The email lands in my inbox with the soft, deceitful ping of every bad decision I’ve ever made.
I sit at the big reclaimed table in the loft, laptop warm under my wrists, the afternoon light sliding in through the industrial windows and turning the dust over my keyboard into glitter. The portable AC unit in the corner rattles and wheezes, pushing out air that smells faintly of ozone and burning dust. My coffee’s gone cold beside me, a thin skin forming on top, but my tongue still remembers the bitter edge.
The subject line reads: Exclusive Finale Access – “Second Chances” x “Second Take”.
I click before I can talk myself into pretending this is spam.
Hi Quinn, the publicist writes, all soft branding and sunny menace. We’ve been following your thoughtful coverage of Nora Hayes and the broader conversation around accountability in our industry. I snort. My last episode’s title was “Who Gets a River and Who Gets a Gravestone.” Thoughtful isn’t the word the studio lawyer used when he emailed me at two a.m.
I scroll.
As we approach the highly anticipated finale shoot for “Second Chances,” we’re exploring opportunities to partner with journalists and podcasters who can offer nuanced perspectives. We’d love to invite you to observe the finale day on Stage 14, including stunt rehearsals and select behind-the-scenes moments with Nora and key creatives, for a potential “making-of” piece or audio special.
My heart kicks hard enough that I feel it in my teeth. Stage 14. The mill set. The place where Rhea died.
My scroll finger slows over the next paragraph.
In exchange for this exclusive access, we hope your follow-up coverage might help contextualize harmful online speculation and highlight Nora’s artistry and growth. We’re not asking for a “puff piece,” of course—just balance and care in how the story is framed.
“There it is,” I whisper.
The loft hums around me: AC, old building pipes, Jazz’s low playlist drifting from the speaker—some indie band singing about broken glass over a synth line. The words exclusive access and balance sit next to each other on the screen, smiling like they don’t know what they’re saying.
At the bottom, the publicist offers a parking pass, a Stage 14 visitor badge, and “opportunities for light on-camera interaction between Nora and the ‘Second Take’ brand.”
“They want a crossover episode,” I say to nobody.
My reflection stares back at me in the laptop’s black bezel—eyes ringed, hair escaping my bun, a faint smudge of donut sugar at the corner of my mouth from the box our listener mailed last week. I feel the old thirteen-year-old inside me, the one who watched Nora cry on River’s Edge reruns while the mill towered behind my own town in every exterior shot, raising her hand and whispering, Say yes, please say yes.
“Yo, why are you talking to your screen again?” Jazz calls from the couch.
I jump. “Get over here,” I say. “You need to see this.”
She pads over in socks, bringing the smell of microwaved coffee and that cinnamon body spray she likes. She leans her hip against the table and squints at the email, one hand on the back of my chair.
“Oh,” she says, drawn-out. “Oh, they’re serious.”
“Apparently I’m ‘thoughtful,’” I say. “And trusted. And a potential tool in their righteous quest against online speculation.”
“Translation,” she says, tapping the trackpad to highlight contextualize harmful online speculation. “They want you to help them defang your own reporting.”
“They want me to watch the finale,” I say, and my voice does something embarrassing on that last word.
Jazz hears it. “Of course you want to go,” she says. “It’s Stage 14. It’s Nora. It’s your white whale and your childhood poster in one place. But this is a bribe wrapped in a lanyard.”
I let my shoulders rise and fall. “It’s also access,” I say. “Real, physical access. Cameras and callsheets only get us so far. I keep talking about patterns on sets, and this is an actual set.”
“A set where a woman died six weeks ago,” Jazz says. “And where somebody’s been cutting ropes and taping over emergency stops. Did you forget the entire second act of your own podcast this season?”
A breeze from the AC slides under the collar of my T-shirt and I shiver. The loft suddenly feels narrower, the brick walls inching closer; the corkboards full of printed mill photos and Nora stills and red string pulsing in my peripheral vision like veins.
“I didn’t forget,” I say. “That’s the point. Maybe being in the room when they shoot the finale lets me see who flinches. Who rushes. Who rolls their eyes at safety briefings.”
Jazz drops into the chair opposite me, wood scraping floor. “Or maybe being in the room makes you part of the set dressing for Nora’s redemption special,” she says. “They put you on camera, she does soulful eye contact with the woman who ‘challenged her narrative,’ and boom—GIFs forever. You become evidence that she faced scrutiny, so the studio can move on.”
I drum my fingers against the table. “You say that like I don’t control what I air,” I say.
