Chapter 2 · Cached
Caleb followed me into the hallway.
“Maya. Stop.”
I stopped beside the vending machines because my hands were shaking and I didn’t want him to see me miss the elevator button.
Behind us, Studio B had turned into panic. Producers yelled into headsets. Someone shouted for legal. Someone else asked if they should cut the stream.
They didn’t.
Seven hundred thousand viewers now.
Caleb caught up, breathing hard. “Do you have any idea what you just did?”
“Yes.”
“You altered a sponsored live build.”
“I credited it.”
“You used company access.”
“You used my words to sell Sienna’s ring.”
His mouth shut.
A production assistant ran over with a tablet. “Northstar wants you now.”
“Tell them two minutes,” Caleb said.
“They said now.”
He looked at me. “Come with me. Tell them this was an internal credit error.”
“It wasn’t an error.”
“It becomes one if we handle it right.”
I understood exactly what “handle it right” meant.
If Caleb turned the live credit into an internal error, I wouldn’t just lose my name.
I would become the unstable ex-girlfriend who sabotaged his launch.
The girl who got emotional.
The girl who touched a system she shouldn’t have.
The girl who had to be removed before investors got nervous.
He wouldn’t even need to call me a liar.
He only had to call me difficult.
“There’s no we.”
The elevator opened.
June Park stood inside with a laptop hugged to her chest. VossWorks’ technical director. The only person who knew how many branches I had rebuilt after midnight.
She looked at Caleb. Then me.
“The credit line is cached,” she said. “Three repost accounts clipped it. Mara Quinn has it.”
Caleb’s face tightened. “Roll it back.”
June didn’t move. “If we roll it back now, it looks like we deleted her.”
“Then edit the segment.”
“Mara already has it.”
He stared at her. “Are you taking a side?”
June’s fingers tightened around the laptop. “I’m keeping us from committing fraud on a livestream.”
The elevator tried to close. I held the door.
Caleb stepped between us. “Conference room. Both of you.”
“No,” I said.
He looked at me like he had never heard the word from my mouth.
I stepped into the elevator beside June.
Caleb put one hand on the door frame. “If you go to Nightjar with proprietary material, I can’t protect you.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“I answer to investors.”
“There it is.”
June pressed Lobby.
Caleb didn’t move.
“Move,” June said.
He looked at her, stunned.
She didn’t blink.
Slowly, he took his hand away.
The doors closed.
For five floors, neither of us spoke.
Then June said, “He told us you didn’t want public credit.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course he did.
The lobby opened onto rain and camera phones. Someone near reception was watching Sienna’s stream on a tablet.
Sienna’s voice shook through the speaker. “Creative work is complicated. I’m sure Caleb will explain.”
My phone buzzed.
Rowan Hale:
I’m across the street. Bring only what is yours.
The elevator behind us dinged.
Caleb stepped out, still on the phone. His eyes found mine immediately.
“Maya, wait.”
For three years, that word had been my cage.
Wait until funding.
Wait until launch.
Wait until after this one thing.
I typed back to Rowan while Caleb watched.
I’m coming.
Then I walked into the rain.
