Page 77 of Stay Scared

Owen checks the timestamp. “Probably.”

I move beside him. “I need better than probably.”

“The timestamp is advancing correctly, but that no longer proves anything.”

Rook shifts the camera. A second angle shows Mark alone beneath the torn movie screen. A red work light switches on beside the stage door. Mark turns immediately. A reaction instead of a loop. At least that is something. Rook lets us watch him react.

“Will that satisfy you?”

“Take the gag off him.”

“You are worried he cannot ask me to stop?”

“I’m worried you already hurt him.”

“He remains conscious.”

Ash lifts his head.

“You said that before.”

The beak remains fixed toward the camera. Then the architectural drawings disappear. Grainy footage replaces them. A fixed camera looks down into a narrow room lined with black rubber. A woman is restrained upright against a tilted platform, her face blurred while a timer runs along the bottom of the frame. Ash moves toward the console. Owen catches him across the chest with one arm.

“Leave it running.”

Ash looks at the arm blocking him. “That recording was supposed to be destroyed.”

“It wasn’t.”

Rook speaks over the footage.

“No. You simply made sure nobody outside the company could see it.”

The woman struggles while an actor wearing an older version of Rook’s beaked mask circles her. A light above the door changes from white to amber. A voice comes through a radio near the camera.

“Medical concern. End the sequence.”

The masked performer continues. Another voice cuts in.

“Terminate now. She’s in respiratory distress.”

The performer studies the woman’s face.

“She’s conscious.”

Rook. No distortion this time. The woman kicks. He catches her leg and forces it back against the platform.

“She’s resisting.”

“That is not clearance.”

Rook reaches toward the manual control. Ash looks away before the footage cuts. Silence sits in the room for a second. Now I understand the sequence. Ash and Rook built the original attraction together. Rook controlled the physical systems. Someone told him to stop. He decided the participant’s resistance mattered more than the medical order. Cade has moved closer to Ash.

“Tell me what happened.”

Ash keeps his eyes on the blank edge of the console.

“Her shoulder dislocated while she fought the restraints. The position restricted her breathing. She lost consciousness after Rook disabled the medical override. She required surgery.”