“Do you?” she asks, head tilted. “Last time, you spent half an episode apologizing for speculating about missing stunt reports. You rerecorded that outro three times to make sure you didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. Now imagine that times a billion, with Nora looking at you in person, crying under perfect lighting.”
Heat climbs my neck. I hate that she’s right, and I hate that she knows it better than anyone.
I scroll back to the top of the email, reading the first paragraph again. Nuanced perspectives. Partner. The words nudge against the part of me that still wants to be in the room, that still wants the studios to call instead of blacklist.
“We can put conditions in our reply,” I say. “No prior approval. No copy review. Full editorial independence. We go on record about that before I set foot on their lot.”
“And if they say no?” she asks.
“Then I stay in this loft and refresh Twitter while someone else takes the tour,” I say. “But if they say yes, I get my eyes on Stage 14.”
Jazz sighs and rubs her thumb over a coffee ring on the table, smearing it into a vague halo. “You know I’m the last person who can tell you not to chase a story,” she says. “But this isn’t just access. It’s geography. You’re moving from the safe side of the glass into the haunted house.”
I follow her gaze to the windows. Outside, LA glows—sunset bleeding peach over the skyline, the hills starting to twinkle. Somewhere up there, Nora’s glass box of a house catches the same light, its windows reflecting a life built on NDAs and donations. Somewhere far east, the river fog wraps around a different mill, the real one; the one with rust that never got repainted.
“If we care about what happens in those spaces,” I say, “someone has to walk inside and look.”
“Maybe that someone shouldn’t be the person whose voice keeps egging the story forward,” Jazz says softly. “You know Lila’s somewhere in this mess. You know someone’s angry enough to cut ropes. You know how fans treat women who poke the bear.”
The mention of Lila turns the air sharp. I remember the voicemail from the old production assistant, the way their voice broke on the word pushed. I remember the uncropped mill photo, the bruised face that vanished from streaming platforms.
“If it’s a trap,” I say, “they already know where I live. Half my listeners have sent me cold brew gift cards. That publicist probably has my Spotify wrapped memorized.”
Jazz snorts despite herself. “You joking doesn’t make this less real,” she says. “Look at me.”
I do. Her eyes shine, not with tears, but with that focused, exasperated care she reserves for stray cats and me.
“If you go,” she says, “you don’t go alone. I come as your producer. We write our own schedule. We keep clear of stunts, catwalks, anything that smells like fake smoke or real danger. You don’t eat anything they hand you without me sniffing it first.”
A laugh escapes me, tight but real. “You think they’re going to poison the podcaster?”
“I think people who feel cornered get sloppy,” she says. “And I think being on set means breathing in whatever they’re burning that day, literally and metaphorically.”
The chemical tang from our fog machine—currently unplugged near the door—floats into my memory, overlaying with stories I’ve edited about asthma attacks and singed wigs. Safety as a branding exercise.
“Okay,” I say. “We go together. We set boundaries. And we use this, not the other way around.”
Jazz leans back. “So you’re really doing it.”
“I’m really doing it,” I say.
My fingers tremble just enough that I rest them on the keys to hide it. I open a new message and hit reply.
Hi [Publicist’s Name], I type. Thanks for reaching out—I’m open to discussing this. I’m only comfortable attending under the understanding that “Second Take” retains full editorial independence, including the right to air critical perspectives and to decline any on-camera participation that feels like PR rather than reporting…
Words pour out, half legalese, half manifesto. Jazz reads over my shoulder, occasionally reaching in to delete a hedging adverb or a self-deprecating joke.
When I finish, I sit there with my finger over the trackpad.
“Three,” Jazz says. “Two. One.”
I hit send.
For a second, nothing changes. Then my inbox pings again, too quickly to be anything but an auto-responder. Out of office until tomorrow; finale prep in full swing… At the bottom, in the signature, Stage 14’s address winks at me like an invitation and a warning.
“You just put yourself on their call sheet,” Jazz says.
I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. “Good,” I say. “Now we see if they’re willing to share the script.”
I spend the night half-watching the city through my bedroom window, my phone face-down on the nightstand. Every time a notification buzzes, my heart jerks, and I imagine a dozen different subject lines: Access Revoked. Clarification Needed. Excited To Partner! The glass throws my reflection back at me in the dark—wide awake eyes, phone glow on my cheek, the silhouette of the mill poster I keep framed above my desk.
Healing needs space, my therapist likes to say. Accountability needs daylight. I’m starting to think the real problem is that I keep dragging everyone into fluorescent studio lighting and calling it justice.
In the morning, the answer waits.
Hi Quinn, the publicist writes. So glad you’re open to this. Completely understand and respect your independence; that’s part of why we value your voice. We’re confident that being embedded on set will give you a fuller picture of Nora’s heart and leadership, but of course your conclusions are your own.
