, a half-eaten granola bar. It’s my life in a bag. Reluctantly, I shrug it off my shoulder and hand it to him.

He takes it, then looks at the camera still in my hands.

“That too, Clara.”

My fingers refuse to unclench. This camera is an extension of my arm. I worked double shifts for a year to buy it. It’s my voice. My future.

“Don’t make this difficult.” His voice is still quiet, but there’s a new edge to it. A warning.

Slowly, my fingers uncurl. I offer it to him. Our fingers brush as he takes it. His skin is cold.

“What are you doing?” Leo demands, stepping forward. “We’re just taking her stuff now? That’s the plan?”

Adrian stands up, placing my camera carefully inside my bag. He slings the strap over his own shoulder. It looks absurdly out of place against his dark, expensive jacket. “She’s not a loose end,” he says, turning to face Leo. “She’s an asset.”

Leo stares at him, dumbfounded. “An asset? An asset for what? Making cappuccinos? She’s a student. A nobody. She’s a liability is what she is.”

“And I say she’s an asset,” Adrian repeats, and the tone in his voice makes the air crackle. It’s the voice of a man who is not used to being questioned. “We’re taking her with us. We can control what we have. We can’t control a body that gets found by some beat cop in the morning.”

“This is insane,” Leo sputters, gesturing wildly. “Marcus will have your head for this.”

“I’ll handle Marcus.” Adrian turns his back on Leo, his attention once again on me. It feels like the world has shrunk to the space between us. “Let’s go.”

He reaches down and this time his grip is firm on my upper arm. He pulls me to my feet. My legs wobble, but they hold. The alley seems to spin around me. The stench of the dumpster, the flickering yellow light, the silhouette of a dead man being loaded into an unmarked van at the far end.

“Come on, coffee girl,” Leo snarls from behind me. “You heard the man. You’re an asset now. Lucky you.”

Adrian’s grip tightens, steering me away from the wall, towards the mouth of the alley and the waiting black car I hadn’t noticed before. He is strong, his pull undeniable. I stumble along beside him, a captive. My camera is gone. My freedom is gone. My life as I knew it ended five minutes ago.

But as he pushes me toward the dark, tinted windows of the car, I press my hand against my pocket. My fingers feel the faint, hard outline of the SD card. They have my camera. They have me.

But they don’t have the truth. I have it, pressed against my skin. A tiny, ticking time bomb.

Chapter 2

Adrian

The silence in the car is a physical thing. It presses in on all sides, thicker than the tinted glass that swallows the city lights. Leo drives, his knuckles white on the leather steering wheel. His anger is a hot, acrid smell in the confined space. In the back, she sits. The girl. Clara. I watch her in the rearview mirror. She hasn’t moved. She sits perfectly still, her hands in her lap, her eyes fixed on some point beyond the window.

She isn’t crying. She isn’t shaking anymore. There’s a stillness to her that is unsettling. It’s the stillness of a deep lake. You can’t tell what’s underneath.

“This is a mistake,” Leo says, his voice a low hiss. He doesn’t look at me. His eyes are glued to the road.

I don’t answer. The decision is made. Replaying it serves no purpose.

“You heard what Marcus said. Clean. This is the opposite of clean. This is a mess with a pulse and a student ID.”

“I’ll handle Marcus,” I say. The words sound flat, even to me.

“You’ll handle Marcus.” Leo lets out a short, bitter laugh. “He’s not going to like it. You know how he feels about civilians. About variables.”

I know exactly how he feels. Marcus Thorne built his empire on the elimination of variables. And this girl, this Clara, is the biggest variable I’ve introduced into his equation in a decade.

My gaze flicks back to the mirror. Her face is pale in the strobing lights of the city. There’s a smear of dirt on her cheek. I remember the look in her eyes back in that alley. Not just fear. There was something else. A spark. A flicker of something hard and defiant. It was gone as quickly as it came, but I saw it. It’s the reason she’s in the back of my car instead of in a dumpster.

We pull into the underground garage of a residential tower that scrapes the sky. It’s anonymous, ridiculously expensive, and one of a dozen properties Marcus keeps for situations like this. The engine cuts out, and the silence returns, heavier than before.

“Stay here,” I tell Leo.

He scoffs. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

I get out and open the back door. “Come on.”

Clara looks at my outstretched hand for a moment before moving on her own. She slides out of the car, her movements stiff. She’s small. Smaller than I realized in the alley. Her cheap jacket is thin, useless against the city’s night chill. Her canvas bag, my camera bag now, is still slung over my shoulder. It feels alien against my own jacket.

I lead her to a private elevator. The doors open with a soft chime. Inside, the polished steel walls reflect a distorted version of us. A ghost, and the girl he stole.

