Lena woke up to chaos.
Her phone was buzzing nonstop against the mattress, vibrating like it was trying to escape the room. Half-asleep, she grabbed it, squinting through one eye.
Thirty-seven missed calls.
Her stomach dropped.
She scrolled.
Voicemails. Unknown numbers. A few texts from people she barely remembered from college.
Then she saw it.
A trending hashtag.
#LenaPerkIsOver
She stared at it for a long second.
"They spelled my name wrong," she muttered.
The tag refreshed.
Still trending.
Her notifications multiplied, the numbers climbing so fast they barely made sense. Her latest video—the late-night rant she'd almost deleted—had crossed one million views while she slept.
Her hands started shaking.
By noon, she had an agent who spoke too fast and laughed too easily, calling her "lightning in a bottle."By afternoon, strangers were dissecting her personality in comment sections.By night, the hate arrived.
She's annoying.This won't last.Another internet fluke.
Lena closed the app, her chest tight.
When she finally dragged herself back to her apartment, the air felt different.
Occupied.
Asher Vale was sitting on her kitchen counter like he owned the place, one leg casually dangling, scrolling through her phone.
Her phone.
"Hey," she said sharply. "That's mine."
"You're trending in five countries," he replied without looking up. "Statistically, it stopped being just yours."
She dropped her bag and crossed her arms. "Do you ever leave?"
He finally looked at her, eyes dark and unreadable.
"You're adapting faster than expected."
Lena scoffed. "I've been broke my whole life. This is just survival with better lighting."
Something flickered across his expression—interest, maybe.
"You don't seem overwhelmed," he said.
"Oh, I am," she replied. "I'm just too tired to scream about it."
He handed her the phone. "Your audience is restless."
She hesitated. "You want me to post?"
"I want you to be visible," he said. "The rest will take care of itself."
So she went live.
Her screen filled instantly.
One hundred thousand viewers.Five hundred thousand.Two million.
Lena forced a smile, heart pounding, and spoke like she always had—honest, sharp, a little self-deprecating.
The comments flew faster than she could read them.
I love her.She's real.Say it louder.
She laughed. She talked. She existed.
From the corner of the room, Asher watched.
He'd seen this moment countless times—the high before the fall, the spark before the burn.
But something was different.
Lena wasn't unraveling.
She was shining.
And as she smiled into the camera, alive and fearless, something unfamiliar tightened in his chest.
For the first time since Hell assigned him to her—
Asher Vale wondered what would happen if he didn't want her to fall at all.