The lock turned with a small, definite click.
It was a quiet quietest sound the room had produced all day and yet it landed with more finality than any of the camera shutters that had been assaulting him for hours.
The rest of the crew was on the other side of that door now. The swarm, the brushes, the reflector he had developed feelings about. All of it shut out.
And on this side: him, two women, and whatever the two women had decided was going to happen next.
They came at him together, unhurried, and pushed Phei down into the makeup chair — not roughly, but with a slow, deliberate pressure with their palms flat to his chest, guiding him back into the seat the way you guide a thing exactly where you already wanted it.
