The backlash does not arrive all at once.
It trickles.
Scarlett notices it first in the way the facility tightens without announcing itself. Security protocols adjust subtly—new faces at checkpoints, additional biometric confirmations, doors that hesitate half a second longer before opening. No alarms. No panic.
Just recalibration.
Her statement circulates faster than anyone predicted. Stripped of commentary, replayed in fragments, analysed word by word by people who mistake restraint for strategy and calm for calculation.
They are not wrong.
They are simply late.
Scarlett sits upright in her room, knees drawn loosely beneath a blanket, watching a muted screen cycle through pundits who have never bled for their certainty. She feels strangely detached from her own image—like she is o
