It wasn’t a fight. It wasn’t tension.
Savannah crossed the street with that same careful posture she always carried. Determined. Trying. Guarded. But something about her silhouette looked different as she disappeared into the crowd. Lighter, maybe. Or maybe Tilly was projecting. They weren’t sure, and they didn’t linger on it long enough to find out.
They lifted the camera again and panned across the square, capturing buses, pedestrians, and the shimmer of late-afternoon light against the stone buildings. The sort of B-roll Jamie used to narrate over with quick jokes or complaints about the cold. Savannah didn’t fill the silence like that. She wasn’t loud, wasn’t flashy, wasn’t anything other than focused. And yet her absence now felt sharper than it should have for a routine assignment.
By the time Tilly finished and headed back to the car, the wind had picked up again, cutting across the plaza. They paused before getting in, glancing once in the direction Savannah hadgone, as if expecting her to still be there. Waiting. Saying something she hadn’t said.
She wasn’t.
Tilly exhaled, long and steady, then slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. They had B-roll to ingest, a script to match, and a reporter waiting in the newsroom who didn’t know she had left a small mark on the afternoon.
A small crack.
Not a moment they’d talk about.
Not anything that changed the day.
But it changed something. Quietly. Barely. Just enough for Tilly to feel the shift as the car pulled away from City Hall and the distance between them stretched and settled into something new.
Fourteen
The newsroom felt different the moment she stepped inside.
Not noisy. Not messy.
Electrified.
Scanners chirped nonstop. Pages rustled. Someone was swearing at AP NewsTrack near the assignment desk. The weather center glowed with maps in shades of blue, purple, and an angry red she had learned meant trouble.
A meteorologist muttered something under his breath as he updated the graphic. “This is going to slam us.”
Savannah tightened her grip on her laptop bag. The cold from outside hadn’t left her fingers yet, but the heat of the newsroom made her pulse jump anyway.
She still wasn’t used to the pacing here. WDTV moved faster than her old station. Stronger. Like stepping onto a treadmill someone else had already set to sprint.
“Savannah!” Henry called, waving a sheet of paper. He didn’t stop walking as he spoke. “Storm’s shifting east. Everyone’s assignments are up in the air, so don’t get too attached to whatever you think you’re doing.”
She nodded, even though he was already halfway across the room.
At her desk, she tried to check her email, but her eyes pulled across the bullpen before she could stop them. Tilly was by the gear closet, their jacket half unzipped, one hand braced on apelican case while they talked to another photog. The way they moved looked like they were trying not to pace.
It was stupid, but Savannah felt the tension from twenty feet away.
She clicked her trackpad too loudly and forced herself to look anywhere else.
Before she could pretend to do something productive, a producer barreled toward her. “Okay, if this system holds, we might pair you with—”
Another producer yelled her name from across the room.
“Wait!” she called back, pivoting. “We’re rearranging again!”
Savannah blinked at the half-sentence floating in the air like smoke.
‘We might pair you with…’
Her stomach clenched before she could even think it through.
Not dread.
