Cutting Meat with a Dull Knife
Avery Hayes stared at her phone, her brow furrowed in concentration. She studied the video for a long time, watching it over and over until, finally, she saw it, the key to unlocking her own anger.
Even though their situations were worlds apart, the way Ms. Sterling came unglued in that hospital director's office was a master class in a complete meltdown.
Avery's expression softened as the idea clicked into place. She stood, found Director Duke, and told him she was ready.
By then, Owen Bowen's solo part was already wrapped. The moment she gave the word, Director Duke grabbed his walkie-talkie and barked out new orders. The film crew shifted gears, moving outside the mansion to set up for Avery's scene.
Maya Laurent hovered nearby, her expression clouded with worry. She was terrified Avery wouldn't be able to pull this off. Rushing to her side, she whispered a few last-ditch words of advice.
"Look, if you get stuck, just go wide-eyed, stare Owen down like you want to kill him, and then just scream your lines." She added, "And make fists when you shout. Really clench them."
Avery patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry," she said, her voice quiet but firm. "I know what I'm doing now."
With that, her face went perfectly, unnervingly blank. Her high heels clicked sharply on the pavement as she strode into the shot, every bit the woman on a mission. The camera pulled back, framing her as she stopped just outside the mansion's entrance.
Owen, playing the male lead, stood on the steps, looking down on her character.
Avery lifted her head, and the fury in her eyes was so raw it felt like it could burn a hole right through the camera lens.
Watching the monitor, Director Duke's serious expression finally broke into a wide grin. He let out a sigh of relief. "There it is. She finally nailed it. In all the other takes, the anger felt too controlled, too held back."
His assistant nodded. "Dr. Hayes learns fast." He'd just seen her cramming for the part, staring at her phone to get the emotion right.
Director Duke shot him a look. "No kidding." *She has a master's in medicine and was studying for the bar,* he thought. *Of course she's a quick study.*
Maybe it was because she'd so thoroughly dissected the meltdown of the Sterling family's eldest daughter, but Avery's performance was suddenly electric.
Even the threatening way she delivered her lines to the male lead felt chillingly authentic.
The core of the scene was a desperate bluff, a woman cornered and lashing out.
It was a perfect mirror of Ms. Sterling in that office, unable to find Avery, unable to get her signature, and left with nothing but helpless rage.
Of course, Avery couldn't actually have a meltdown like that. Even if she wanted to, she wasn't sure she could. It went against every instinct honed by her previous profession.
Expecting a lawyer to just lose control and let their emotions fly was like asking a surgeon to operate with their eyes closed. Lawyers were trained to be a fortress of calm and rationality, and for an actor, that fortress was a prison.
She was already thinking that as soon as she had some money, she was hiring a professional coach to tear it all down and teach her the craft from the ground up.
Otherwise, she'd never make a real career out of this.
Right now, she was just filming short, low-budget web dramas.
In a traditional TV series, a director would have torn her apart for a performance like this.
The scene they'd been stuck on all day was finally in the can, all thanks to her breakthrough.
When Director Duke finally called, "Cut," a wave of exhaustion washed over Avery so completely she felt like she might collapse.
A bone-deep fatigue settled in, and a dull ache began to throb behind her eyes.
This was the first time she realized just how draining method acting could be. The worst part wasn't the screaming or the anger; it was the act of shattering the rational, protective shell she'd spent years building as a lawyer to tap into that raw, overwhelming helplessness.
"Avery, you okay?" Maya asked, seeing her slumped on a stool, just holding a cup of water without moving.
Avery looked up and managed a weak smile. "I'm fine. I just realized acting is a lot harder than it looks."
"You'll get the hang of it," Maya said encouragingly. "Once you've done it enough, you'll be able to slip into a character's emotions without even thinking."
Maya was a trained actress; she couldn't possibly understand the brutal mental war Avery had just fought between professional logic and raw emotion.
After a few more minutes, it was time for the next scene. Thankfully, this was the only emotional outburst her character had in the entire drama. After this, she was basically back to being a background prop, pushing a wheelchair.
The crew was on a tight schedule and didn't wrap until eleven that night. Everyone was too wiped to move. Even when Director Duke offered to buy the whole crew bubble tea, nobody had the energy to take him up on it.
On the ride back to the hotel, Maya was scrolling through her phone. "Holy crap, you guys, you have to see this! That Sterling family Leo was talking about yesterday? It says here they went to the hospital and threatened a doctor."
As she scrolled, she landed on a trending topic: #SterlingsThreatenDoctor.
It was number one.
"Seriously? They're that brazen?" Owen Bowen pulled out his phone and opened X. "Damn, who do these people think they are? Barging into the hospital director's office and getting in his face like that?" he muttered, shaking his head as he watched the video.
Avery didn't say a word, but she took out her phone and started scrolling, too. She'd been filming all day and hadn't had a chance to see how the fire she'd started was burning.
In just one day, the post she'd made that morning had over ten million views. The reposts were moderate, but the comment section had exploded, hitting one hundred and fifty thousand.
"That poor doctor got such a raw deal. First she's assaulted, and now she's being threatened?"
"The hospital director is a total pushover. He just stood there and let that woman scream at him."
"Wow, that woman has some nerve."
"Is this their idea of asking for a favor? They want the doctor to sign off on something for them, and they show up with *that* attitude?"
"Exactly! At least pretend to be sorry."
The comments were a landslide, overwhelmingly siding with the doctor and condemning the family.
Over the course of the day, the internet had done its work, digging up every detail on the Sterling family.
Some users were even tagging law enforcement, demanding an investigation.
People were furious. How dare they make threats in the director's office of a top-tier hospital?
Then things got even more dramatic. One of Avery's former colleagues replied to the thread under their real name, vividly recounting how, just a few days ago, the same Ms. Sterling from the video had visited the hospital, and the injured doctor had resigned almost immediately after.
The colleague didn't spell it out, but the implication was crystal clear.
The internet hive mind instantly concluded that the young doctor must have been threatened into quitting.
The post had snowballed into a major social incident, far beyond simple celebrity gossip.
Official news outlets were reposting it.
Major medical schools were weighing in, using it as a case study for the fraught relationship between doctors and patients.
Medical students spammed the comments with a unified message: "Stand up for our doctors. If you don't speak up for them today, there will be no one left to perform your surgery tomorrow."
Avery browsed the comments, a flicker of satisfaction in her amber eyes. With this much online pressure, it should at least keep the Sterlings from interfering with Bryce's sentencing.
But she had underestimated the speed of the internet. The public backlash was far worse than she could have ever imagined.
The entire Sterling family was in chaos.
People spontaneously began boycotting all of Sterling Foods' products.
Distributors across the country, while not yet terminating their contracts, suspended all new orders and asked for payment extensions.
Their material suppliers were even harsher, demanding cash up front for all new deliveries and threatening to cut them off completely.
The Westlake City authorities hadn't made a move. After all, the Sterling family's business was a massive contributor to the local economy, and the social media firestorm only accused them of throwing their weight around, not of any corporate wrongdoing.
Avery had already anticipated this. The authorities were not the internet; they needed hard evidence to act. They wouldn't make a move until there was proof that Sterling Foods itself was involved in something illegal.
But Avery wasn't in a hurry. Her initial goal was simply to make sure Bryce Sterling went to jail. A single social media post was never going to be enough to take down a corporate giant.
This was just the beginning. Soon enough, she'd start delivering the death of a thousand cuts, dragging the entire Sterling family down into the abyss, piece by painful piece.