There’s a PDF attached: Stage 14 Visitor Packet – Finale Day, plus a calendar invite. My name sits there in bold, next to the words BTS Observing Podcaster.
Jazz whistles when I show her. “They’re rolling out the green juice carpet,” she says, flicking through the packet. “Parking pass, craft service access, ‘safety briefing attendance mandatory.’”
My eyes snag on that last part. Mandatory Safety Briefing – 5:30 A.M. My body already protests at the time; my brain latches onto the word safety like it’s an inside joke told in bad taste.
“Look,” Jazz says, pointing near the bottom. “They’re offering you a ten-minute sit-down with Nora between set-ups. ‘Subject to talent’s emotional bandwidth.’”
My chest twists around the phrase. “So, a pre-approved micro-confession,” I say. “Perfect.”
“You don’t have to take that slot,” Jazz reminds me. “You can say you’re there to observe the machine, not feed it.”
I nod, though the thought of being in the same room as Nora—and not across an audio waveform—drags at me like gravity.
I accept the calendar invite. The event drops onto my screen in a soft shade of studio-approved blue: Finale BTS – Stage 14 – ACCESS CONFIRMED.
“Well,” I say. “Guess I’m going to the haunted house.”
Jazz bumps my shoulder with hers. “I’ll bring salt,” she says.
I laugh, but my stomach stays tight. I tell myself this is good, that bearing witness matters, that my presence might keep people honest. Truth loves an audience, I remind myself.
I don’t let the other side of that thought finish.
I hear about the podcaster before I see her name on any official list.
It’s Tuesday, and Stage 14 smells like burned dust and fake river. The crew has been stress-testing the new fog machines all morning, filling the air with a clammy chemical chill that clings to my clothes. I stand by the monitor bank, flipping through a worn notebook while the gaffer argues with an assistant over light levels on the mill staircase.
Behind me, two PAs gossip in low voices as they attack a box of sticky craft-service donuts.
“Did you hear they’re bringing that podcast girl?” one of them says, mouth full, fingers glazed.
My pen pauses over the page.
“The one who keeps dragging us on Twitter?” the other says. “Bold of them to invite their own prosecutor.”
“Apparently it’s some kind of behind-the-scenes special tie-in,” the first replies. “They’re betting she’ll chill once she meets Nora in person. Happens all the time. They come in breathing fire, leave clutching gift bags.”
“Yeah, well, I hope she makes everyone sit up straight at the safety meeting,” the second says. “Last time we did a burn gag, the extinguishers were three beats too far away.”
Their voices move off toward the donut table, swallowed by the hum of the AC and the clatter of grips resetting sandbags. I lower my gaze to my notebook again, though the words there have lost their edges.
Quinn Hart.
I’ve listened to her voice for weeks now, hitting play on episodes in my car on the drive between the studio and my rented room in Los Feliz. I know the cadence she uses when she calls something “interesting” and means “definitely unethical.” I know how her breath catches on certain details about the mill, like she grew up with a rusted skeleton on her horizon too.
I draw a small box in the margin and write her name inside: Quinn – podcaster – Finale Day present.
Underneath, I list what that changes.
Witness with platform.
Pressure on Nora – may increase chance she takes the mic.
Additional body at risk if things go wrong.
My pen hovers over that last line. Risk isn’t what I want for her. Witness is. Proof is. Someone outside the studio’s glass walls who can say, later, what they saw when the house of cards shook.
Still, I don’t pretend bodies on these sets are theoretical.
I circle her name and add an arrow to another note: Confession window – BTS live segment? The finale day already has more moving pieces than is comfortable—stunt schedules, Nora’s deadline, my own insurance policy sitting in a metal case under my bed. Adding a journalist into the mix feels reckless and perfect at the same time.
The monitor in front of me reflects the set: the fake Pennsylvania mill, slick rails gleaming under key lights, fog creeping over the concrete like river breath. On the glass of the screen, I catch a double image—my face and the empty staircase behind me, waiting.
Truth wants an audience, Nora told me once, back when we were kids and she still believed the right story could save us. I didn’t believe her then.
Now, with a podcaster en route and a finale wired for fire, I finally give the idea room in my skull.
“Let them come,” I murmur, flipping the notebook closed.
I tuck it under my arm and head toward the safety office, already rewriting my own plan in my head to account for one more set of eyes, one more beating heart, on Stage 14.
On the inside cover of the notebook, in small neat letters, I add a final line:
Make sure the story has enough witnesses to survive, even if we don’t.