After Being Framed for Ruining the Landform, I Made Them Regret

I spotted an older woman at the park climbing over the guardrail and trampling the red rock formations, and I hurried to warn her.

These formations take hundreds of millions of years to form. They're incredibly rare. Please don't damage them.

But the woman refused to see any wrong in it.

So I stepped on it a couple of times. What's it to you? You're just a lousy tour guide. Keep your mouth shut and do your job!

"The customer is king. I'll step wherever I want!"

And with that, she carved was here into the rock.

I called for the site manager to handle it.

Except the site manager was her son, and he blamed me for sticking my nose where it didn't belong, and he fired me.

I reported the manager for breaking regulations, and he turned it around on me, claiming I was the one who damaged the site and slandered a tourist.

I was cyber-bullied across the entire internet, and the park demanded I pay three hundred thousand dollars in damages.

To raise the money, my mother borrowed from loan sharks and couldn't pay it back. They beat her until she was crippled, and she ended up in the hospital.

In my despair, I leapt from a high building. When I opened my eyes, I had been reborn.

And there she was again, that same woman, trampling and carving up the site.

.........

"So I stepped on it a couple of times. What's it to you? You're just a lousy tour guide. Shut your ugly mouth!"

Althea Chavez was cursing at me.

I froze for a moment, realizing I had been reborn.

Althea had already crossed the warning line and was standing there like it was nothing.

The seven-colored red rock, over a hundred million years in the making, sat right beneath her feet.

"The customer is king. I paid for my ticket, so I'll step wherever I want!"

Seeing that I didn't come forward to pull her back, Althea only grew smugger.

The hiking boots on her feet, studded with hard anti-slip spikes, ground down hard into the fragile red-brown rock and soil.

Fine grains crumbled and trickled off the edge.

"That's right, it's just a bit of scrubby red dirt. What's so precious about it?"

The other women in her tour group all chimed in, scolding me from every direction.

"You tour guides are always making a fuss. We came all this way. What's wrong with taking a few pictures?"

"You're young, girl. How do you have no sense at all? Push us too far and we'll go file a complaint about you with the tourism board."

"You talk it up like it's so precious. It's just some dirt. What's the harm in stepping on it?"

I drew in a deep breath and held down the anger in me.

"Ma'am, red rock formations are a nonrenewable resource. Any trampling can cause damage that can never be undone."

I stood outside the warning line, my voice steady.

"Causing serious damage carries legal liability. Please come out right now."

"Don't try to scare me with the law!"

Althea's face was full of contempt.

"My son is the general manager of this whole park. This entire mountain is under his charge. I'll step on it all I want, and who'd dare blame me? Who do you think you are!"

As she spoke, she pulled a key out of her canvas bag.

"I'm going to carve something too, to remember the trip by."

She crouched down and dragged the key across the most vivid stretch of the seven-colored rock.

The words was here appeared, stark on the rock face.

The other women beside her didn't stop her. Instead, they pulled out their phones to take pictures.

"Oh my, Althea, your writing looks so bold."

"Right, I'll go carve one in a minute too. Then the ticket money won't be wasted."

It truly ached in my heart. This was rock that took a hundred million years to form, and it was being ruined just like that.

"I'll say it one more time. What you're doing already amounts to intentional destruction of a protected landmark."

"Under the public safety penalty law, that means detention and a fine."

That line broke Althea completely.

She jerked to her feet. "What did you say, you dead-parents piece of trash? Getting a little full of yourself? You dare curse me into a jail cell?"

She came striding toward me, seething.

"Today I'm going to rip that ugly mouth of yours right off."

Althea stepped past the warning line and reached out to claw at my face.

I twisted nimbly to the right and slipped aside.

Althea's foot caught hard on the iron base of the warning-line post.

"Ow!"

She pitched forward onto the bluestone walkway.

Her front tooth struck the stone, and her mouth filled with blood in an instant.

"You dare to hit me! The tour guide's hitting people! Isn't anyone going to do something about this!"

Althea clutched her mouth with both hands, wailing through her sobs.

The women with her flew into a panic and swarmed forward all at once, surrounding me on every side.

"You black-hearted little slut, how dare you shove someone."

"Call the police. Have her arrested."

The scream rang through the canyon, turning the heads of tourists taking photos in the distance.

Looking at Althea Chavez sprawled on the ground, all I could see in my mind was my mother's face as she lay in the ER.

In my last life, it was these people who drove my mother to that end.