We ride up in silence. My thumb presses the button for the penthouse. Twenty seven floors. Twenty seven seconds of her breathing, soft and even beside me. I can feel the tension rolling off her, but she keeps it locked down tight. She has control. I respect that more than I should.

The apartment is sterile. All white walls, chrome fixtures, and black leather furniture. It looks like a magazine cover. No one has ever lived here. It’s a holding cell with a better view.

She stops just inside the door, her eyes taking it all in. The floor to ceiling windows display the city like a carpet of scattered diamonds. A gilded cage.

“The bedroom is through there,” I say, gesturing with my chin. “Bathroom is attached. The kitchen is stocked. Don’t touch the liquor cabinet.”

She says nothing. Her gaze sweeps the room, cataloging everything. The exits. The windows. The potential weapons. I can see her mind working. She’s not just a barista. She’s a filmmaker. She sees the world in frames, in angles. She’s looking for a way to rewrite the scene.

“There are no phones,” I continue, my voice hard. I need to establish the rules. For her, and for me. “The television works. Internet is disabled. You will not try to leave. You will not try to contact anyone. Am I clear?”

She finally looks at me. Her eyes are the color of whiskey. They are clear, steady, and full of a quiet rage that I find far more interesting than fear. She gives a single, sharp nod.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I already know who it is. I pull it out. The name on the screen reads MARCUS.

I turn my back to her, walking towards the windows. I need the distance.

“Adrian,” I answer.

“Report.” Marcus’s voice is smooth, cultured. It’s the voice of a man who hosts charity galas and orders executions with the same calm demeanor.

“The package is delivered. The scene is sanitized.”

“Leo called me,” he says. There’s no accusation in his tone. Just a statement of fact. “He seemed… agitated.”

I look out at the sprawling city. Millions of lights. Millions of lives that are not my problem. Except for the one standing ten feet behind me. “Leo is agitated by anything that deviates from the plan by a single degree.”

“And this deviated,” Marcus says. “He mentioned a witness. A civilian girl.”

“A loose end,” I correct him, using his language. “One I’ve tied up.”

There’s a pause on the line. Marcus uses silence like a weapon. He lets you fill it with your own insecurities, your own mistakes.

“Explain to me why she isn’t in a landfill,” he says, his voice dropping half an octave.

“She’s a film student. She was there with a camera. The police find a body in an alley, they write it off as a mugging gone wrong. They find a dead student with a camera nearby, it becomes a homicide investigation with a face. It gets media attention. It gets complicated.” I keep my voice level, professional. The justification sounds plausible. It is plausible. It’s just not the whole truth.

“And your solution is to bring this complication into one of my safe houses?”

“My solution is to control the narrative. We have her. We have her footage. We control what gets seen, what gets known. If we need a narrative to leak, she’s the perfect cutout. A scared student who saw something she shouldn’t have. We can use her.”

It’s a good argument. It’s the only argument that will work on him. The language of assets and control. He understands that.

He doesn’t understand the sudden, white hot anger that flared in me when Leo called her ‘coffee girl’ and talked about ‘snipping’ her like she was nothing. He doesn’t understand that when I looked at her, I saw something other than a liability.

“And the footage?” Marcus asks.

I glance over my shoulder. She’s still standing by the door, watching me. I dump her bag onto a glass coffee table. The clatter is loud in the silent room. I pull out her camera. It’s a good one. Serious equipment. I pop the memory card slot. It’s empty.

“The footage is secure,” I lie smoothly. “Wiped. The camera is just a prop now.” I assume she had another card, maybe in the bag. I rummage through the pockets. Lenses, filters, a wallet, a half eaten granola bar. No SD cards.

She must have dropped it in the alley. Or she only had the one. Either way, it’s a problem that has solved itself. A wave of relief, sharp and unexpected, washes over me.

“See that it is,” Marcus says. “This is your play, Adrian. If this girl becomes a problem…” He lets the threat hang in the air.

“She won’t.”

“I trust your judgment. For now. Don’t make me regret it.”

The line goes dead.

I stand there for a moment, the phone in my hand. I made a choice based on an instinct I don’t recognize. A protective instinct. It’s a weakness. In my world, weakness gets you killed.

I turn back to her. “You’ll be comfortable here.”

She looks around the sterile apartment again. “For how long?” Her voice is raspy, but it’s steady.

“For as long as it takes.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means you are here until I say you are not.” I walk over to the table and zip up her bag. I leave it on the table. A reminder of the life she no longer has. “There are clothes in the closet in the bedroom. Food in the fridge. Don’t give me a reason to come back here before I’m ready.”

