Tuesday – 11:34 AM – St. Helena's High – Chemistry Lab
Adriana's phone vibrated inside her blazer pocket for the twelfth time in ten minutes. She had ignored it through a fume-hood demo, a half-hearted acid-base worksheet, and the increasingly suspicious glances of Mr. Thompson. But the buzz-buzz pattern was Morse code level urgent—and Mina's version of Morse code had emojis.
She slid the phone out.
Mina (Drama Queen): GROUP CHAT. URGENT. CODE PURPLE. LIKE, PURPLE-PURPLE.
Zara: What does that even mean?
Rafi: Is this about the weird flash drive Tristan left in the choir room?
Vincent: Wait, what?
Mina: OMG JUST MEET IN THE MUSIC STORAGE ROOM AFTER LUNCH
Adriana blinked.
Then replied with one word: Understood.
Mr. Thompson's voice rang from the front of the lab. "Miss Bogdan, perhaps you'd like to explain to the class why phenolphthalein turns pink in base solution?"
Adriana smiled sweetly. "Because it's dramatic. Like Mina."
-
Music Storage Room.
They crammed inside between cello cases and dusty tambourines. Rafi stood on a footstool. Zara guarded the door like someone was about to bust in with infrared goggles. Vincent paced.
Tristan was notably absent.
Mina held up a black flash drive. It looked like every other one on the planet, which is exactly what made it dangerous.
"I found this shoved behind a stack of hymnals," she said. "It had a sticky note that just said: FOR HER."
Adriana frowned. "Her, meaning...?"
"You," Mina said.
Rafi chimed in. "Or a nun. But considering the choir room hasn't had a nun since like, the Reagan administration, we figured it was you."
Zara pulled her laptop from her backpack, flipped it open, and plugged in the flash drive.
"Whoa," she said after a beat. "Encrypted folder. Hidden partition. Multiple file layers. Someone really didn't want this cracked."
"Can you?" Vincent asked.
Zara smirked. "Please. I broke into my uncle's crypto wallet when I was ten."
Click. Tap. Whirr.
A series of video thumbnails appeared. Grainy. Black and white. Surveillance angle.
Adriana stepped closer. "That's... the east staircase. And that's the art room hallway."
They watched in silence as one video played. It showed Adriana. Two weeks ago. Slipping a folded note behind a fire alarm panel. Except she hadn't told anyone about that.
Vincent muttered, "Someone's been watching us this whole time."
Rafi looked queasy. "Does this mean what I think it means?"
Zara whispered, "There's more. Look."
She opened a second file. It was a text document. Dozens of names. Student names. With three columns: Affiliation. Risk Level. Asset Potential.
Adriana's name was at the top.
Label: High Risk. Strategic Linchpin.
Vincent's: Medium Risk. Emotional Liability.
Zara's: High Asset. Tech Deployment Potential.
Rafi's: Low Risk. Disposable.
Rafi blinked. "Okay, rude."
Mina's: Medium Asset. Influence Circles Only.
"They're profiling us," Adriana said. Her voice was low. Cold.
Zara looked up. "This isn't just surveillance. This is recruitment planning."
Vincent stiffened. "You think someone's planning to turn us?"
"Or take us out," Rafi added.
Adriana stared at the screen.
She recognized the formatting.
The coding style.
The way the timestamps and brackets were used.
It was Alex's system.
Her brother hadn't just sent them a warning. He'd leaked a list. From the inside.
-
Elsewhere – Unknown Location
A different screen lit up.
This time, in a minimalist, glass-and-steel office.
"The drive was accessed," said a woman in a charcoal suit, her eyes fixed on a map of St. Helena's.
"How soon until they connect the dots?" asked a second voice—a man, calm and unhurried.
"Sooner than expected," the woman replied. "Adriana is accelerating."
"Then move the timeline forward."
A pause. "And Tristan?"
The man smiled.
"Let him get close. She needs to break."
-
Later – Girls' Locker Room – After Volleyball Practice
Mina was drying her hair with a towel when Adriana walked in, clutching a folder. She looked like she hadn't blinked in an hour.
"You okay?" Mina asked.
Adriana handed her the folder.
Inside were more names. Photos. Transfer student applications. Faculty memos that had supposedly been shredded.
"They're not infiltrating the school," Adriana whispered. "They already did."
Mina stared.
"So what do we do?"
Adriana looked into the mirror. Her reflection stared back like a ghost of a girl who never got to be sixteen.
"We throw a party."
Mina blinked. "What?"
"A Friday night party. Flashy. Loud. Full of gossip and glitter and fake innocence."
Mina grinned. "We bait them?"
Adriana smiled, slow and lethal.
"No. We expose them."
-
Elsewhere
Someone, watching from the shadows via another hacked school security cam, zoomed in on Adriana's smirk and whispered into a microphone:
"She remembers. Game on."