My heart clenched so tight I couldn't breathe.

I quickly stepped back twice.

"Everyone, take a good look. From start to finish, I never touched so much as the hem of her clothes."

I explained to the tourists crowding in.

"She's the one who climbed over the railing and tried to attack me, and she tripped on her own."

"That's bull!"

One of the relatives with Althea shouted at me.

"There are plenty of eyes on you here. You clearly shoved her, and you still have the nerve to argue."

Rushing footsteps came from the edge of the crowd.

"Make way, make way. What's going on here?"

A man pushed through.

It was Wyatt Lambert.

General manager of the park's operations department, and Althea Chavez's son.

"Mom! What happened to you?"

The instant he saw Althea's mouth full of blood, Wyatt's face changed.

He hurried to help her up off the ground.

"Wyatt! Finally, you're here."

Althea's finger jabbed toward me.

"It's this tour guide. All I wanted was a photo. Fine if she wouldn't let me, but she shoved me to the ground! What did I ever do to deserve this?"

"Son, you're the manager here. Is this how you keep your people in line?"

Wyatt's dark, vicious glare fixed on me.

"Willow Swanson, feeling brave, are you? You've got the nerve to hit my mother!"

There was pure menace in his voice.

"As a park employee, your job is to serve the tourists, not beat them."

"Manager Lambert, I didn't hit anyone."

I stated the facts in a calm, even tone.

"She broke the rules, climbed over the railing, trampled the rock formations, and even carved graffiti into the cliff. I spoke up to stop her, she tried to hit me, and she fell by accident."

"You still dare to talk back!"

Wyatt cut me off, refusing to hear a word.

"That rotten attitude of yours is dragging our park's name through the mud!"

He put on a show of righteous indignation, when really he was just protecting his mother.

"Now, bow and apologize to this lady this instant, and cover every cent of her medical bills and emotional damages!"

"Otherwise, you'll be gone tomorrow, as far away as you can get. Don't come back to work here!"

Misled by Wyatt's speech, the onlookers around me shot me looks of condemnation one after another.

"This guide really went too far. How could she put her hands on an old woman?"

"Exactly. Young people these days have no manners at all."

"Geez, her mouth's bleeding. What kind of person is this? Someone like that's fit to be a tour guide?"

"Right, and slandering the poor lady on top of it. Absolutely shameless!"

Listening to the muttering around her, Althea smiled, pleased with herself.

Her moaning and groaning grew louder and more theatrical.

"Why would I apologize?"

I didn't take their bait; I turned the question back on them.

"If the manager is the one in charge of this park, shouldn't he go take a look at that stretch of rock formation with the graffiti carved into it first?"

"Under the scenic-area regulations, damaging a core landmark carries fines when the case is serious, and there's no cap on the amount."

"I can go and file a report right now, under my own name, that someone here has been carving and scrawling on the rock."

Wyatt's face froze instantly.

Clearly he hadn't expected me to throw the law in his face.

He jabbed a furious finger at me.

"Willow Swanson, don't push your luck. My mother is far too respectable to go carving and scrawling on anything!"

"You not only hit my mother, you spread lies and slander her! You think I won't call the police right now and have them haul you away?"

I answered coolly. "Go ahead. Once the police get here, we can check the footage and see whose problem it really is, and who ends up getting hauled away."

That broke a cold sweat on Wyatt, and he cursed at me under his breath.

"You just wait. Don't think I'll let this go. Compensation for my mother and for the damage to the site. You won't get out of a single bit of it!"

With that, he took hold of Althea and left with the whole group of relatives.

I left the park and went home.

That evening around eight, while I was helping my mother pack up her steamed bun stall at the night market, my phone started buzzing.

A voice message came through on my messenger from Lauren Finch, the veteran guide who'd trained me. Her voice was rushed.

"Willow, check the local trending topics, right now. Something big just happened."

I opened the local forum in a hurry.

A red "hot" tag sat at the very top of the trending list.

Arrogant Tour Guide Bullies Elderly Woman, Shoves Her to Injury Then Turns Nasty

Tour Guide Deliberately Destroys Hundred-Million-Year-Old Red Rock Formation, Frames Poor Old Woman

I opened the post. Inside was a carefully edited clip.

It opened straight on Althea sprawled on the ground, mouth full of blood, wailing.

And I was standing right beside her, the whole thing framed so it looked like I was the villain.

The comment section had already collapsed completely.