I expect pleading. I expect tears. I get nothing. She just watches me with those whiskey eyes, her expression unreadable. Her resilience is a quiet challenge. It gets under my skin. It’s a stark contrast to the sycophants and predators that populate my world. She doesn’t belong here. She doesn’t belong to me.

But she does.

I head for the door. I need to leave. I need space from this apartment, from her, from the choice I made.

“Why?” she asks, just as my hand touches the doorknob.

I stop. I don’t turn around. “Why what?”

“Why am I alive?”

The question hangs in the air between us. It’s the question I’ve been asking myself since I saw her huddled behind that dumpster.

I think of Leo’s casual cruelty. The cold dismissal in his voice. I think of the flicker of defiance I saw in her eyes. I think of the lies I just told Marcus.

“Because I decided you were more valuable as an asset than a corpse,” I say, the professional answer sliding out easily.

It’s the truth. Just not the whole truth.

The other part, the part that feels dangerously personal, I keep for myself.

I open the door and step into the hallway, the lock clicking shut behind me. I leave her in the gilded cage, but I have a feeling I’m the one who is trapped.

Chapter 3

Clara

The silence of this place is a living thing. It has weight. It presses on my eardrums and fills my lungs until I can’t breathe. I stand in front of the wall of glass, looking down at the city. It’s a smear of glittering lights, a river of red and white flowing through concrete canyons. It’s my city. But from up here, it feels like a movie I’m not in. I’m an audience of one, trapped in a skybox.

My hand goes to my pocket. The tiny, hard rectangle of the SD card is still there. My heart gives a painful thud against my ribs. It feels hot, like a brand. It’s the only thing in this cold, sterile apartment that feels real. The rest is a nightmare of white leather and chrome.

I need to hide it. I can’t keep it on me. What if he comes back? What if Adrian searches me?

My eyes scan the room. It’s all clean lines and hard surfaces. There are no nooks. No loose floorboards. No place to hide a secret. The bedroom is just as bad. A bed that looks like it’s never been slept in, a closet full of clothes that aren’t mine, in sizes that are roughly correct. They are expensive, anonymous. Gray sweaters, black trousers, a silk blouse. A uniform for a ghost.

The bathroom. The thought sends a shiver through me. It’s all marble and steel. I turn on the tap and let the water run, the sound a welcome intrusion into the oppressive quiet. Behind the toilet, the ceramic tank has a heavy lid. My fingers tremble as I lift it. It’s heavy, but I manage. Inside, the water is clean. I wrap the SD card in a small piece of toilet paper, then again, until it’s a small, white bundle. I find a piece of dental floss in the vanity and tie it securely to one of the pipes inside the tank, letting the packet dangle in the water, hidden from view. I replace the lid. It settles with a quiet, solid clink. My secret is safe. My weapon is armed.

I walk back into the living room just as a key turns in the lock.

My body goes rigid. Every muscle freezes. I expect Adrian. The quiet, terrifying man with the gray eyes. I brace myself for his cold assessment, for more rules, more silence.

The door swings open.

It’s not him.

“Well, well. Look at the little asset, enjoying her new digs.”

Leo steps inside, a venomous smirk plastered on his face. He closes the door behind him, the sound echoing the finality of a cell door slamming shut. He’s wearing a different suit, this one a shade of blue so sharp it hurts my eyes. He smells of the same expensive, cloying cologne.

“What are you doing here?” My voice is a croak. I clear my throat.

“Just checking on company property,” he says, his eyes roaming the apartment before they land on me. He lets them travel down my body and back up, a slow, deliberate violation. “Ghost is busy. He sent me to make sure you’re behaving. Are you behaving, coffee girl?”

The name hits me like a slap. My jaw tightens. I say nothing.

“Cat got your tongue?” He chuckles, a low, nasty sound. He walks over to the glass coffee table where my bag sits. Adrian left it there. A piece of my old life in the middle of this sterile cage. Leo picks it up, dumping the contents onto the glass with a loud clatter.

My lenses. My filters. A spare battery. My keys to an apartment I can never go back to. My student ID. He picks it up, holding it between two fingers like it’s contaminated.

“Clara. How boring.” He flicks it back onto the table. Then he picks up my wallet. It’s old, worn leather, a gift from my dad. He flips it open, pulling out the few bills inside.

“Twenty, forty… forty three dollars. And a metro card. Wow. Big spender.” He laughs, tossing the wallet down. “You really thought you were gonna be the next Scorsese with this junk, huh?”

He nudges my light meter with the toe of his polished shoe. My blood boils. I saved for six months for that meter. Every spare dollar from tips went into a jar labeled ‘Future’.

I stare at him. I pour every ounce of hatred I feel into that stare. I want it to burn him.

