5. Jules
Jules
The thing about PR events is that they’re basically just performances without choreography.
Same lights. Same cameras. Same expectation that we hit our marks and don’t say anything that turns into a headline.
Today’s disaster comes packaged as a live interview in a rented studio across the city.
It’s Camille’s first major adjustment pre-tour.
Apparently the best way to “stabilize narrative drift” after Harbor’s Edge is to put Midnight Halo under soft studio lighting, ask us carefully approved questions, and let the internet watch in real time while we pretend everything is normal.
There’s a branded backdrop, a waiting host with professionally whitened teeth, three cameras on rolling rigs, and a countdown monitor already ticking toward broadcast.
So. Fun.
I’m leaning against a stack of equipment cases backstage, watching a stylist aggressively steam something that already looks perfect and trying not to look like I’m bored out of my mind.
Which is a skill, by the way. An underrated one.
Kaia passes by first, already dressed, already mic’d, already in that terrifyingly competent mode where she somehow looks calm and annoyed at the same time. “Don’t wander,” she says, adjusting the cuff of her jacket.
“I never wander,” I say.
She gives me a look.
I grin. “Intentionally.”
That does not improve her expression.
Remy is a few feet away with her arms crossed, reading over a card with the approved talking points like she’s checking for weaknesses in the phrasing.
Which, honestly, she probably is. Mina’s near one of the backstage mirrors while a makeup artist touches up her eyeliner, but her attention keeps drifting to the monitor where the pre-show teaser loops again and again: slow-motion footage, dramatic lighting, close-ups of our faces like we’re mysterious but approachable.
Classic.
I catch my own reflection in the mirror beside her as I push off the cases and pause.
There’s no lag, no weird half-beat delay. No shift. No wrongness.
Just me.
Cute, obviously. A little overlit, but workable.
I move my hand. Reflection moves with it.
Mina catches me doing it and lowers her voice. “You okay?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” I flash her a grin.
She doesn’t look convinced, but before she can press, Kevin appears carrying two waters, a tablet, and the kind of quiet competence that makes him seem less like staff and more like someone who materialized specifically to prevent disasters.
Apparently, he’s Camille’s assistant, which makes sense professionally and almost no sense visually.
Maybe that’s why I’ve noticed him. Not because he’s flashy. He isn’t. He’s aggressively normal, actually, which around Camille somehow makes him stand out more.
He moves through the backstage chaos like he already understands where every problem is going to happen ten seconds before it does.
He redirects a frazzled PA away from the wrong cable, hands Mina a water without interrupting her thought, and crosses straight to Camille with the kind of effortless precision that says he’s done this a thousand times.
And the way he looks at her?
Oh, that man is gone.
Not dramatically. Not embarrassingly. Just thoroughly. Like he knows she’d probably classify his feelings as an inefficiency and has accepted that as part of the experience.
Honestly, bleak.
Camille is across the room speaking to the producer and the host. Cream trousers. Pale blouse. Jacket immaculate. Hair pulled back. Tablet in hand. Posture straight. Voice low and precise.
People just adjust around her. Kevin included. Especially Kevin.
She’s the one who scheduled this. I know that because Blaire said so twice and because this whole event feels like very her.
Controlled, strategic, polished so hard it almost squeaks.
A live interview to push the tour, redirect attention, and bury the Harbor’s Edge mess under enough charm and branded lighting that nobody asks the wrong questions.
Or at least, that’s the dream.
I watch her for a second too long. Then, I push off the cases and drift closer, like I’m just moving through space, not very intentionally ending up within earshot.
“…I want the first segment tightened,” Camille is saying to the producer. “If the host goes off-card, redirect immediately.”
“Of course,” the producer says.
“And no audience questions. The performance window opens when the first camera goes live,” Camille continues. “No additional questions, extended segments, or unscheduled feeds after that point without my approval.”
The host, who has been smiling through this like her face might crack if she stops, nods a little too fast. “Understood.”
Camille gives one short nod.
Done. Decision made. Reality adjusted.
I lean in just enough to be annoying. “Do you ever relax,” I ask, “or is that also scheduled?”
Her gaze flicks to me, brief and measured. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
“Just checking,” I say. “For morale.”
“Morale is stable,” she replies.
I grin. “You keep telling yourself that.”
She’s already looking past me again, as if to say, conversation over.
Right.
Cool.