"This woman is unbelievable. She hurts an old lady and can't even say sorry?"

"Just looking at her face makes me sick. Ban her from the whole industry."

"Oh my God! She actually damaged a red rock formation. Does she even know that a patch that size takes sixty-plus years to recover?"

"Shameless. Ignorant and shameless and doesn't even know it. Did her teachers never cover red rock formations in school? Destroying that, she can rot in a cell."

"Probably a dropout who never finished school. Figures she thinks red rock land is the same as the mud in her own backyard. Ha."

I read through it all, exactly the same as my last life.

Wyatt's methods were still this filthy: use the information gap to strike first, and nail me to the stake as the villain.

But what really turned my stomach was one hot comment that had just been pushed to the top.

"I know this woman. Her name's Willow Swanson, lives on Harmony Lane in the Old Town district, and her mother runs a steamed bun stall at the South Street night market. Sets up every night at six."

Under the comment was a candid shot of my mother, busy at the stall with steam pouring off it.

In the photo her back was bent, and the white at her temples caught the streetlight, painfully bright.

My head went hollow with a ringing sound.

"Willow, honey, what is it? You look awful."

My mother looked at me, worried.

"Mom, stop packing up, we're leaving right now."

My voice shook and I couldn't stop it as I grabbed her.

"Leaving? Going where? I haven't finished cleaning up the stall."

My mother looked lost.

"There's no time to explain, just come with me."

I pulled at her arm, and just as we were leaving,

a few young men came ambling around the corner.

Phones in hand, glancing between the screens and the street around them.

"Hey, is that the bun seller up ahead?"

One of them, bleached hair, called out loudly.

"Yeah, yeah, that's the spot, that's the mother of the piece-of-trash tour guide."

They came bearing down on us.

"Go, now."

I twisted the throttle on the cart hard and we took off.

"Hey, don't run, guilty conscience, huh!"

Seeing me take off, they lost it and kicked over the folding table we hadn't gotten to clear away yet.

The crash of breaking bowls and chopsticks rang sharp through the night air.

My mother had gone white with fear.

"Willow, what on earth is going on? Why are those people smashing our stall?"

The tears spilled out before I could stop them.

"Mom, I'm sorry. This is my fault, I dragged you into it."

I drove the cart to a small motel on the edge of town, got a room, and settled my mother in.

"Mom, whatever you do, don't go outside these next couple of days. Don't open the door for anyone, no matter who knocks."

I told her again and again, and only when she nodded did I let out a small breath.

I pulled out my phone. On the screen, texts from a swarm of unknown numbers stared back at me.

"You can run today, but you can't run forever!"

"Die, you bitch!"

"What are people like you even still doing alive in this world?"

I gripped the phone tight, realizing that this time the online mob was even worse than the last.

Then I made a call.

"Hey, Trevor, yeah, can I ask you something? Did the manager go into the surveillance room today and delete any footage?"

Once I had the answer I needed, the weight I'd been carrying finally settled.

I opened a cloud folder on my phone.

Looking at what was inside, I knew that in this life, I wasn't going to walk the same road again.

Nine thirty the next morning.

I'd calmed my mother down and gone out, meaning to clear away the tables she hadn't been able to pack up the day before.

But the moment I got there, I saw a whole crowd of online influencers already gathered.

They'd come to ride the wave of the story.

And standing dead center in the square was Wyatt Lambert.

Althea Chavez sat beside him in a wheelchair, her head wrapped in thick bandages, whimpering loudly for effect.

Wyatt's voice was full of grief and outrage.

Yesterday, something truly appalling happened here in our park. Our employee, Willow Swanson, not only assaulted an elderly woman in her seventies and caused her to fall, she also destroyed an extremely precious red rock formation.

As he spoke, he produced a document stamped with a red seal, the picture of a man in anguish.

This is a damage assessment drawn up overnight by an independent appraisal firm. Because of Willow Swanson's violence, that section of red rock strata suffered irreversible damage, with direct economic losses of up to three hundred thousand dollars.

A sharp intake of breath rippled through the crowd.

Three hundred grand? Can this woman even pay that?

Serves her right. Thought she could throw her weight around, and now she's hit a wall.

Three hundred thousand is getting off easy. Red rock like that takes tens of millions, hundreds of millions of years to form.

Why only that much? She should be paying a hundred million!

Wyatt kept feeding the mob.

This park has always put visitors first. When it comes to a bad apple like this, we will show no mercy.

