The morning crowd pushed warm air through the bakery like a tide: sugar and steam, cardamom and yeast. I stood behind the case with a grease pencil in my fingers, pretending to update the price of pineapple buns while my phone balanced against a jar of honey sticks. Lyla’s live filled the screen—ring-light bright, marble island polished to a mirror. The chat rivered past with hearts, whisk emojis, and the tiny bee icon her fans spam when something lands.
“Okay, hive,” she said, voice that Sunday-calming register she learned after months of trial and error. “Today we’re testing the citrus glaze—”
The video hiccuped. Her smile stalled mid-curve. Confetti bloomed from the top of frame, wrong angle for her usual cannon. I tapped the screen with a flour-dusted nail.
The feed froze on that half-smile, mouth parted, eyes not quite on camera. Hearts kept rising anyway, hot air balloons with nowhere to go. My scalp prickled under my bun.
“We’re out of taro,” my mother called in Cantonese from the back, banging a tray down. “Tell them to order custard.”
“Two minutes,” I said, though I didn’t look up.
The screen cut to black, then light. A countdown replaced Lyla: 71:59:59, digits white on a honey-blush field. In the corner a watermark clung like gum on a shoe—the eco-cleaning brand that sponsored today’s stream. Not the little “paid partnership” sticker; their logo, latched to the clock.
The chat triggered an avalanche.
WHERE IS SHE
omg prank???
hive assemble!!!
Notifications ghost-clicked in my head, even muted. I tasted metal behind my teeth; the ring light’s ozone lingered in my memory, a lab-clean smell that never belonged with lemon zest.
“Mara?” one of the regulars asked. “Are you raising the price or hypnotizing that jar?”
I capped the grease pencil. “Price holds,” I said, voice steady. My hand wasn’t. I wiped it on my apron and leaned closer to the screen. A subtle shadow on the wall to the left of the neon script. The sign hung two centimeters off-level—Lyla’s pet peeve. The plant leaves in the corner reflected a soft box from an angle she never used for kitchen lives. The confetti wasn’t her brand palette either; she uses sunset pastels. This was primary-bright, high-saturation, the kind that reads in viral apologies.
“Cute stunt,” someone typed. “Marketing genius.”
I knew every trick she ever deployed. This wasn’t hers.
I thumbed to her phone. Straight to voicemail. “You’ve reached Lyla. Leave something sweet.”
I hung up and called again. Same. The clock ticked: 71:58:51.
“What’s wrong?” my mother said, appearing with a scoop in her hand, powdered sugar icing her forearm. The morning light off the harbor made her glasses bloom milk-white.
“Her feed cut,” I said. I kept my voice low. We’ve learned—no scenes unless they sell. In Larkspur Bay, yelling draws cameras, not help.
“Cut like crash?” she said. “Or cut like drama.”
“The kind that bills as drama.” I turned the phone so she could see the watermark. She squinted, then pressed two fingers to the jar of honey sticks, a habit from the old superstition—touch sweetness before a sour day.
A table of teenagers beside the window had already mirrored the stream on a tablet. Fog leaned in through the glass, turning the cliff-backed harbor into soft brushstrokes. On the wall outside, a QR mural slid to a new ad like a blinking eye. The city resets even as it watches.
My phone buzzed in my palm. Nessa P (Hive Mod): you seeing this?
I typed with both thumbs. Watching. Watermark’s wrong. Confetti wrong. Room’s over-curated.
She wrote back immediately. Mods are locking comments rn. Hearts are panicking. Can you confirm she’s safe?
My throat tightened. I didn’t answer.
“Call her again,” my mother said, like a commandment. She plated egg tarts with quick wrists. “Then go.”
I called. Voicemail. I listened to her message anyway, her joke about “leave something sweet” thickening in my ear like syrup. I hung up before it stuck.
The countdown ticked. 71:57:09.
“You want me to run front?” my mother asked, even though she already was—three old men debating mahjong rules at one end, a couple splitting a guava bun at the other. The bakery breathed and fed; the city’s heartbeat ran through our ovens.
