And for the first time since I had stepped into the room, something in Charlotte’s expression changed. It wasn’t panic. It wasn’t loss of control. But it was close enough to both that it shifted the mood anyway, tightening it just a fraction more.
Ezra moved without hesitation, closing the space betweenthem with quiet efficiency, his presence steady in contrast to the tension that had just sharpened around her. “Show me.”
Char turned the screen toward him without a word.
Rawlings didn’t wait for permission. He stepped in closer, leaning just enough to see over Ezra’s shoulder, his reaction immediate and unfiltered. “Shit.”
Charlotte didn’t comment. She turned the phone, setting it flat on the table with more force than necessary, angling it so the rest of the room could see.
I pushed off the wall then, not rushing, not drawing attention to it, just shifting forward enough to get a clear view as the video began to play. It was short—too short—and clean in a way that told me everything I needed to know about how it had been cut. Edited. Stripped down to the version that worked best.
It started with me already on my feet, no context, no buildup, no bottle coming at my head, no explanation as to why I had moved the way I had. Just me, standing there, and then the punch—sharp, direct, undeniable—my fist connecting and the guy’s head snapping to the side, blood already there by the time he hit the floor in my favorite burger joint.
The video cut hard to a new angle, the kind that made everything feel official. Police. My hands behind my back. Escorted out pushing a false. And in an instant, the story was written before anyone bothered to ask for the rest of it, sealed up and ready to go.
The headline hit a second later, bold and clean across the screen—Public Enemy #91—already trending.
The shift was immediate, subtle but absolute, like everyone in the space had just recalibrated to a version of the situation that was no longer theoretical. I let out a slow breath through my nose, the irritation settling in low andsteady as I watched them react to something I had already lived through.
“That’s it?” I said, my voice flat, edged just enough to carry. “That’s what we’re worried about?”
Rawlings didn’t hesitate. “That’s exactly what we’re worried about.”
I rolled my shoulder once, working the stiffness out of it. “He threw a bottle at me.”
“It’s not in the video,” Char snapped without missing a beat.
I stepped forward, closing some of the distance between myself and the table without thinking about it. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
“You think people want the truth?” Charlotte asked, her tone cutting clean through mine.
“I think it’s easier than whatever this is.”
She let out a short, sharp cackle. “Northbend will eat you alive if you try to feed them that,” she sneered, eyes narrowing. “Because this is what people are going to see.”
People. Fans. Sponsors. Media. The same list, like it was supposed to mean more than the actual moment.
“It’s a bar fight,” I barked, the words landing flat and deliberate. “Not a murder charge.”
The coach exhaled through his nose. “It’s a bar fight you’re not supposed to be in.”
Fair. Didn’t change anything.
“They’ll move on,” I added. “Everything will be fine in a week.”
“Not this time,” Rawlings growled, the edge in his voice enough to pull my attention fully to him.
I looked at him fully then. “Why?”
“Because this fits,” he shot back, immediate, certain.
That landed harder than it should have, because he wasn’twrong. It slid too easily into something people already believed about me, something they didn’t need context to accept.
“Then fix it,” I snapped at Charlotte, the edge creeping in despite myself.
She didn’t blink. “That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
“No,” I countered, stepping fully into the room now, done leaning on anything, done pretending I wasn’t part of the conversation. “You’re overcomplicating it.”