Then he pointed straight at me, clearly certain all along that I would show up.

Willow Swanson, you actually have the nerve to come here!

Every eye in the square snapped to me at once.

In an instant, dozens of older men and women, along with some young people calling themselves righteous netizens, closed in and surrounded me.

That's her! The animal who beat the old lady!

Shameless! And she still dares to show her face!

Thick skin, no wonder she had the gall to frame an old woman. Where does a piece of trash like this get the face?

I was jostled backward, step after step.

Willow Swanson, at this point, what more do you have to say?

Wyatt pressed closer, a thick settlement agreement in his hand.

All you have to do is sign this compensation agreement, admit that you shoved my mother down and caused the damage to the formation, and the park will consider letting you pay the three hundred thousand in installments.

Otherwise, you can wait for the park to sue you and rot in a cell!

In the wheelchair, Althea broke into a smug little laugh.

The crowd around me kept up the frenzy of abuse, and the camera flashes were so bright I couldn't keep my eyes open.

Looking at Wyatt's face, so thoroughly pleased with itself, I couldn't help but laugh.

Manager Lambert, do you think that just because you deleted the park's surveillance, you can flip black and white however you like?

Wyatt's face froze for a beat, then hardened again.

Surveillance? When did I delete any surveillance!

He turned to the onlookers and spread his hands.

You've all seen it. This woman beat someone and destroyed the site, and now she wants to fabricate evidence to get off!

Listening to him, I swiped open my phone screen.

Last time around, it was Wyatt too who had the surveillance deleted. I couldn't defend myself, and everyone was certain I was the one lying.

This life, I'd seen it coming a long way off.

Yesterday at dusk I'd called Trevor in the security office.

Trevor told me Wyatt had already formatted the entire day's surveillance record.

What he didn't know was that the park's surveillance system had a cloud backup function.

It had been added during a system upgrade the week before, and Wyatt hadn't given it a second thought.

Last night I'd downloaded all of it onto my phone.

I raised the phone over my head and let the video play.

The footage was crystal clear.

The whole sequence was there: Althea climbing over the barrier, trampling the red rock, carving into the rock face with a key.

Then she rushed at me and tried to claw my face, I stepped aside, and she tripped over the base of an iron post all on her own.

From start to finish, there was at least an arm's length between us.

My hand never touched her.

The whole square went dead silent.

Holy crap, the guide didn't push her at all, the old woman fell on her own!

She's the one who carved it too! You can see the letters clear as day!

Oh man, is this manager just putting on an act?

This is disgusting. So the whole thing was framing an innocent person!

Dozens of phones swung to point at Wyatt and Althea at once.

Some people had started livestreaming, meaning to watch me get torn apart, only to end up watching someone else go down instead.

Wyatt's face had gone purple with fear.

He took a step back and knocked into the armrest of Althea's wheelchair.

That video is fake!

Fake, it's all fake! She hired someone to make it! Technology's so advanced these days, what video can't they cook up?

I pulled the phone back and opened another file.

This is the original data log from the cloud backup. Timestamps, server address, hash checksums, all of it verifiable.

Whether it's forged or not, just go check the park's cloud backup and you'll know.

Wyatt was shaking all over with fear.

Althea shot up out of the wheelchair.

The injured woman who'd been whimpering a moment ago moved with a briskness that had nothing to do with broken bones.

Your leg's better now, Althea? one of the older women blurted out.

Althea stood there blank-faced, not realizing she'd given herself away, and grabbed Wyatt's arm.

Son, she's talking nonsense! Don't listen to her!

Mom, sit down! Wyatt hissed under his breath.

The crowd's hostility swung around completely.

The influencers' cameras were all shoved right into Wyatt's face.

A blogger in a leather jacket pressed loudly.

What do you mean, deleted the surveillance, Mr. Lambert? Did you know the truth all along?

Is that three-hundred-thousand-dollar damage report fake too?

Faking a disability, sitting in a wheelchair to run a shakedown, this whole family's really something!

Soon a siren sounded not far off. To be safe, I'd called the police first.

A few patrol cars pulled into the square, and four officers came striding over.

The officer in the lead swept his eyes across the scene.

Who called it in?

I raised my hand.

Officer, I did. I want to report the park's operations manager, Wyatt Lambert, for suspected deliberate destruction of evidence and false accusation, and his mother, Althea Chavez, for deliberately damaging a protected natural landmark.

I held the phone out to him.

All the evidence is right here.