Page 177 of Stay Scared

Rook is closer in that reflection.

I keep moving. His anger is doing the work now. He needs to correct me. He needs me to understand him properly.

I glance toward the ceiling camera. “You could have just killed the stream.”

“I wanted witnesses.”

“You wanted applause.”

“I wanted the truth recorded.”

“You edited yourself out.”

The speakers fall silent.

There it is.

I turn slowly. Every mirror shows only me. Rook’s cameras remain red.

I lift Ash’s mask.

“You filmed Cade’s hands.”

No answer.

“You stole Owen’s archive.”

The speaker above the west passage clicks.

“You put Ash’s waiver on every screen.”

Still nothing.

I look directly into the public camera. “But every time you show yourself, you wear that beak and stand somewhere nobody can reach.”

Rook’s voice comes low from the west corridor. “You want me closer.”

“I think you do.”

The first sound of his breathing reaches me without a speaker.

I turn toward it, but nothing is there.

I keep the mask hanging beside my thigh.

“You were inside my apartment.”

The words are for him now, stripped of the audience and Owen’s tape.

The dark corridor ahead stays empty.

“You took the photograph.”

A scrape sounds against glass.

“You sent the messages.”

His voice answers from somewhere just beyond the bend. “I wanted to know when you would notice.”