“I’ll go to the loft.” I slid the tip jar toward the back wall. We’d been robbed once by a person who watched too long. “Don’t let anyone film you, okay?”
“I’m not the one who feeds the camera,” she said, but she nodded. The line deepened between her eyebrows. “Mara, take the spare key.”
I had it already in my pocket, laminated like a hardened sugar shard. I’d made a copy the day Lyla signed her lease, in the name of “emergencies.” We’d fought about that. She accused me of not trusting her boundaries; I accused her of not recognizing danger dressed in cubic shelving.
“Do you want me to text Nessa anything?” my mother added, surprising me. She remembered the mod by name—Nessa had sent red bean buns to moderators during a charity night once. Kindness yields memory.
“Tell her I’ll report from the scene,” I said. “And to shut down any doxxing.”
“She knows,” my mother said, and lifted the tray like a shield.
On the screen, the brand logo pulsed with the digits. Not a glitch; placement. I pinched to zoom. A thin disclosure sentence scrolled at the bottom, legal by a hair: countdown experience sponsored by— My stomach tightened. Sponsorship language welded to disappearance. Safety packaged as content. Rescue priced by the minute.
Micro-hook: If I waited, the clock would turn my sister into a sales funnel.
The door chimed again; salted caramel steam from the pier drifted in with two customers dragging suitcases. I slid around them, the bell ringing once, metallic and bright. Outside, the harbor funnelled fog down Market, smearing neon into daylight smudges. Pop-up stalls were assembling along the row; a vendor stenciled a fresh QR onto his container, the paint smell sweet and chemical. “Don’t make a scene unless it’s profitable,” the city always whispers. I walked faster.
My phone vibrated with Nessa again. Headed where?
Honeycomb. I typed back. Lock forum. No raids. No calls IRL. Pin resources.
Already on it. A typing bubble, then: Do you think she planned this? Be honest.
I stopped at the curb, listening to the crowd-noise of nothing—the moments before attention chooses a direction. “She hates off-level neon,” I texted. “The sign was crooked.”
Three dots. That’s your tell?
“It’s hers,” I murmured to my screen, then pocketed the phone and raised my arm for a rideshare. A car slowed—roof light throwing a pale blue blink on the wet asphalt. I slid into the back. The interior smelled like coconut air freshener and coffee left too long on a hot plate.
“Tide Market?” the driver asked.
“River Street, by the honey mural,” I said. “Then up one. The pink building.”
He nodded and merged. On my phone the countdown chewed seconds. People were screen-recording; I knew they were. Receipts for later accusations. I opened a new note and started a list: wrong confetti / off-level neon / extra soft box / watermark persists / disclosure line.
The driver glanced at the mirror. “You into that influencer? My girlfriend watches her lives while we eat.”
“She cooks well,” I said. The words felt like damp bread in my mouth. “Today’s not a cooking video.”
He shrugged. “It’s all a video. Even this,” he said, gesturing at the road, “would be better with captions.”
I thought of the theme I never say aloud: the more we broadcast to be seen, the easier we get scripted. Captions turn a life into a lesson. A countdown turns a person into a thesis.
We passed a mural of a bee with a crown—one of Lyla’s drop tie-ins had paid for it. A fresh QR covered part of the wing, advertising a flash sale somewhere else. The city layered story over story until only the newest one mattered.
My phone rang. Not Lyla. Nessa.
I answered. “I’m on my way.”
“I’m trying to keep the hive from swarming,” she said without hello. Her voice carried caffeine and campus library air. “Half of them want to call hospitals. Half want to storm her building. A reactor is already doing a play-by-play with tip goals.”
“Lock threads. Post a no-call policy. Link crisis hotlines instead,” I said. “If anyone posts an address, ban on sight. No warning.”
“Copy. Hey—one more thing.” Nessa lowered her voice on reflex, though we both lived on phones that mined whispers. “There’s a weird clause surfacing in her sponsor contract. People are screenshotting, but it’s cropped. Something about ‘countdown experience.’”
