Chapter 3: The Version They Posted

By morning, I had made a spreadsheet.

It was not glamorous, but neither was panic once you gave it columns.

Time of the party. Time of the first post. Camera angles. Names of people who had entered the side courtyard. Every comment that mentioned the Hart Foundation or HavenLink.

Rowan arrived at the media lab with coffee. Miles arrived six minutes later with breakfast and a folder from his father’s lawyers.

“This is getting ridiculous,” I said.

“You haven’t read the folder,” Miles said.

“That doesn’t make it less ridiculous.”

The hallway footage finally came through at 10:14. I pulled it into the editing software and watched it frame by frame.

At 11:37 p.m., someone wearing a red dress crossed the frame. At 11:38, that person paused beside the side door and held up a phone. At 11:39, Rowan led me outside.

The face was obscured, but the silver rings flashed under the security light.

“Sloane,” Jace said from behind us.

He had brought his camera bag and an apology. “I loaned my old DSLR to her assistant last week. I thought it was for event coverage.”

“Then we find the assistant,” I said.

Rowan looked at me. “You’re sure?”

“I’m not hiding in a hotel while strangers write my life for me.”

We spent the afternoon tracking login locations. The Whisper account used a campus network, but one upload had pinged the private guest Wi-Fi in the Hart Foundation offices.

Miles went still.

“That’s impossible,” I said.

“No,” he said quietly. “It isn’t.”

He opened the folder. Inside was a withdrawal agreement. His father wanted him to step away from HavenLink before the final round. In exchange, the Foundation would “manage the reputational concerns surrounding Evan Cole.”

The language was polished enough to make my stomach turn.

“They think I’m the concern?” I asked.

Miles’s face tightened. “They think they can use you to control me.”

“And what are you going to do?”

He looked at the papers for a long time. “I don’t know.”

That hurt more than it should have.

Rowan saw it. Of course he did. He took the folder from Miles, closed it, and set it aside.

“He’ll figure it out,” Rowan said.

“Don’t speak for me,” Miles snapped.

“Then say something useful.”

The air changed.

I pushed back from the desk. “Stop.”

Neither of them did.

“Stop,” I said again, louder. “I’m right here.”

Miles looked ashamed. Rowan looked angry at himself.

I left them with the footage and took my laptop to the empty recording booth. There, I assembled the real version of the night: the girl in red near the door, the time stamp, Rowan steadying me when I stumbled, no money changing hands, no private deal, no performance.

At some point, Rowan came in without speaking. He sat beside me on the floor. Miles stayed outside, giving us space—or maybe taking it.

I worked until my eyes burned.

“You should sleep,” Rowan said.

“You first.”

“I’m not the one who was drugged.”

I leaned my head against his shoulder. “You’re impossible.”

“You keep saying that like it’s new information.”

His sleeve was warm beneath my cheek. I meant to sit up after a minute. Instead, I woke to the room going dark around us, my hand clasped in his.

Rowan was looking at me.

Not at my face. At my mouth.

He lifted his free hand and brushed his thumb over the corner of my lip. “Coffee,” he said.

His thumb stayed there one second too long.

The door opened.

Miles stood in the booth with two coffees and an expression so polite it was almost violent.

“Am I interrupting?” he asked.

Rowan’s hand fell away.

I stood, heart beating too hard. “No.”

Miles set one coffee down in front of me. “My father called again.”

“And?”

“He said if I don’t sign by tomorrow, they’ll give the account everything they have.”

“Everything they have is a lie.”

“They don’t need the truth,” Miles said. “They need enough people to doubt you.”

I looked at the finished video timeline on my screen. Then at the recording booth’s camera, mounted above the glass.

“Then we don’t give them a private explanation,” I said.

Rowan frowned. “What are you thinking?”

“Student Media Live is tomorrow night.”

Miles’s eyes widened. “Evan—”

“I’m going on air.”

I picked up my phone and opened the producer’s contact card before either of them could stop me.

This time, I would choose the version people saw.

Miles exhaled through his nose. “A live interview gives them another chance to twist you.”

“A private meeting gives them all the chances,” I said. “At least on air, the footage has a timestamp.”

Rowan leaned against the soundboard. “We can request a delay button. And a producer who understands what’s happening.”

“You’re both doing it again,” I said.

They went still.

I closed my laptop, then looked from Rowan to Miles. “I’m not asking permission. I’m asking if you’ll help me prepare.”

Rowan’s expression softened first. “Yes.”

Miles gave a short, helpless laugh. “Of course.”

I sent the message before fear could turn it into a draft. The producer replied almost immediately:

Come at seven. We’ll make room.

For the first time since I woke up in Rowan’s bed, the shaking in my hands felt less like panic than momentum.

Jace appeared at the booth door with his camera bag half-zipped. “I heard the word live interview. Please tell me nobody is about to make a decision without a photographer.”

“Not a photographer,” I said. “A witness.”

His teasing expression faded. “Then you have one.”

Miles glanced toward the hallway, where the late-afternoon light was turning the campus windows gold. “Sloane will know what we’re doing once the booking goes through.”

“Good,” I said.

Rowan studied me for a moment, like he was seeing a structure change shape beneath his hands. “That’s dangerous.”

“So is letting her think I’ll stay quiet.”

Nobody argued. Rowan gathered the hard drives. Miles slid the withdrawal agreement into his bag without signing it. Jace lifted his camera.

Together, we left the booth before I could change my mind.