Page 129 of Stay Scared

The footage was stolen once inside Crimson Night. Now strangers are taking it apart again from the other side of a screen.

Owen crosses to the nearest monitor. “The broadcast is running through the independent uplink.”

Ash comes beside him, blood streaking one side of his bare face.

No mask hides the fury this time.

“Terminate it.”

“I can’t from this terminal.”

Ash’s hand closes around the edge of the console hard enough to make the metal creak.

Cade moves to the screen showing the hallway. His own body fills it, pinning me against the wall before the footage cuts away from my stop signal.

He watches the false version repeat.

“Turn that shit off.”

“We cannot stop the stream from this console,” Owen says.

Cade reaches toward the monitor.

I catch his wrist. “Breaking it doesn’t stop the stream.”

His arm stays rigid beneath my hand.

On another screen, the Blind Maze begins.

Owen pulls me through the wall.

The footage cuts before I choose him.

A comment asks whether he drugged me. Another says the whole attraction should be investigated.

Owen’s face empties.

Some of the accusations against him are true. Rook has simply removed every moment where I exercised any control over what happened between us.

My apartment appears next.

The photo from inside my kitchen.

Then one of Owen’s.

Then another of Rook’s.

The sources disappear inside the edit until thousands of people watch them become the same thing.

I feel sick.

A thumbnail appears in the stream queue.

SERVER ROOM.

Cold runs through me.

Owen sees it at the same time and hits the console. “Do not open that file.”