“I saw the disclosure line,” I said.
“Mara… they made a timer into a feature.”
“I know.” I pressed my thumb between my eyes until stars popped. “Don’t feed the reactors. Redirect energy to reporting links.”
“You sound like a deck,” she said, and then softened. “Sorry. I’m just—”
“I know,” I said again, and let my voice be human. “I’m scared.”
She breathed. “Thank you for saying it. Ping me when you get eyes on the loft.”
“I will.” I hung up and stared out at the fog as it thinned. Larkspur Bay revealed its edges like a shy face; the cliffs looked close enough to press with your palm. Somewhere behind those cliffs was the farmhouse I had never visited. Not yet.
We turned onto River Street. The pink building rose with its ornate cornice and shy fire escape. The Honeycomb Loft lived on the third floor, over a boutique that sold linen jumpsuits in shades named after flowers. The driver pulled to the curb.
“Good luck,” he said, reading my face like a headline he didn’t want to click.
“Thanks,” I said, and handed him a honey stick from my pocket. “Try this instead of coconut.”
He grinned, then sobered when he saw my screen. “Hope she’s okay.”
“Me too,” I said, and stepped out.
The sidewalk was damp and glittered with old flyer glue. My shoes stuck and peeled, stuck and peeled. I tasted salt from the bay and coffee from the café next door. Above me, the Honeycomb’s windows reflected the ring of the streetlight, a ghost-ring—another circle within a circle. Honeycomb shelves behind glass—hexagons trapping little memoirs: a copper measuring cup, a fern leaf, a stack of cookbooks like soft bricks.
The countdown continued in my hand: 71:49:22. The brand watermark sat like a signature on a ransom note. If I let this run, the city would do what it always does—turn panic into a pop-up, grief into merch. Rescue for sale. Our family name in the comments, then in the paper, then in the court of public comments forever.
I stood under the awning and dialed Lyla again. Straight to voicemail. “It’s me,” I said to the tone. “If you can’t talk, make a mess. You hate crooked neon.”
I ended the call and stared at the door buzzer panel. My sister had a childhood habit of leaving me breadcrumbs only I could see. I looked up at the neon script through the glass. It hung two centimeters off-level. She was telling me either she wasn’t in control, or she wanted this noticed.
My thumb hovered over the call button for the third-floor unit. I took the spare key from my pocket; the metal held bakery warmth. I glanced down at my apron—flour thumbprint at the corner, sugar on my sleeve—and swiped at it like that could change what I represented when I opened that door: family, fixer, witness.
“Mara?” a voice said behind me. A student in a beanie, phone already raised. “Are you Lyla’s sister? Can I—”
I held up a palm. “Don’t film me,” I said, not loud, not pleading. “Not right now.”
He faltered, then lifted his phone anyway, because this city rewards the bold and the rude. I turned my shoulder, put my body between him and the buzzer, and pressed the key to the lock.
My phone buzzed again—Nessa. Update? she wrote. People are calling the precinct.
About to enter, I typed. Tell them to stand down.
“You going up?” the student asked, voice pitched towards performance. “We’re all worried.”
“Then go home,” I said, opening the door. The stairwell exhaled a warm, stale breath—old varnish, lemon cleaner, and something faintly electrical. I pocketed the bakery key and put one foot on the first step.
The countdown ticked in my palm, indifferent. 71:47:58.
I climbed, each step a metronome beat, each landing a decision I wouldn’t undo. If I waited for statements and sponsorships, the narrative would calcify into a weapon. If I moved now, I could still pry it apart.
At the second-floor landing I paused and sent one last text to Nessa: No raids. No addresses. Keep the hive gentle or we lose her twice.
She replied with a single bee emoji and a heart, then: We’ve got you.
I gripped the railing, breathed once, and kept climbing toward my sister’s curated hive that suddenly felt like a trap with a timer.
The brand watermark didn’t blink.
The door to the third-floor landing waited, glossy and pink. I set my hand on the knob.
I didn’t knock.