Chapter 6
The local newsroom occupied the second floor above a pharmacy, with a narrow staircase that smelled like dust, coffee, and rain tracked in from the sidewalk. Titus held the door for me but didn't touch my back. I'd told him the night before that I couldn't bear being guided anywhere, even kindly.
The newsroom was smaller than I expected. Three desks faced a wall of windows overlooking the county courthouse parking lot. A paper calendar hung crooked beside a copier, and someone had taped a handwritten reminder above the coffee machine: CHECK THE TIME ZONE.
The reporter stood when we entered. She was in her forties, with a gray cardigan and a legal pad tucked under one arm.
"Sophia?" she asked.
I nodded.
"I'm Mara Ellis. I cover local government, business, and whatever else people assume nobody will check."
Her eyes moved to Titus, then back to me.
"He's here because I asked him to be," I said. "But the evidence is mine."
Titus stayed near the door. "That's right."
Mara didn't invite us to sit until she had looked at the printed frame I carried in a folder. The image showed the same static promotional frame that had circulated with the drama series campaign. The text looked ordinary at first glance, like a warning designed to make people click. But the link beneath it had changed twice since I saved the original.
Mara placed the paper flat on her desk. "You said the link redirected differently depending on when someone opened it."
"And possibly who opened it," I said. "I haven't proved that part."
"Good." She marked something on her pad. "Don't prove it for me with a theory. Prove it with records."
Titus set his phone beside the folder. "We preserved the original URL, the frame, the timestamps, and screen recordings of the redirects. We also wrote down which device opened each version."
Mara looked at him. "You work in information security?"
"No."
"Then why should I trust your records?"
"You shouldn't," he said. "You should check them."
That earned the smallest change in her expression. Not belief. Maybe respect for caution.
I gave her the link. She opened it on a newsroom computer disconnected from the staff network. The page loaded a glossy campaign screen inviting viewers to watch the drama series. A red button pulsed at the bottom.
Mara didn't click it.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because I don't know what it records."
The room went quiet except for the copier waking somewhere behind us.
She took photographs of the screen instead. Then she asked me to describe the first version without looking at my notes.
I told her what I remembered. The original frame. The audio. The words that had frightened me because they made my private history sound like a public teaser:
"she'll do anything. No, she said alone. If she sees you, she'll kill Titus. You think you're safe going by yourself? She hates you, Sophia. You'll be walking into a trap. I know."
Mara's pen stopped.
"Was that presented as scripted dialogue?"
"I don't know."
"Did you authorize your name being used?"
"No."
"Did you contact the campaign before coming here?"
I hesitated.
Titus looked at me, not urging me on, only waiting.
"I sent one message through the campaign's public contact form," I said. "I asked them to preserve the original version. They didn't answer."
Mara wrote that down. "Then I can't publish that they targeted you. I can publish that the link changed and that the campaign hasn't explained why."
"I understand."
It was the answer I wanted to give, though it made my throat tight. I hadn't come for automatic belief. I needed someone outside my fear to test what was real.
We left twenty minutes later with no promise except that Mara would verify the records. Outside, Titus checked the time.
"They know," I said.
"Know what?"
"That we gave it to her."
He didn't dismiss me. "Maybe. The link could show them the newsroom visit if it tracks location."
"You're not supposed to make this worse."
"I'm not. I'm saying we document the timing before we decide what it means."
He opened a note on his phone and recorded the exact minute we had entered, the time Mara opened the preserved link, and the moment we left. Then he photographed the folder in my hand, including its handwritten date.
I almost laughed, but there was nothing funny in it. "You make evidence look like a grocery list."
"That's the point."
The campaign responded before we reached the corner.
A notification appeared on my phone from an account I didn't follow. Their new post used the same promotional frame, but the caption called the circulating warning "an attention-seeking fabrication by a private individual attempting to attach herself to a successful drama campaign." It didn't name me. It didn't have to. My name had already been attached to the link.
Underneath, the comments filled quickly.
She wants attention.
Why is she dragging Titus into this?
Some people will do anything to become part of the story.
My hands went cold.
Titus read the post over my shoulder. His jaw tightened, but he didn't type.
"Say something," I whispered.
"Not here."
"Everyone else is."
"That's why they posted it."
By the time I got home, the ordinary opportunity I'd been counting on was gone. The campaign coordinator sent a short email canceling my scheduled access to the afternoon review meeting. No explanation beyond a sentence about protecting the project's professional environment.
I stared at it until the words blurred.
Titus stood several feet away in my kitchen. "Do you want me to respond?"
"No."
"Do you want me to tell Mara?"
"She'll see it if she keeps checking."
He nodded and wrote down the time the email arrived.
I sat at the table with my phone facedown. The cost wasn't dramatic enough for anyone else to call it punishment. I hadn't lost a job. Nobody had threatened me. I had simply been removed from a room I was supposed to enter, and the campaign had made it sound like my own fault.
Titus pulled out the chair across from me but didn't sit until I nodded.
"You were right," I said.
"About what?"
"Being alone was dangerous. But telling the truth didn't make me safe either."
"No," he said. "It made the consequences visible."
I looked at the copied frame between us. The link was still there, bright and inviting, asking strangers to watch a story while quietly rewriting mine.
"I want Mara to keep checking," I said. "Even if she doesn't believe me yet."
"She doesn't have to believe you," Titus said. "She has to verify what happened."
May you like
Outside, a car passed over the wet street. On my phone, the campaign post kept gathering attention. The story had moved beyond my control, and for the first time, I understood that the person controlling the narrative didn't need to prove I was lying.
She only needed to make everyone impatient with the truth.
