JADE'S POV
The nurse gave me pills that made everything fuzzy.
I sat in the medical office for two hours while people came and went—security guards with equipment, Alex barking orders on his phone, Finn staying quietly beside me even though he had classes to attend.
The pills made me calm. Too calm. Like I was watching everything happen to someone else.
"We found them," a security guard told Alex. "Three cameras, two audio devices. All removed."
"Good. Sweep every room in the building. I want a full report by tonight."
The guard hesitated. "Sir, that's over two hundred rooms. It will take—"
"I don't care how long it takes. Do it."
I should have felt relieved. Safe. But all I felt was numb.
"Jade?" Finn touched my arm gently. "They're moving you to a new room. Somewhere more secure."
"Where?" My voice sounded far away.
"East Wing. It's newer, closer to everything. And it has better security."
Translation: closer to where the rich kids lived. Where I'd be even more out of place.
But at least there wouldn't be cameras watching me sleep.
The new room was bigger. Nicer. It had actual heating and a window that closed.
It also felt like a cage.
"This is temporary," the housing coordinator said, not looking at me. "Until we can find you a suitable permanent placement."
"What's wrong with this one?"
She pressed her lips together. "It's in a residence hall for senior students. You're a first-year. It's... irregular."
What she meant was: you don't belong here either.
"I'll take it," I said tiredly.
She left quickly, like my bad luck might be contagious.
I unpacked my backpack for the third time in two days. Three outfits. A toothbrush. Mom's photo in the broken frame. That was it. My entire life fit in one small bag.
I sat on the bed and pulled out my phone. Seventeen missed calls from unknown numbers—probably reporters. Forty-three text messages, most of them mean.
One was from Victoria: Stop calling me.
I hadn't called her. Not since that first night.
I typed back: I miss you.
She read it immediately but didn't respond.
I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The medication was wearing off and reality was creeping back in. The cameras. The videos. The message board. The spray paint. The destroyed room.
Two days. I'd lasted two days before someone decided I needed to be driven out.
Maybe I should just leave. Go back to Seattle, find another café job, pretend this nightmare never happened.
Except Victoria would go to jail for the lottery fraud. That was the deal. Stay here or she pays the price.
I was trapped.
A knock on the door made me jump.
"It's Finn," a voice called. "I brought dinner. The cafeteria food is terrible but I raided my care package from home."
Despite everything, I smiled a little. I opened the door.
Finn stood there with a basket full of actual food—sandwiches, fruit, cookies that looked homemade. Behind him was another boy I hadn't met yet. Asian features, sharp eyes, expensive clothes but somehow less intimidating than most students here.
"This is Kieran," Finn said. "He's... well, he's complicated. But he wants to help."
Kieran stepped forward, holding a small device that looked like a phone but wasn't. "I've secured your room. No cameras, no listening devices, no way for anyone to spy on you digitally. You're safe here."
"How do you know?"
He held up the device. "Because I just scanned every frequency within a hundred-meter radius. If there were any surveillance equipment, this would find it." He paused. "I also installed a signal jammer in your room. It'll block any new devices from transmitting."
I stared at him. "Who are you?"
"Someone who doesn't like bullies." He handed me the device. "Keep this with you. If it beeps, there's surveillance nearby. Red light means camera, blue means audio."
"Why are you helping me?"
"Because Alex asked me to. And because..." He shrugged. "I know what it's like to be the outsider everyone's betting against."
Finn set the food basket on my desk. "Eat. You haven't had anything since breakfast."
I wanted to argue that I wasn't hungry, but my stomach growled loudly enough to make Finn laugh.
"Your body disagrees," he said gently.
We sat on the floor—Finn and I eating, Kieran typing on his laptop with intense focus. It should have been awkward but somehow it wasn't.
"What are you working on?" I asked Kieran after a while.
"Finding proof." He didn't look up. "Alex thinks Camilla Beaumont is behind the surveillance. But we need evidence before we can act."
"Camilla?" I thought of the blonde girl from yesterday. "Why would she care about me?"
Finn and Kieran exchanged a look.
"Because you're connected to Alex," Finn said carefully. "And she's obsessed with getting him back."
"But I'm not—we're not—" I couldn't even finish the sentence. "He's just helping me because he feels guilty!"
"Camilla doesn't see it that way," Kieran said, still typing. "She sees competition. And she eliminates competition."
The device in my hand suddenly beeped. Red light.
We all froze.
Kieran grabbed it, checking the screen. His face went pale. "There's a camera. In this room. It wasn't here ten minutes ago."
"That's impossible," Finn said. "We've been here the whole time—"
Another beep. Then another. Blue lights this time.
Audio devices. Multiple ones.
"Someone's planting them remotely," Kieran said, his fingers flying across his laptop. "Micro-drones, probably. Small enough to fit through air vents." He looked up, his expression deadly serious. "We need to leave. Now."
"Why?" I demanded.
