In the sterile darkness of the mobile command post, Caspian Hawthorne watched it all unfold on a bank of monitors. One screen showed the live broadcast. Another showed Isolde’s face, a tight close-up from a dedicated camera. A third displayed the pre-recorded report, the file labeled `The Reckoning`.
He felt nothing. Not triumph. Not satisfaction. Just the cold, hollow finality of a necessary amputation.
On the main screen, the journalist’s voice was a blade. “The story begins, as it so often does, with a victim. A woman who claims to be dying from a rare and aggressive form of cancer. But our investigation found someone else who was victimized. Her caregiver.”
The image changed. A woman sat in shadow, her face and voice digitally altered into an anonymous blur. But the pain was unmistakable. It was Maria.
“She was never sick,” the disguised voice trembled, thick with fear and regret. “Not for a moment.”
In the front row of the studio, Isolde’s frozen smile finally shattered. A storm of disbelief, then confusion, then pure, stark terror washed over her features. This was impossible. Maria was gone. She was paid. She was threatened.
Maria’s testimony continued, a river of damning truth. She detailed the crushed herbs used to mimic the scent of sickness, the makeup used to create a pallid complexion, the self-induced vomiting. She recounted the carefully coached symptoms, the medical textbooks left open for her to study.
“She told me… she told me if I ever said anything, she would make sure my children were taken from me. That she would have my family deported. I had no choice.” The anonymous silhouette on the screen broke down into ragged sobs.
Isolde shot to her feet. The performance was over. Raw panic took its place. She had to get out. She turned to flee up the aisle, to escape the thousands of eyes, the dozens of cameras.
A man in a simple black suit stepped into her path. He was one of the event’s security guards. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t speak. He simply stood there, an impassable wall.
“Let me through,” she hissed, her voice a venomous whisper.
The guard’s expression was placid, his gaze fixed somewhere over her head. “Please return to your seat, ma’am. For your safety.”
She was trapped. A prisoner in her front-row seat, the spotlight a cage of light.
Caspian watched her on the monitor. He saw the cornered animal in her eyes. Then his gaze shifted to the other screen, to the shadowed form of Maria. He remembered the caregiver’s terror when Zara had first spoken to her, the quiet dignity with which she finally agreed to tell her story.
He had done this. His blindness, his arrogance, his desperate need to be a savior had created this monster and victimized this innocent woman.
This was not a victory. This was a penance. And it had only just begun.
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