What do you mean, what can I do? I don’t even know what’s happening.
The question hit hard and immediate in the back of my mind, followed by a sharper one right behind it.
Why me?
Because this wasn’t what I had walked in expecting. This wasn’t a conversation. This wasn’t a coordinated meeting where I could anticipate questions, guide responses, prove myself in curated ways.
This was a situation already unfolding.
And somehow, impossibly, I had just been dropped directly into the middle of it without a single piece of context to hold onto.
Every muscle in my body pulled tighter, like I had braced for something I couldn’t see coming and couldn’t stop. I was twenty-two. I had graduated—what—months ago? I had written papers about crisis management, built strategies inclassrooms where the stakes were theoretical, where mistakes lived on pages instead of headlines, where no one was watching you in real time, waiting to see if you broke under pressure.
I had never done this.
Not like this, at least. Not with a room full of people who already knew what they were doing, who were already forming opinions, already deciding whether I belonged here or not.
I don’t know how to do this.
The thought came fast, sharp, honest enough to sting.
And just as quickly—It was gone. Buried.
Because it didn’t matter.
Because whether I knew how to do it or not, I was already in the room, being watched, being measured in a way that didn’t allow for hesitation.
Every instinct in me clicked.
This was it. Not an interview—a trial by fire.
I didn’t move right away. Didn’t react the way they probably expected someone my age, in my position, probably would—wide-eyed, uncertain, asking questions that would immediately give away how far behind I already was.
Instead, I let the silence sit for half a second longer than comfortable, even as it pressed in harder, even as I could feel the edges of it tightening around me, waiting to see what I would do.
Long enough to think. Or at least to look like I was thinking.
Because the truth was, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was about to say. I was flying completely by the seat of my pants. Grabbing onto fragments—exposure, legal, timing—words I had heard in the last few minutes and forcing them into something that could resemble competence.
Then I leaned forward slightly, my hands resting lightly on the table, my posture open, using the steady pressure of my palms against the surface to anchor myself. “What’s the current narrative?” I asked, my voice steady, clear. “Internally and externally.”
Char’s gaze flickered, just briefly.
“Internally?” Rawlings scoffed, watching me. “He’s a liability. A big fucking liability for this entire franchise.”
“Externally,” Char added, “he’s a headline waiting to happen.”
“If nothing’s public yet,” I forced out, begging my voice not to crack. Finally, my mind was moving, mapping out the angles, the risks, the possibilities, “we control first release. We shape tone before it gets shaped for us.” I turned my head slightly toward the legal rep before continuing, “Timeline on when arrest records become accessible?”
“Potentially within the hour,” she replied.
“Then we assume worst-case,” I declared, nodding once. “We prepare a statement that acknowledges the incident without confirming details we can’t legally confirm yet. Minimal, proactive.”
Rawlings leaned back slightly, his irritation shifting into something more measured. “And Müller?” he pressed.
“Where is he now?” The question left my mouth as the door behind me opened.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just enough to pull the air in the room in a different direction, subtle but immediate, like a shift in pressure before a storm fully breaks.