I rock back on my heels, watching her move toward the stage entrance where she stops to make one minor adjustment to the run sheet and, apparently, everyone obeys it without question.
Still nothing. No reaction, nothing off script. Not even a flicker.
God. You’re exhausting.
And I haven’t even started.
A few minutes later, the room settles into that brittle, pre-show version of calm. Crew checks levels. Someone counts down to standby. The host gets one last layer of powder and a brighter smile. We’re about to step on the stage when one of the monitors flickers. The audio cuts for half a beat.
The hair on the back of my neck lifts.
No one reacts. Why would they? We’re still pre-interview. Nothing’s live yet. In this kind of setup, little glitches happen all the time. A lag in the feed. A skipped cue. A bad cable.
Normal.
I shift my weight anyway, listening without meaning to.
There’s a rhythm to this kind of event—sound checks, cue calls, low conversation, the hum of too much equipment packed into one space. Usually it blends into something clean and predictable.
This isn’t.
The audio drags for a beat too long, then snaps back.
Something in my chest tightens.
“That’s—“
I stop.
It fixes itself. The screen stabilizes. The teaser loop resumes like nothing happened.
Right.
Fine.
Just a glitch.
I look away, because I am absolutely not doing this again. Not every flicker is something. Not every weird little tech issue is secretly demonic. Sometimes a monitor is just a monitor and a bad sound cue is just—
One of the screens spasms. Hard. The image tears sideways, color bleeding into static, sound cracking into something layered and wrong.
Not feedback.
Not delay.
Voices.
“What the hell—“ someone starts.
Then it spreads, as if it was waiting. Monitors across the room glitch in sync. Audio systems screech. One of the camera lenses jerks so sharply it looks alive for half a second, like something inside it is trying to turn the wrong way out.
The air changes.
Sharp. Electric. Wrong.
Yeah. People react now. Crew scrambling. Voices rising. Someone shouting not to roll yet. Someone else yelling to kill the feed even though we’re not live yet. The host stumbles backward in expensive heels, all charm gone.
Kevin is already moving, which honestly tracks. He grabs one of the production assistants by the arm and steers her toward the side exit before she can freeze in place. “This way,” he says calmly. “Come on. Don’t touch that.”
Good.
He’s got them.
My attention snaps to the girls.
Kaia is already there, body angled toward the room like she’s measuring threat lines. Her hand twitches once at her side, instinct, but she doesn’t call Aurora. Not yet. Mina’s gone pale, eyes fixed on the screens. Remy looks almost still, which is how I know she’s tracking everything.
The host is just confused.
Outsider.
Not a problem.
If we have to, we wipe her memory later and call it stress.
I take one step toward Kaia and lower my voice. “You know, even for a PR event, this is getting a little dramatic.”
Kaia doesn’t look at me. “Jules.”
“Just trying to see if we’re at ‘bad cable’ or ‘sword o’clock.’”
That almost gets a reaction. Almost.
Then Kevin’s voice cuts across the room, sharper than before. “Where is Camille?”
I look for her automatically. She’s not where she was. The spot near the stage entrance is empty. No pale blouse. No tablet. No impossible posture like she personally invented control.
Shit.
What if our new PR fixer gets eaten by a demon before the interview? That feels like the kind of thing Blaire would somehow make my fault.
Around us, the monitors are still losing their minds, images spasming in and out, sound cracking into static and layered voices. Tech always goes first with demonic presence.
Kaia’s already turning toward me, reading the shift before I even fully move.
“I’ll find her,” I say.
“Jules—“ she starts.
But I’m already gone.
I cut past a terrified PA, dodge a coiled cable, and head straight for the side corridor, leaving the girls behind with the glitching screens and the screaming audio and whatever fresh PR nightmare this is becoming.
***
The hallway is darker than it should be, emergency lighting flickering in uneven bands down the walls.
The sound follows me. Not the chaos from the main room. Not the shouting or the scrambling or the dying audio feed.
Something closer.
Static layered with words that don’t quite separate from each other, like too many voices trying to push through one mouth at once. Not speaking to me. Pressing past me. Reaching for something ahead.
I hit the corner and find her. “There you are.”
Camille is pinned against the wall by live cables and rigging lines wrapped around her arms and torso, tight enough to hold without crushing. The corridor screens on either side of her flicker violently, warped footage stuttering through faces, captions, frozen frames, and broken color.