The screening room on the lot is too cold, the way they keep the soundstages.
Air vents whisper overhead, pushing recycled chill down onto bare arms and black clothes. The smell of coffee and supermarket hummus clings to the carpet, fighting with lilies and eucalyptus from the floral arrangements set in front of the screen. My folding chair digs into the backs of my thighs.
I stare at the blank projector screen and count the tiny scratches in the metal frame. One, two, three, four. I try to stay in the numbers, not the reason we’re all here.
“Thank you for coming,” the showrunner says at the front, voice tight around the edges. She stands behind a slim plexiglass podium, logo of the show taped discreetly over the studio seal. “Rhea was… she was family to us.”
My gaze drifts to the plexiglass. It catches the overhead lights and throws back a warped reflection of the room: rows of hunched shoulders, bowed heads, one bright blonde crown—mine—standing out like a target. Glass turns everything into a ghost version. It never forgets; it just distorts.
“We put together a little reel,” the showrunner continues. “To celebrate her work. To remember the joy she brought to set.”
The lights dim. The room exhales in unison. I clamp my hands around a paper cup of black coffee gone lukewarm and wait for impact.
The first image of Rhea fills the screen: she’s mid-spin in a fight scene from a superhero show I did five years ago, masked, flipping over a villain’s shoulder. The music swells, something orchestral and generic. A title card reads: Rhea Santos — In Motion.
Clip after clip rolls: Rhea doubling actresses I know and actresses I only recognize from billboards; Rhea running from fake explosions, Rhea taking punches to the face that weren’t really punches, except to her bones. Rhea laughing on behind-the-scenes footage, sweat plastering hair to her forehead while she pretends to faint dramatically between takes.
The montage director lingers on impact moments. Bodies hit cars, crash through sugar glass windows, roll down padded stairs. Every time the fall lands just right, the audience murmurs, appreciative and pained.
Then my face flashes up.
Not my real face; my character from a decade ago, sprinting down a metal catwalk in a Pennsylvania factory. The abandoned mill we used as location work, dress rehearsal for the real damage. The editors blur the background enough that only I recognize the rusted rail, the wet shimmer on the stairs.
Rhea takes my place in the next shot, same wardrobe, hair matching mine. She slips, tumbles down a short run of steps, hits the landing with a practiced thud, pops up grinning. The crew cheers on the soundtrack of the reel.
My palms go slick around the coffee cup. I feel the cold rail from the mill under my fingers again, that teenage night, the difference between a choreographed fall and a drop nobody yelled “Cut” on.
The montage ends with a still of Rhea on Stage 14 from a few weeks ago, holding her helmet in one hand, harness dangling from the other. She’s squinting into a shaft of light from the rafters, smiling straight into camera. The corners of her eyes crinkle.
“We love you, Rhea,” appears in simple white letters below her.
Applause starts in the front row, hesitant and scattered, then grows. People clap through tears, through blank faces. I raise my hands, stopping halfway to my chest. The muscles refuse. I lay them flat again on my knees and stare at the screen after it goes black, willing the image to reappear, proof she existed in more than stunt reels.
Marcus leans in from my right, his shoulder pressing against mine through his dark suit. “Breathe,” he whispers. His breath smells faintly of mint and espresso. “Remember what we talked about. Small reactions. No breakdown in public.”
“She’s dead,” I say, under the cover of clapping palms. “Everything else is detail.”
“Details become headlines,” he answers. “Headlines become court exhibits.”
The lights come back up. People blink and shift. The showrunner announces the reception in the lobby, thanks the studio, thanks the family, thanks the union. Words roll over me in a warm, meaningless wash.
I stand because everyone else stands. My knees wobble once, then lock. The room sways in my peripheral vision; I focus on the EXIT sign until the red letters settle.
Outside, the lobby hums with low voices and the soft clink of biodegradable plastic cups. Someone ordered green juice in tiny glass bottles, lined up next to coffee urns and a tray of cut fruit, LA mourning. A photo of Rhea leans against a vase of lilies: no makeup, tank top, chalk on her hands from some climb.
I take a juice shot without tasting it. The glass is slick and cold, condensation wetting my fingers. I hold onto it because I need something to do with my hands.
“They killed her with the schedule.”
The sentence drifts over from a cluster of crew near the far wall. I angle my body toward the photo table and my ears toward them.
“You saw the last call sheet,” a grip says, voice rough from years of shouting over machines. “Stunt block on half the time, back-to-back with those fire setups. No margin for rest, no extra checks. They were begging for it to go wrong.”
“Not ‘they,’” a woman answers. I think she’s from props. “We know exactly who signed off on it. Producers up, network down. But the press will blame ‘freak accident’ and wait for the next promo shot.”
“Stage 14 is cursed,” someone else mutters. “Sandbag, fire drill, now this. And who keeps walking away?” A pause. “No offense.”
I don’t look to see who said that last part. The skin between my shoulder blades tingles, waiting for their eyes.
