Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 60
Abigail’s Mansion – Morning
Abigail and Tyler emerged from the front door together, hands intertwined, both of them smiling and giggling over some private joke as they made their way toward the car.
The moment they stepped outside, reporters swarmed the gate, cameras flashing, microphones thrust forward, all shouting questions over one another about the miraculous survival everyone had assumed was a tragedy.
“Mr. Rodriguez, how did you survive the explosion?”
“Is it true you were presumed dead?”
Tyler raised a hand, quieting the chaos slightly, expression somber. “It was my two household staff who were in the kitchen when the explosion happened. I’d gone out to run an errand. I’m alive because of the cruelest kind of luck, and two people who worked for my family lost their lives instead of me.”
The crowd quieted, questions faltering slightly at the weight of his tone.
“I ask that you respect their memory,” Tyler continued, “rather than sensationalize my survival.”
He guided Abigail into the car without further comment, closing the door on the shouted follow-up questions, and directed the driver toward Rodriguez Company headquarters.
Inside the car, his jaw remained tight, guilt heavy in his expression.
“They had no family,” he said quietly, staring out the window. “No one to even claim them properly. I’m going to make sure they’re honored the right way. And I’m buying a new house by the end of this week — I can’t keep living out of a hotel.”
Abigail squeezed his hand gently, saying nothing, letting him sit with the weight of it.
Morales Mansion – Morning
Maeve woke feeling utterly drained, her body aching in ways that had nothing to do with sleep. Fresh rashes had bloomed across her arms overnight, her throat raw and scratchy, a dull, persistent headache already pulsing behind her eyes before she’d even fully opened them.
She reached for her phone out of habit, and the headline stopped her cold.
Tyler Rodriguez Alive: Miraculous Survival Confirmed.
Tears sprang to her eyes instantly — relief, joy, something achingly hopeful blooming in her chest despite everything.
He’s alive, she thought, pressing a hand to her mouth. He’s really alive.
Curtis failed, she realized next, and something cold settled alongside the joy. Which means I’m still trapped. I still have to go to him tonight, or those tapes get out.
Her phone buzzed with a new message from her search agent.
Agent: Still nothing on Chester Ben. No record of anyone by that name ever existing in any database I have access to.
She frowned at the screen, unease creeping through her chest, before another message arrived, this one making her stomach turn entirely.
Curtis: Let’s meet tonight. I’m starving.
Maeve groaned aloud, dropping her head back against the pillow. This disgusting man is going to be the death of me, she thought bitterly, still sore from their last encounter.
She forced herself out of bed and toward her closet, reaching for a fitted dress she knew well — only to find it hanging loose around her waist, gathering awkwardly where it should have clung.
She frowned, trying another. Then another. By the tenth dress, the pattern had become undeniable — every single one hung looser than it should have.
Why am I losing so much weight, she wondered, staring at herself in the mirror, genuinely unsettled now. I haven’t even been trying.
Golden High – Morning
Hazel practically skipped from the car once it pulled into the driveway, unable to contain the bright, bubbling happiness that had taken over every school morning lately.
She loved coming here now. Loved it more than she’d ever admit out loud. Because at least here, she got to see Luis.
She was so wrapped up in her own giddy anticipation that she didn’t notice him standing directly in her path until she collided with him fully, both of them tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs and dropped bags.
Hazel found herself staring down at him, inches from his face, and for a long, suspended moment, she simply looked — at his eyes, his jaw, the soft, slightly parted curve of his wet, pink lips.
Without thinking, without warning, she leaned down and kissed him.
It took him several stunned seconds to respond, shock giving way slowly to something warmer, and when he finally kissed her back, it was soft and hesitant and real.
A few feet away, Princess had been walking toward them, ready to greet Luis with her usual polished smile.
She stopped dead in her tracks, watching the scene unfold, something in her chest cracking sharply.
She turned and walked away quickly, blinking hard against the sudden, unexpected sting of tears she refused to let fall in public.
A Police Station – Morning
Penelope and Mitchell arrived at the station together, both of them visibly nervous but resolute, a small flash drive clutched tightly in Penelope’s hand.
“We found this,” Penelope said, handing it over to the detective. “There’s a security camera near the stairwell that the school forgot even existed — it’s old, barely used, but it was still recording. It shows everything. Sadie and Emilia, setting up the water.”
The detective took the drive carefully, plugging it into a nearby laptop, and the footage played out in silence — grainy but unmistakable, two figures crouched near a mop bucket, tipping it slowly across the top step moments before Hazel came around the corner.
Emilia’s face, seated across the room, went white.
“That’s doctored,” she snapped immediately. “That has to be fake.”
“It’s not,” Sadie said quietly, sitting a few chairs away. “I told you. I told everyone. I wasn’t lying.”
The principal and both sets of parents had been called in, and the room fell into a heavy, uncomfortable silence as the footage finished playing, the evidence undeniable now beyond any argument.
Notably absent were Arthur and Diana Bennett, both far too consumed with the Hale partnership negotiations to bother appearing in person, having sent word that whatever legal consequences followed could be handled without their direct involvement.
“We have more important matters,” Arthur had told the detective flatly over the phone, “than sitting in a room with children.”
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