He feels it. His smirk falters for a fraction of a second. “What are you looking at? You should be thanking us. This is the nicest place you’ll ever live in.”

“I want to talk to Adrian,” I say, my voice low and steady. It surprises me.

Leo’s eyes flash with annoyance. “Oh, you’re on a first name basis now, are you? Don’t get any ideas, sweetheart. You’re not special. Ghost made a mistake keeping you alive. A mistake I plan on correcting if you give me even half a reason.”

He takes a step toward me. I hold my ground.

“He’s sentimental, you know,” Leo continues, circling me like a shark. “Always has been. Sees a stray dog, he wants to take it in. He sees a pathetic little barista hiding in an alley, and he thinks he can turn it into an ‘asset’. He’s wrong.”

“Why are you so afraid of me?” I ask. The words are out before I can stop them.

He stops circling. He’s in front of me now, too close. I can see the fine weave of the fabric in his suit, the gold glint of his ridiculously large watch. “Afraid? Of you?” He lets out a genuine laugh this time, loud and booming. “Honey, you’re a bug. A little gnat that flew in through an open window. You are nothing.”

“Then why are you here?” I press, my heart hammering against my ribs. “If I’m nothing, why did Adrian’s boss send you to intimidate me? Or did he? Maybe you just came on your own. Because you can’t stand that he didn’t listen to you. That he chose to let me live.”

His face darkens. The smile is gone. I hit a nerve.

“You’re clever,” he spits, his voice dropping to a hiss. “Too clever for your own good. You think because you got lucky once, you’re safe. You’re not. You’re a resource with a shelf life. And when you expire, I’ll be the one to take out the trash.”

He reaches out and grabs my arm. His grip is like iron. I flinch, but I don’t pull away. I meet his eyes, refusing to show the fear that’s clawing at my throat.

“Let. Go.” I say, enunciating each word.

For a moment, we’re locked in a standoff. His rage against my defiance. I can feel the pulse in his thumb pressing into my skin. He wants to hurt me. He wants to see me crumble.

Then he shoves me backward. I stumble, catching myself on the arm of the leather sofa. He smooths the front of his suit jacket, his composure snapping back into place.

“Enjoy the view, coffee girl,” he says, his smirk returning. “It’s all you’re going to see for a very long time.”

He turns and walks to the door. He pauses with his hand on the handle.

“By the way,” he says without looking back at me. “Don’t get too comfortable. Assets get liquidated all the time.”

The door closes. The lock clicks. And the silence rushes back in, more suffocating than before.

I stand there, my arm throbbing where he grabbed me. My body is trembling, not with fear, but with a pure, undiluted rage. He’s right. I’m not an asset. I’m not a stray dog. I’m a witness. No. I’m more than that.

I’m a threat.

He called me a bug. He called me nothing. He wanted to make me feel small, powerless. But he did the opposite. He lit a fire. He thinks I’m trapped in here. He thinks he’s won. He has no idea what he’s just started.

My eyes land on my wallet, still lying open on the table. My student ID stares up at me. My boring, plain face. The face of a nobody. A coffee girl.

I walk over and pick it up. Tucked into a tight, hidden flap behind my ID is a thin, black rectangle. A cheap burner phone. I bought it a year ago after a bad breakup with a guy who wouldn’t stop calling. I charged it once, threw it in my wallet, and forgot about it. A just in case. An escape route I never thought I’d need.

My hands are shaking as I pull it out. I press the power button. The screen flickers to life. Seventy two percent battery. A miracle.

I have no contacts. No call history. It’s a ghost. Perfect.

I go to the window, staring down at the city lights. I’m a prisoner, but I still have a voice. I just need to find someone who will listen.

My mind races, flipping through documentaries I’ve watched, articles I’ve read for class. There was one. An independent journalist. A man who made a career out of exposing corruption, taking on people like Marcus Thorne. He was relentless, a bulldog. His contact information was notoriously hard to find, but he had a secure, anonymous tip line listed on his website. I memorized it once, thinking it was a brilliant way to get sources.

I open the messaging app. My fingers fly across the tiny keyboard, my rage focusing into a single point. The message is short. Cryptic. A stone tossed into a still pond.

‘Alley off Corbin Street. Last Tuesday night. A man in a cheap suit never clocked out. Ask who cleans up after the Thorne corporation.’

I read it once. Twice. My thumb hovers over the send button. This is it. This is the point of no return. Once I do this, there is no going back to being the quiet film student. The coffee girl. I am declaring war.

Leo thinks I’m a liability. Adrian thinks I’m an asset. They’re both wrong.

I am the one holding the evidence. I am the one with the truth.

I am the one who is going to burn their entire world to the ground.

My thumb presses down.

Message sent.