“You left, and once we got past the legal hassles, things were better,” Julien’s voice came through. “We were happy. You— I have to imagine you were happier, wherever you ended up. Call it—I don’t know. We’re a bad fit, us two and you. Separating us was a good thing, the hell we went through with jail and court aside.”

“I’m in therapy now, I’ve worked on my stuff.”

“I don’t— I can hear your mother coming. This is—it’s so stressful, Kanzi. Every day is stressful.”

“Are you going to stop her? Stop this? Protect me?”

“Are you going to leave?”

“No.”

“Then no. You’re going to keep being you, and she’s going to keep being her, and I wouldn’t survive ten days trying to get between—”

A bang, door against wall.

Then noises, sounds of struggle. The sharp slapping sound of fist against flesh.

Gary looked away from the phone Lookout was holding up.

“Look, please. Listen,” Lookout said.

The sound repeated. Three, four, five times. The arm that was holding up the phone wasn’t steady, and it drew a figure eight in the air with the phone, almost, to the point that if there was anything new happening on the screen, I doubted Gary would be able to track it with his eyes.

“You can falsify evidence,” Gary said. His voice was tense. “That’s a big part of today’s episode.”

The sounds continued, scuffling. More hits on flesh. Kenzie’s voice with each one, indistinct.

“Stop that,” Gary said. “Please and thank you. You made your point.”

“Has she?” I asked. “It’s pretty major for her to show you this.”

In front of me, Lookout shrugged, still holding up the phone. The sounds continued to play. She held her position like she was trying to stand still, but the waver in her hand failed her.

“It’s manipulative and it’s questionable!” Gary said, with an anger above that which was warranted.

In the face of that anger, Lookout backed up a bit. The phone dropped to her side. Video still played on the screen.

“I assume you’re going to try to get them to put this on the air?”

“No,” Lookout said. “I don’t really want it to be seen by millions of people. That’s not the me I want to be in front of that many people.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” Swansong said.

“Thank you.”

“For the last time, excuse me,” Gary said. “I would like to get my thoughts in order.”

“If you leave and you ignore this,” Swansong said. “Then you’re no more a man than Julien Martin. You’re worse. You’re the kind of person who empowers the Julien Martins of the world.”

He opened the door and walked through.