Chapter 3

Wren's POV

I don't flinch. Don't even blink.

"Look, the night before the SAT, I was stressed. I wanted someone to keep me on track while I studied, and I figured I'd document the last night of high school while I was at it. That's not a crime." I keep my voice even. "As for why I never left the frame — I had practice tests to get through. I didn't have time."

The detective watches me for a long moment. He doesn't look fully convinced, but the recording is right there on the table and he knows it.

"Sit tight. We need to run your video through our tech team, make sure there's no editing or AI-generated content." He takes my phone and walks out.

He's barely gone when the door opens again.

This time it's not just the detective. Lainey walks in with both her parents. Her father, Garrett Prescott, goes straight for me the second he's through the door. "You're the one who did this to my daughter? She nearly passed out in the middle of her test." He turns to the detective. "You have evidence. Why isn't she in a cell right now?"

Lainey puts a hand on his arm. "Dad, stop. She says she has a recording that proves she wasn't there."

Then she turns to the detective, and I watch something harden behind her eyes before she covers it up. She pulls a flash drive out of her pocket. "I really didn't want to have to do this. Wren has been one of my closest friends." She sets it on the table. "But last night, when I went back to school to grab some stuff, I came across footage from a private security camera near the side entrance. I didn't even realize what I was looking at until later."

The detective plugs it in.

The footage is clear. Timestamp reads two in the morning, the night before the SAT. On screen, a girl in a uniform exactly like mine climbs over the low wall by the school's side entrance. She's got a canvas tote over one shoulder and a bag from our bakery in her hand. When she turns around, the camera catches her face head-on.

It looks exactly like me.

Through the glass, the parents waiting outside lose it. Someone starts banging on the door.

"How is she still arguing? It's right there on the screen!"

"You can't fake security footage!"

Lainey brings a hand to her mouth, shaking her head slowly. "Wren, why would you do this? Even if we didn't buy anything from your bakery, you didn't have to ruin everyone's SAT over it."

Just like that, the room turns against me again.

The detective's expression goes cold. "Monroe. What do you have to say now?"

I stare at the girl on the screen. My nails press into my palm.

Last time, this footage broke me. I had no answer for it, and I fell apart right here in this room.

But I've already died once. I'm not doing that again.

I don't cry. I don't waste my breath saying that's not me. I just look at Lainey, steady.

"Footage can be faked." My voice doesn't waver. "I want your tech team to run the same analysis on that security clip as they did on my stream. Frame rate, metadata, all of it. Because if I was climbing that wall at two in the morning, then who's the person sitting at my desk in the recording at the exact same time?"

Something flickers across Lainey's face. Then it's gone, and she's calm again. She's confident in that footage. I can tell.

Two hours pass.

When the detective finally comes back in, he looks like he's been staring at something that doesn't add up. He stands there for a second before he speaks.

"We got the results."

Garrett leans forward. "So the stream was pre-recorded, right? She faked it?"

The detective shakes his head. His eyes move between me and Lainey.

"Tech team went through it three times. Wren Monroe's livestream has no edits, no cuts, no tampering. It's a hundred percent real-time." He pauses. "But the security footage Lainey provided also shows no signs of AI manipulation or post-production alteration."

He looks at both of us.

"Both recordings are real."