The heavy glass doors of the media wing offered no sanctuary. The moment they stepped back inside, the residual energy in the open-concept atrium felt heavier, the hum of overlapping student conversations dropping to a tense, collective murmur the second heads turned and recognized Layla standing between Liam and Jade.
Layla kept her gaze locked on the linoleum floor, her boots clicking against the tiles as they bypassed the central lounge and headed straight toward the back service corridor. Her heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs, every muscle in her body wound tight as a coiled spring.
"She's not in the main booth," Jade muttered, his thumb scrolling rapidly through the forum backend admin access on Layla's phone as they pushed through the heavy fire door leading to the upper audio labs. "The routing logs show the override packet was triggered from Studio B, the production suite on the third floor."
"That's locked during mid-semester reviews," Liam said, his long strides keeping pace right beside them. "Only department TAs or authorized student leads have the keycode."
"Kianna has a keycode because she runs the weekend podcast schedule," Jade shot back without looking up, his dark eyes sharp and intensely focused on the screen as he navigated through layers of server diagnostics. "And right now, her creator credentials are the only ones authenticated to the forum server. She's locking the database thread so the plagiarism flag can't be manually deleted by a standard moderator."
Layla's chest tightened, the cold air of the stairwell feeling thin and suffocating. "If the system locks the morning queue before we clear the file hash, my portfolio is automatically disqualified. All four months of work, gone. Just like that."
"It's not going to be gone," Liam said, though his jaw remained tight, the lingering resentment of their breakup still evident in the hard, unyielding set of his shoulders. He wasn't doing this because things were fixed between them; he was doing this because Kianna's petty vindictiveness had crossed a line that neither of them could ignore.
They took the concrete steps two at a time, their heavy footfalls echoing loudly in the narrow stairwell. Up on the third floor, the hallway was deserted, lined with soundproof doors and dark glass windows. At the very end of the hall stood the heavy timber door of Studio B. The small rectangular window set into the wood was dark, the vertical blinds drawn tightly shut from the inside.
Jade stepped ahead, raising his hand and rapping his knuckles sharply against the glass.
Inside, the muffled rustle of papers and the hum of equipment stopped instantly.
"We know you're in there, Kianna," Jade called out, his voice dropping into a dangerously calm, low register that carried through the solid wood door. "Open the door, or I'm taking the admin override key straight to the department head right now."
For a long, agonizing five seconds, there was absolute silence. Then, the deadbolt clicked with a heavy mechanical snap.
The door swung open. Kianna stood in the center of the dimly lit recording booth, her laptop open on the main mixing console before her, the blue glow of the dual monitors reflecting off her wide, startled eyes. In her hand, resting right beside the master audio interface, was Layla's missing flash drive.
For a heartbeat, nobody moved. The air inside the booth smelled like stale coffee, heated electronics, and ozone.
"Well," Kianna said, her initial shock snapping quickly into a cold, defiant smirk as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Look what the draft dragged in. Did you like the atrium preview, Layla? Or did you prefer the downloadable bonus feature?"
Layla took a step forward into the room, her fear entirely vaporized by a sudden, hot surge of fury that burned away her tears. "Give me the flash drive, Kianna."
"And if I don't?" Kianna tilted her chin up, casting a slick, dismissive sideways glance at Jade. "What are you going to do, Jade? Run to your little project and cry about it? Everyone on campus already knows how she feels about you—and how she lied to her golden-boy boyfriend just to keep her options open."
Liam stepped into the doorway, filling the threshold completely, his tall frame blocking any possible escape route into the hall. His voice was terrifyingly flat. "Delete the forum post. Clear the plagiarism hash. Now."
Kianna's smirk wavered slightly as she looked up at Liam, but she didn't move toward the console. "You're actually defending her? After everything she put you through on that trip? God, Liam, have some self-respect. She used you as a safety net until Jade stepped into the picture."
"That's between me and her," Liam said, taking a single, heavy step into the studio. "And right now, you're committing deliberate academic sabotage. The department disciplinary committee expels students for data tampering and submission fraud. Hand over the drive, or I'll make sure security pulls the keycard logs for this room before you can even close your browser."
Kianna's eyes darted from Liam's stone-cold expression to Jade's unreadable, dangerous stare. She realized, with a sudden, sinking dread, that neither of them was playing her game anymore. The petty drama she had tried to weaponize was turning into a formal university investigation that could ruin her own academic record.
With a bitter hiss of frustration, Kianna snatched Layla's flash drive off the console and flung it across the room. It bounced off the wall's acoustic foam and clattered onto the linoleum floor right at the base of Layla's boots.
At the same time, her fingers flew aggressively across her keyboard, executing a sequence of admin keystrokes. On the large monitor above the mixing console, the forum thread status flipped from [ACTIVE_LOCKED] to [DELETED_BY_AUTHOR].
"It's gone," Kianna spat, stepping back from the console as the automated server sync purged the flagged PDF hash from the registrar's queue. "Happy now? Get out of my studio."
Layla bent down, her hand trembling slightly as her fingers closed around the cold plastic of her flash drive. She pulled it close, sliding it safely into the deepest pocket of her coat. She didn't say another word to Kianna. She didn't need to. She turned and walked out into the corridor, Jade and Liam falling into step beside her as they left the suffocating air of Studio B behind.
They walked down the third-floor hallway in a tense, heavy silence. The immediate threat to Layla's academic standing had been neutralized, but the air between the three of them remained thick with unresolved history.
When they reached the top of the central stairs, Liam stopped, pulling his coat tight against the chill blowing up from the main doors below. He looked at Layla, his expression a complicated mix of exhaustion and distance.
"The file hash is cleared," Liam said softly, his voice devoid of the anger from earlier. "You can hand in your portfolio now."
Layla looked up at him, her throat tight. "Liam... thank you. For coming up there."
Liam shook his head, looking off toward the frosted glass windows of the stairwell. "I didn't do it to fix things, Layla. I just couldn't watch someone pull a scam like that on you. But we're still done. I need space, and I don't think I can be around you or Jade for a long time."
Before Layla could say anything else, Liam turned and headed down the stairs alone, his footfalls fading into the quiet of the building.
Layla stood on the landing, staring at the empty doorway where Liam had just vanished. Beside her, Jade leaned back against the concrete wall, his dark eyes fixed on her profile.
"He's right about one thing," Jade said quietly, his voice dropping into that familiar, low tone from the stairwell two days ago. "Kianna didn't win today. But this isn't over, Layla. Everyone in that atrium still heard the audio. They know what happened."
Layla turned to look at him, reaching into her pocket to clutch her flash drive. "I don't care about the atrium right now, Jade. I just need to turn this in."
Jade offered a faint, almost imperceptible smirk, stepping back to let her lead the way. "Then let's go finish what you started."