Queen's Crest was no longer a school. Not really. It had become a stage for silent warfare, and everyone had chosen their parts. The teachers walked the halls with clipped footsteps and hollow eyes. Prefects acted more like border patrol. And students, once concerned with grades and boy crushes, whispered about alliances and enemies.
Adrian hadn't left his room in two days.
Emails kept pouring in from anonymous addresses. Some cheering him on. Some threatening him. One had a picture of the school's front gates, the words "LEAVE BEFORE YOU DISAPPEAR" scrawled in jagged red text beneath.
Amara, on the other hand, had never been more visible. She held her head high in the dining hall, spoke in even tones during debates, and made no effort to hide her proximity to Adrian. Her silence was her declaration. She would not be intimidated.
Toni, however, was missing.
Officially, she was "on a health break." The administration claimed she had been taken home due to stress, exhaustion, and academic burnout.
But nobody believed that. Not anymore.
Especially not Ralene.
---
At midnight, Ralene broke into Toni's room.
Amara followed silently behind, holding a flashlight. The room was untouched. Her perfume lingered in the air, the roses on her windowsill still blooming.
Ralene went straight to the bottom drawer of Toni's armoire and pulled out a thick black notebook. She handed it to Amara.
"She kept everything," Ralene whispered.
Amara flipped through the pages. Photos. Names. Student files. Notes on experiments.
"Some of these girls... They were expelled for mental breakdowns," Amara murmured.
"Or disappeared entirely."
One name made Amara pause.
LISA ADEMOLA – WITHDRAWN AFTER NON-COMPLIANCE.
A girl from Year 11, who had been sent to the infirmary and never returned. Her parents were told she transferred to Canada. But Amara remembered her screams during a detention exercise.
"We're going to release all of it," Amara said. "Every single piece."
"And then what? They'll deny it. Bury it again."
"Not if we burn the whole house down."
---
The following morning, Adrian addressed the school. Not through email. Not in secret.
He stood in the assembly hall with Amara beside him and Principal Okoye watching from the wings, hands clasped too tightly.
He cleared his throat. The microphone screeched, then softened.
"This school is lying to you."
Gasps.
"They've been watching us. Testing us. Deciding who's worthy of what future."
The Headmistress stepped forward. "That's enough, Mr. Maduako."
Adrian didn't flinch.
"If it was enough, I'd be gone. But I'm still here. And I've got proof."
He turned to the giant projector screen, clicked a remote, and the first page of Project Providence appeared.
Chaos.
Gasps. Screams. Some students surged toward the exits. Others stayed, frozen in horror.
Ralene uploaded every file from Toni's notebook to the school's intranet. Within ten minutes, students from other elite schools were messaging, panicking.
The secrets weren't exclusive to Queen's Crest.
This was national.
---
By evening, the Ministry of Education had dispatched a team to Queen's Crest. They arrived in tinted vehicles with government plates. Students were asked to return to their dorms. Teachers were gathered for questioning.
But Adrian and Amara were told to wait.
In a cold, windowless office.
A woman in a navy-blue pantsuit entered with a clipboard and zero warmth.
"You've caused a national stir," she said.
"We exposed a national crime," Amara replied.
The woman raised an eyebrow. "You do realize this could mean the end of your academic careers?"
"Better that than being pawns in someone's experiment," Adrian said.
She studied them both.
"You'll be summoned. There will be hearings. Investigations."
"And protection?" Amara asked. "For the students who testified anonymously?"
The woman nodded, reluctantly. "We're arranging protocols. But I won't sugarcoat this because many powerful people are furious."
Adrian smirked. "Good. That means they're scared."
---
That night, Queen's Crest remained under lockdown.
But the walls no longer whispered. They screamed.
And for the first time, the students of Queen's Crest didn't just survive.
They resisted.
They chose war over silence.
And the line had been drawn.