"Because whoever's doing this just activated all the devices at once. They're not hiding anymore." He closed his laptop. "They want you to know you're being watched. It's psychological warfare."
We grabbed our things and rushed into the hallway.
Students were gathering outside their rooms, pointing at small mechanical objects hovering near the ceiling. Tiny drones, each one barely bigger than a quarter.
"What the hell?" someone yelled.
The drones moved in synchronized patterns, flying from room to room. When they passed over students, lights on the drones flashed—red or blue or sometimes both.
They were scanning everyone. Recording everyone.
Then all the drones flew toward me.
Dozens of them, creating a swarm that hovered inches from my face. Their camera lenses focused on me. Recording. Broadcasting.
I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
"Jade, don't react," Kieran said urgently. "That's what they want. Don't give them the satisfaction."
But it was too late. I was shaking, tears streaming down my face, trapped in the center of a mechanical swarm that was capturing every second of my breakdown.
Someone laughed. Then another person. Soon the whole hallway was laughing and recording on their phones.
The drones suddenly scattered, flying away in different directions. Gone as quickly as they'd appeared.
I stood there, humiliated and terrified, while dozens of students watched.
Then every phone in the hallway buzzed at once.
A message, sent to every student in the building: "See how easy it is to make her break? Place your bets now—will she last the week?"
Below it was a link to a new poll. But this one was different.
It wasn't asking IF I'd drop out.
It was asking HOW: Academic failure? Mental breakdown? Something worse?
Over seven hundred students had already voted.
Finn grabbed my arm. "Come on. We need to find Alex."
We ran through the hallways, students pointing and whispering as we passed. My phone was buzzing constantly with notifications—tags, mentions, comments.
We burst into the main courtyard just as Alex was walking out of the administrative building with Dante.
"Alex!" Finn shouted.
Alex turned, saw my face, and immediately ran toward us. "What happened?"
"Drones," Kieran said breathlessly. "Someone deployed surveillance drones throughout the East Wing. They swarmed Jade specifically. It's all over social media now."
Alex pulled out his phone. His face went from concerned to furious as he scrolled. "This was coordinated. Professional-level. Someone with serious resources—"
"We know who," I interrupted. My voice sounded hollow. "It's Camilla. You said it yourself."
"We don't have proof yet—"
"I don't CARE about proof!" I was screaming now, not caring who heard. "I care about surviving one day without being humiliated! I care about sleeping in a room without cameras! I care about—"
My phone rang. Unknown number.
I almost didn't answer. But something made me click accept.
"Hello, Jade." Camilla's voice, sweet as poison. "Did you enjoy my little show? The drones were expensive but so worth it."
Everyone went silent.
"Why are you doing this?" I demanded.
"Because you're in my way. And I remove obstacles." She paused. "Check your email. I've sent you something special. A choice, really."
I pulled up my email with shaking hands. New message from an anonymous account. The subject line: "THE PRICE OF STAYING."
I opened it.
It was a video file. The thumbnail showed me in the destroyed dorm room, crying. Below it: "I have twenty hours of footage. Bedroom. Bathroom. Every vulnerable moment. If you're not gone by midnight tonight, I release all of it. Every website. Every social platform. Every news outlet. You'll be famous, Jade. Just not the way you'd want."
The courtyard spun. I couldn't breathe.
Alex grabbed my phone, read the message. His face went dead calm—the expression that meant he was about to do something extreme.
"Camilla," he said into my phone, his voice lethal. "You just made a fatal mistake. You're finished."
Her laugh echoed through the speaker. "No, darling. YOU'RE finished. Check YOUR email. I sent you something too."
Alex's phone buzzed. He opened it. Whatever he saw made him go completely still.
"What is it?" Dante demanded.
Alex's hand was shaking. "She has footage of me too. Private conversations with my father. Security meetings. Everything." He looked at me, and I saw fear in his eyes for the first time. "She's threatening to release classified information that could compromise national security."
"So we're both trapped," I whispered.
"Unless," Camilla's voice continued, "one of you leaves. Jade goes home, or Alex steps down from his sponsorship and his eventual throne. Your choice. You have until midnight."
The call ended.
We stood in the courtyard in silence. Students were gathering, phones out, recording this too.
Everything was falling apart.
Then Kieran's laptop beeped. He opened it, and his eyes went wide.
"Alex. You need to see this. Now."
We crowded around his screen. It showed lines of code, transaction records, communications logs.
"What am I looking at?" Alex demanded.
"Proof," Kieran said, his voice shaking with excitement or fear or both. "Proof that Camilla isn't working alone. She has a partner. Someone with even more access than she does." He pulled up a final document. "Someone inside the Royal Council."
Alex's face went white.
"Who?" I asked.
Kieran turned the laptop so we could all see the name highlighted in red.
My vision blurred. This couldn't be real.
The partner helping Camilla destroy me, surveilling Alex, and threatening national security...
Was Alex's own father.
The King.