Chapter 6
Chapter 6 — Convergence and Other Bad Ideas
Elara arrives at the New Jersey venue for the second Cross event, where Kael secures her backstage access through Renee DuVall. Elara plants additional surveillance equipment while observing Cross's security operation, including guards Marcus Briar and Tom Sutherland. Kael and Elara navigate their first public interaction since the kiss at her studio, maintaining professional pretenses while tension simmers. During the event, Elara witnesses Cross isolating a young fan through Renee DuVall's coordination of NDA-backed private sessions. Elara captures critical documentation of the setup. After Kael's match, they debrief in a corridor blind spot, and Cross himself appears unexpectedly, engaging Kael directly while assessing Elara with an unsettling attention that suggests he may know more about her than expected. The chapter ends with Elara realizing the anonymous warning email may have come from someone inside Cross's operation.
The venue smelled like sweat, energy drinks, and poor decisions. Classic New Jersey.
I'd been inside for eleven minutes when Renee DuVall found me. She moved through the backstage chaos like a shark through reef water—efficient, unhurried, perfectly aware that everything in her path would get out of the way or get eaten.
'You're the photographer.' Not a question. Her eyes swept my press credentials, my equipment bag, my face. I let her look. The credentials were clean. The bag was clean. I was clean—tattoos hidden under a dark long-sleeved shirt, piercings reduced to a single stud in each ear, hair pulled into a low knot that made me look like the kind of person who used the word 'deliverables' without irony.
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