Chapter 3

Joe, the guard on duty, jumped when I pushed the door open, quickly pulling off his headphones.

"Chloe? What's going on?"

"Joe, the lobby window just blew out. I need to pull the surveillance footage."

Joe scratched his head, looking troubled. "Uh... doesn't management have to sign off on that?"

"Corporate Safety Regulations, Section 17: In the event of an on-site safety incident or personal injury, any involved party has the immediate right to review and preserve surveillance footage as evidence."

I cited the policy verbatim, word for word.

In my past life, I was naive, unprepared, and ruined by rumors before I could even blink.

This time, I had memorized the employee handbook down to the commas.

Joe hesitated for two seconds, then nodded.

I hit pause and scrubbed through frame by frame.

It was crystal clear. Exactly three seconds before the glass blew, Mandy's body had already started leaning backward.

And Mark, holding his coffee, wasn't even in a position to catch her.

They had rehearsed the fall, but their timing was ruined.

Because I stepped aside.

I exported the footage to my phone, then requested the feed from the exterior camera facing the lobby.

The glass had shattered inward from an external impact, but the hurricane's wind trajectory didn't match. On the exterior feed, a split second before the glass broke, a glint of reflected light flashed from below.

It looked like someone had struck the pane from the outside with a blunt metal tool.

I backed up every file, handed Joe a bottle of water, and smiled. "Joe, do me a favor and make an extra backup of this footage on a local drive. Don't let anyone delete it."

"Got it, Chloe. I'll lock it down."

Stepping out of the security room, my phone buzzed.

It was an announcement from Mark on the company Slack:

"@channel Please stay safe during the storm. Lobby maintenance is underway. Evacuate immediately. Tomorrow's work schedule will depend on weather updates."

Not a single word about Mandy's injury.

Not a single word about me.

He was trying to bury the incident.

Sure enough, by the next morning, the office rumor mill exploded.

Mandy had posted a picture of her bandaged ankle on Instagram with the caption:

"Some people act quiet and harmless on the outside, but they're purely wicked underneath. Karma sees everything. What goes around comes around."

She didn't name names, but the photo was taken right in the company lobby.

Everyone knew who she was talking about.

The department group chat was buzzing with passive-aggressive messages.

"Is Mandy okay? How bad is it?"

"Wait, someone said Chloe pushed her?"

"No way, Chloe barely talks..."

"It's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for."

I ignored all of it.

Three days later, once the storm cleared, normal work resumed.

The lobby window had been replaced overnight. The brand-new pane gleamed coldly, reflecting my silhouette as I pushed through the revolving doors.

The security guard nodded politely; the receptionist kept her head down, sorting mail; near the coffee machine, a cluster of gossiping coworkers instantly shut up the moment I walked past.

I sat down at my desk and opened my laptop.

The work channels were dead quiet, but tension was brewing beneath the surface.

Mandy's Instagram post had been circulating for days, racking up sympathetic comments and outraged replies.

Coworkers had screenshotted it into private group chats. I wasn't in those groups, but people always made sure whispers reached my ears.

"Chloe, Mark wants to see you in his office,"

Mia said from across the aisle without looking up.

I shut my laptop and stood up.

At the end of the glass-walled corridor, Mark was standing by the window with his back to the door.

Hearing my footsteps, he didn't even turn around.

"Chloe, management has decided to reassign you to Logistics Support. Your handover starts Monday."