“It’s not curses,” another voice says, lower, more controlled. A union rep, I realize, recognizing the cadence from safety meetings. “It’s a system that decides crew are expendable. Long hours, short turnarounds, pressure from upstairs. We’ve been yelling about this for years. Now they listen because a name they can Google died.”
“You think they’ll listen?” the grip asks. “Or you think they’ll just add a line about ‘thoughts and prayers’ to the email blast and call it a day?”
“Depends what leaks,” the rep replies. “Depends who talks. Depends who’s willing to stand next to us when the cameras roll.”
The last part lands like a pointed side-eye in my direction. I swallow hard, the juice sitting sour in my throat.
My status wraps around me like a velvet rope. Crew clusters give me a respectful radius, nodding if our eyes meet, but most don’t approach. A few actors from the show drift over, offering quick hugs, soft “So sorry”s before being pulled back into conversations about hiatus dates and, quietly, how production shut down affects their mortgages.
I am both centerpiece and contaminant. The studio printed glossy cards of my statement about Rhea to slip into press packets, a clean paragraph about loss and “re-doubling our commitment to safety.” Underneath, in smaller font, is the studio’s boilerplate condolences and a reminder that any questions should go through PR.
“Nora.” A hand touches my elbow lightly. The showrunner stands beside me, lipstick worn off the center of her mouth where she’s been pressing her lips together. “Rhea’s partner is here. Morgan. If you have the emotional bandwidth, I can introduce you.”
Emotional bandwidth. The phrase clangs against my skull.
“Of course,” I say. My tongue feels thick.
Marcus tenses next to me. “We can send a longer message later,” he says smoothly. “Today is for the family. We don’t want to intrude.”
“You’re not intruding,” the showrunner answers before I can. A flicker of defiance sparks in her eyes. “You’re the star of the show Rhea died on. You’re part of this whether you talk to them or not.”
That shuts him up for three seconds. I use them.
“Please introduce me,” I say.
Morgan stands near a table piled with framed photos and candles. Up close, I recognize her from the hospital: the denim jacket, the stunt association pin. She looks like she hasn’t slept since then. Her hair is pulled back into a rough bun, dark crescents under her eyes.
“Morgan,” the showrunner says softly. “This is Nora.”
Morgan’s gaze lands on me, drops to my hand, climbs back up. Her expression doesn’t change.
“Hi,” I say. The word scratches on the way out. “I—”
“You were her favorite,” Morgan interrupts, voice flat. “Just so you know. She hated that word, ‘favorite,’ but she used it anyway when she talked about you.”
My throat closes. “I don’t deserve—”
“She trusted you,” Morgan says, pressing over my words. “She trusted your instincts. When you said a stunt felt off, she’d go to bat with the coordinator, tell them we needed more pads or a different angle. She told me that all the time. ‘Nora actually listens,’ she’d say. ‘Nora gets it.’”
Her fingers tighten around the program in her hands until the paper crumples.
“I tried,” I say. “I tried to get them to take safety more seriously. On the fire day, on the sandbag—”
“But not on this one,” Morgan cuts in. Her eyes shine, rage and grief braided tight. “On this one, you let her jump for you.”
The air around us sharpens. The showrunner takes a small step back. Marcus shifts, ready to intervene.
“I argued with her,” I say, words tumbling out now that the dam has cracked. “I wanted to do it myself, to take that risk on my body for once, and she told me I was being dramatic. She said it was her job, that she could handle it, that she wanted to match the energy.”
Morgan laughs once, a dry, broken sound. “Yeah. That sounds like her. She never wanted to be the reason a shot got toned down.” She shoves a hand through her hair. “But you weren’t sixteen on a non-union set in a rusted-out mill this time, Nora. You’re the number one on a prestige show. You have power now.”
The word shoves me back toward Pennsylvania, toward the gossip in diners with bottomless coffee, the stories about who pushed and who fell. Power looked different then: a studio fixer’s business card, a lawyer’s pen. Now it’s in my contract rider, my Q scores, my face on a bus.
“You could have pulled the plug,” Morgan says, quieter. “You could have said, ‘We’re not doing this until safety is beyond question.’ You could have refused to let them compress the schedule. They might have punished you, but they would have recalculated. They always recalculate for stars.”
My eyes burn, vision blurring. I blink fast, refusing to let tears fall yet, not when she’s still standing dry-eyed in front of me.
“You’re right,” I say. The words wobble but hold. “I didn’t push hard enough. I signed off on the call sheet with everyone else. I let them tell me we were behind and needed to catch up. I let Rhea step off that platform for me.”
Morgan’s jaw works. “Was it worth it?” she asks. “Was that shot, that angle, that prestige, worth her?”
My chest caves inward. I can’t breathe around it.
“No.” My voice drops to a shred. “Nothing is worth her.”
She studies me for a long beat, as if weighing something. “Then what are you going to do?” she asks. “Cry on a talk show? Donate to a fund and move on? Or put your name on whatever the union files? Say on the record that they rushed, that you raised concerns, that they ignored you?”
