The incel pulled out of her with a wet sound and rolled off the mattress, already reaching for his pants on the floor. "I hope you guys got that all on camera," he chuckled, stepping into his boxers with the careless ease of a man finishing a chore. Lexi stayed on her knees on the ruined sheets, her hair hanging over her face, her thighs sticky and trembling. She heard the zip of his jeans, the jingle of his belt, the casual rhythm of a man who had just used her and was now late for something else.

"She's all yours," he said to the crew, grinning as he shrugged into his hoodie. "I've got a World of Warcraft raid I'm running late for." He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and was gone, the door clicking shut behind him with a finality that settled into the room like dust. The crew members exchanged glances, then their attention turned back to her, a slow, collective weight that pressed down on her bare shoulders. Three of them. Cameras lowered. Hands loose at their sides. They stood around the bed like men who had all the time in the world.

One of them stepped closer, a stocky man with a tripod slung over his shoulder and a five-o'clock shadow that made him look older than the others. He reached down and took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her face up toward the ring light. Her eyes watered against the brightness, but she didn't pull away. "I think you should enjoy being unmasked, humiliated, and defeated," he said, his voice low and almost gentle, like he was explaining a rule to a child. "Because this is who you are now. This is what you are."

She blinked up at him, her green eyes glassy, her lips parted around a breath she couldn't quite catch. The camera clicked somewhere to her left, capturing the image of the fallen heroine, the evidence of the night still glistening on her skin. The man held her chin a moment longer, studying her face like he was memorizing it, then let go. She didn't drop her gaze. She held it, even as her hands came up to rub her bare arms, even as the rope burn around her throat throbbed in time with her pulse. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a small, quiet voice reminded her that she was still breathing. Still here. Still Lexi Cooper, even if the whole city now knew that name.

One of the other crew members crouched by the bed, his phone already out, the screen glowing with a live-stream chat that scrolled faster than she could read. "They want to see her say it," he said, not to her, but to the man who had held her chin. "On camera. Her name. What she is." The stocky man looked down at her, and something in his expression shifted—not softer, but more patient, like a man waiting for a door to open. Lexi's throat worked. She could feel the words sitting there, heavy and familiar, waiting to be spoken. The ring light hummed. The chat scrolled. And she opened her mouth, the name already forming on her tongue.