The Yes Game Ended My Survival Mission Chapter 02

The Yes Game Ended My Survival Mission Chapter 02

The next day, the studio held its brand launch.

The second I walked backstage, I found the founder’s wall, the one that used to have my photo with Weston on it, replaced with a photo of him and Sienna.

The bio underneath had changed too.

As for me, there was one small line tucked in the corner.

Design assistant, Wren Ashford.

I stood in front of that wall for a long time without moving.

Weston and I had built this place together, from nothing.

Our first office had been two hundred square feet.

The summer the air conditioner broke, we’d knelt on the floor packing client orders, drenched in sweat.

Every name, every logo, every one of our signature pieces, I’d stayed up night after night building it all.

Sienna had been here six months. Now she was standing in the spot that used to be mine.

I pushed open the dressing room door. Sienna was mid-interview.

She faced the camera with an easy smile.

“The brand made it this far because Weston believed in my eye.”

I reached over and shut the camera off.

“Who told you to change the founder’s bio?”

Sienna didn’t answer. Weston was already walking in from the hallway.

He pulled me somewhere the cameras couldn’t reach, then straightened the edge of my mask.

“There’s press everywhere. Don’t let them get a shot of you.”

His fingers brushed my ear, the motion just as practiced as it had been for the past three years.

I went a little dazed, and that’s when he pressed a new badge into my hand.

It read:

Behind-the-scenes design, Wren Ashford.

“Just focus on the designs from now on. Leave the rest to me and Sienna.”

I gripped the badge.

“So she’s the face and I’m the ghost?”

Weston’s patience was running thin.

“Wren, rebranding means thinking about image.”

“How do you think clients react when they see the founder in a mask all the time?”

“Sienna’s willing to be on camera. Isn’t it better if you two just split the work?”

Sienna came over and gently tugged at my sleeve.

“I’m not trying to take your place. The brand just needs a face.”

“You get nervous on camera right now. Let me carry that for you, until later…”

“Until later what?”

She glanced at my right cheek, and her voice trailed off.

The answer was obvious enough.

Until my scar disappeared.

Every doctor I’d seen said burns this deep almost never healed.

That “later” was never coming.

I threw the badge back at him.

“I don’t want it.”

His brow dropped.

“The launch is starting. Don’t cause a scene.”

His voice dropped low, threatening.

“You walk out there right now, clients and press seeing your face is bad for the brand.”

“Wren, don’t push your luck.”

It wasn’t like I’d never tried to fight back.

But every time I caught that burn in the mirror, half my nerve drained out before I even opened my mouth.

Weston knew that better than anyone alive.

So over and over, he used protecting me as an excuse to shove me back into the shadows.

When he was done talking, he steered me into a lounge.

Right before the door shut, he pressed a peppermint into my palm.

“I’ll come get you when the launch is over.”

For three years, whenever I woke up screaming from a nightmare about the fire, he’d soothed me exactly like this.

This time, the second the door shut, I heard a lock click.

I froze for a beat, then pounded on the door.

“Weston!”

Nobody answered.

The host’s voice carried through the wall.

“Please welcome our creative director, Ms. Sienna Vaughn!”

Applause rolled in like a wave.

I leaned against the door, breathing faster and faster.

The peppermint in my palm had already turned sticky with sweat.

He knew I was scared of tight spaces. He knew they dragged me straight back to that fire.

And he’d locked me in one anyway.

I forced myself to pull out my phone and record the locked door and the voices drifting in from outside.

“Mr. Cole said don’t open it until it’s over. Don’t want her running out there.”

“Wasn’t she the one who designed everything for this brand in the first place?”

“So what if she’s talented? Can that face represent the brand?”

Forty minutes later, the cleaning woman badged in.

She took one look at how pale I’d gone and grabbed my arm.

My legs were still shaking when I finally made it out. The big screen was replaying the interview.

A reporter had asked Weston:

“Is Ms. Vaughn the creative director, and also your most important partner?”

Weston had glanced at Sienna.

“She is.”

I saved the recording and sent it to a lawyer as evidence.

I also messaged Professor Hale, who’d overseen the studio program back in college.

“Professor Hale, is there any chance the server backup from the day of the fire could still be recovered?”

The message showed as read.

The typing bubble flickered a few times.

Nothing ever came through.

The next time I texted, he’d blocked my number.

The system’s cold voice rang out again.

[Detected: host has suffered identity erasure, exploitation of trauma, and deliberate discrimination.]

[Countdown shortened to three days.]

Fine by me.

I didn’t want anything I had to fight this hard for anyway.

Weston included.