On the record. The phrase drills straight into the hole Quinn left in me. I remember sitting on her thrifted couch, choking on the same words.
“I don’t know yet,” I admit. “But I should have done more already. I—”
“Nora,” Marcus says, stepping in, hand landing at the small of my back in that proprietorial way I hate. “Morgan, I am so sorry for your loss. Truly. Our firm has been in touch about the foundation we’re setting up in Rhea’s name, and we welcome your input when you’re ready. For now, I think Nora needs a moment.”
Morgan’s eyes flick to his hand, then to his face. Contempt tightens her mouth. “Of course,” she says. “Wouldn’t want the main character to get overwhelmed.”
Shame flares hot under my skin. I twist away from Marcus’s hand. “I can stay,” I tell her. “We can keep talking.”
She shakes her head. “Go do whatever you’re going to do,” she says. “Just know that whatever story you tell next, Rhea doesn’t get a rewrite.”
She turns away, joining a knot of stunt performers near the candles. They close ranks around her, backs forming a wall.
Marcus steers me toward a quieter corner, voice low and urgent. “We’re leaving,” he says. “Now.”
“You dragged me away from her,” I hiss. “Did you hear what she asked me? She wants me to stand with them. To say something real.”
“And you can,” he says. “After we strategize, after we understand exposure. Right now there are three paparazzi vans parked outside the lot gates, and at least one stringer inside posing as a lighting tech.” He tips his chin toward the far end of the lobby.
Near the catering tables, a guy in a too-new hoodie pretends to scroll on his phone, camera lens glinting from the bag at his feet. Another person at the doorway melts back whenever someone glances their way, but their eyes keep tracking me.
“They want a shot of you cracking,” Marcus continues. “Red eyes, mascara streaks, hugged by a grieving widow. They will crop her face, blow yours up, and slap on a headline about ‘Nora Hayes’s Private Heartbreak.’ That is what they do. And then this becomes your tragedy instead of Rhea’s, and that helps no one but the studio.”
“So we do nothing?” I ask. My hands are shaking now, finally, fingers buzzing with all the things I didn’t do on that stage. “We slink out the side door and send a check later?”
“We craft a statement,” he says. “We talk to legal, to PR, to the union rep, to Elle. We push for real safety changes behind the scenes, and when the time is right, we put you in front of the right microphone. We don’t give the tabloids free content while you’re raw and they’re waiting.”
His logic wraps around my anger, heavy and familiar. It sounds like care; it tastes like control.
Across the room, near the sign-in table, an assistant production coordinator flips open a binder. The day’s call sheet peeks out, edges smudged with fingerprints. A grip steps closer, phone angled down. The camera shutter is silent, but I know that instinctive movement now: capture, archive, keep receipts before they disappear.
“They’re documenting,” I say quietly, nodding toward the binder. “They don’t trust us to tell what happened.”
Marcus follows my gaze. His jaw tightens. “And they shouldn’t,” he answers. “Because whoever cut that line is still out there, and everyone is afraid of being the next one under the bus. All the more reason for you to move very, very carefully.”
I think of Elle’s report, folded in my bag. Failure consistent with post-inspection tampering. I think of Quinn’s voice on her podcast, threading my teen years into a narrative I refuse to finish. I think of Lila at the bottom of the mill stairs, Rhea on the pad, Morgan asking me what I’m going to do.
“I’m tired of careful,” I say. My voice shakes but holds. “Careful keeps ending with someone else in the hospital.”
Marcus searches my face, reading the points where I might break. “You’re not ready to take this on today,” he says. “You can’t fight the system when you’re still bleeding. Give yourself 24 hours. Then we plan.”
Part of me wants to shove his hand away and walk back to Morgan, to the union rep, to the crew whispering by the hummus. To climb on the stupid coffee table and say, You’re right, and I’ll stand next to you when you go public. To burn my carefully worded condolences in the nearest trash can.
Another part remembers the fixer’s office when I was sixteen, the way my mother’s hand crushed mine while lawyers talked about “mitigating factors” and “future potential.” Remembering what happens to girls from river towns who stop playing along.
I let Marcus guide me toward the side exit, anger riding shotgun with fear.
The hallway beyond the lobby is lined with framed photos from old studio productions, all glossy smiles and orchestrated tears. The glass over each image reflects our passing shapes, Nora Hayes and her manager gliding through history like nothing can touch us.
“You’ll call Morgan,” I say. “Not your assistant. You. And you’ll listen instead of talking.”
“I will,” he says. For once, he doesn’t argue.
We reach the unmarked door that leads to the small parking lot behind the building. Through its narrow wired glass window, I see the sun-bright rectangle of outside, the LA hills hazy in the distance, the silhouette of a long lens peeking up over the perimeter hedge.
Marcus pushes the bar. Warm air rushes in, smelling of exhaust and jacaranda. Voices from the lobby fade behind us.
I step through, feeling every inch of the threshold.
By the time we reach the car, the photo of that call sheet is already living in someone’s camera roll, waiting for the first person brave enough to share it with the world.