By morning, the fake had crawled across every screen in the city. On the hotel TV, the anchors' voices were polite daggers: troubling new confession from the Blackwell intern… raises questions about coercion… experts say synthetic media is on the rise but difficult to prove in court.
I muted the sound, but the captions screamed anyway. She can't say no. She'll lose everything.
That isn't me, I wanted to shout. That will never be me.
A knock rattled the door. I startled, heart slamming, until Ethan's voice came through, urgent and low. "Ella? It's me."
I cracked the door. He slipped inside, laptop bag on one shoulder, circles under his eyes. "Don't open for anyone else. Tara was sniffing around the lobby, and Legal says reporters are camping the service exit."
"Great," I muttered, hugging my knees on the bed. "So now I'm trapped and infamous."
Ethan dropped his bag and pulled up a feed. "Adrian's ordered a full forensic dive on the fake. He can't be here—TRO's officially in force since 7 a.m.—but he said, and I quote, 'make sure she knows she's not alone.'"
My throat tightened. "He actually said that?"
Ethan gave a half-smile. "Blackwell doesn't waste words."
We spent hours combing through the file. Ethan showed me frequency spectrograms, pixel mismatches, metadata tags. "See this? The background hum is lifted from a 2019 interview of you at Carter's charity gala. They cloned the noise bed. Amateur mistake."
I squinted at the blue and yellow bands, none of it making sense. "But the public doesn't read spectrograms. They just see my face saying words I never said."
"That's why we get ahead of it." Ethan typed furiously. "We'll draft a counter-video. Lab voice experts again. Maybe even you, live, showing the discrepancies."
My stomach twisted. "Me? After the last one—"
"You cut through noise," he said. "Remember? That's what Adrian saw in you. People believe eyes more than graphs."
By noon, the hashtags had doubled. #CarterConfession was joined by #ProtectElla. Some strangers called me brave, others gullible, others liar.
The worst were the edits: my real face, cut into memes, lips looped around the same doctored line—I can't say no to him.
I slammed the phone down. "They're going to eat me alive."
Ethan crouched in front of me, expression steady. "Look at me. You're not meat. You're fire. And fire doesn't get eaten."
The words helped, a little.
At three, the door buzzed. A hotel staffer delivered an envelope stamped with COURT NOTICE. My hands shook as I tore it open.
Inside: a subpoena.
Ella Carter is ordered to testify in hearing Carter v. Blackwell, 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.
The paper blurred. "He—he's making me…"
Ethan read fast, lips thinning. "Daniel petitioned the judge to compel your statement. If you don't show, they'll spin it as guilt. If you do, they'll try to twist your words."
My chest clenched. "So either way, I lose."
"No," Ethan said firmly. "Either way, we frame it."
The intercom crackled—Adrian's voice, tinny but alive. He must've patched into Ethan's secure line. "Ella."
I nearly cried at the sound. "I'm here."
"You'll testify tomorrow," he said, calm as a verdict. "And you'll tell the truth. Nothing more. Nothing less."
"What if they don't believe me?" My voice cracked. "What if the video's louder than I am?"
"Then we make your voice louder," he said. "Ethan will prep you. I'll prep the court. We'll walk into that room as if the TRO doesn't exist." A pause, softer. "Rule Four. Trust no one but me."
My chest ached. "I do."
For a second, silence stretched like a tether between us—thin, fragile, unbreakable.
Then the line clicked dead.
Night fell heavy. I sat at the window, city lights pulsing like gossip. Every time I blinked, I saw the fake-me on a thousand screens. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard Adrian's voice—trust no one but me.
I whispered it to the glass, a prayer and a promise.
And in the dark reflection, my own face answered back: Tomorrow, you fight.