Chapter 6 - The Media Spin
By Wednesday morning, Evelyn Vance had decided that if she couldn't control me in private, she would destroy me in public. My mother had spent thirty years cultivating relationships with editors, society columnists, and local television producers. She knew how to manipulate a narrative to cast herself as the tragic, suffering matriarch.
I was sitting in the physical therapy wing of Walter Reed, sweating through the excruciating pain of shoulder mobility exercises, when my phone buzzed with an alert from Major Vance. Attached was a link to a morning broadcast from a major Washington D.C. news affiliate.
On the screen, my mother sat in her formal living room, dressed in somber black silk, holding a framed photograph of me in my dress uniform from five years ago. She dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief while speaking to an investigative reporter.
"Our family is heartbroken," Evelyn said to the camera, her voice breaking with practiced precision. "Since Elena’s tragic helicopter accident, she has been suffering from severe psychological trauma and paranoia. She has alienated herself from the people who love her most, making baseless accusations against her father because the brain swelling has distorted her grip on reality."
The reporter leaned in with a look of deep sympathy. "Mrs. Vance, there have been rumors of a financial dispute regarding her casualty settlement. How do you respond to those claims?"
"It is utterly absurd," Evelyn sighed, looking directly into the lens. "We only wanted to place her funds into a medical trust to ensure she receives around-the-clock psychiatric care. It breaks a mother’s heart to see a decorated soldier reduced to such paranoid delusions, pushing away her own sister on her wedding week. We are praying that the military steps in to grant us a medical conservatorship before she harms herself."
I paused the video, staring at my mother’s frozen, sympathetic expression. My physical therapist, a burly former Marine sergeant named Martinez, looked over my shoulder and shook his head in disgust.
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"You want me to call the public affairs office, General?" Martinez asked quietly. "We can squash this PR stunt in twenty minutes."
"No, Martinez," I said, wiping the sweat from my forehead and grabbing my parallel bars to pull myself to a standing position. "When an enemy exposes their flank in the media, you don't fire a warning shot. You let them commit to the lie, and then you obliterate their supply lines."
