Priya listened to the entire story without a single interruption, which was the loudest warning sign she could have given me.
Priya was a girl made of interjections; she was the one who gasped at the reveals, who demanded you back up and explain the subtext, who fueled a conversation with pure, kinetic energy. The fact that she stayed silent the entire way through meant she wasn't just listening; she was bracing herself.
She understood exactly what I was asking of her, and she was holding her breath to keep from shattering.
When I finally stopped talking, the silence on the line was heavy enough to feel.
Then: "She actually found out about Delaney."
"Someone connected to her knows someone at Southvale. I don't have a name yet," I said, my voice tight. "But yeah... she has a version of it."
"The rumor version," Priya clarified, her tone turning flat and dangerous.
"That's what I'm assuming. The jealous-girl-with-a-crush edit."
Another pause. I could hear the steady rhythm of her breathing, the sound of her shifting from victim to witness.
"I'll write it," she said. "A full statement. Everything. I'll type it up today and PDF it to you so you can hand it to whoever needs to see the truth."
"Priya, you don't have to go back there. I know how much you hated that room."
"Mila. Stop." Her voice was a mix of steel and silk. "He didn't get what he deserved the first time because nobody pushed back hard enough. I didn't push back. I let that lie breathe because fighting it felt like drowning, and I was seventeen and just... done." She took a sharp, cleansing breath. "I'm not seventeen anymore. I'm not exhausted. I'm just pissed. So let me be angry. Let me write the damn statement."
I closed my eyes, a wave of relief washing over me so hard it made my knees weak. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me. Just make sure you nail this Bianca person to the wall."
I let out a shaky, half-breath of a laugh. "I'm working on it."
* * * * * * * *
She sent the statement that afternoon. Four paragraphs, precise and clear and completely unambiguous about what had happened and who had done it and what the actual truth of my involvement was. She'd attached a copy of her original statement from the Southvale investigation. She'd kept a copy, she'd always kept a copy and a formal note saying she consented to its use.
I forwarded evrrything to Zane immediately.
He read it in minutes. His reply was a single, stark word: Good.
Then my phone buzzed with an incoming call. It was Zane.
"I'm going to Mr. Osei's office now," Zane said, his voice dropping into that low, tactical register. "I'm bringing the CCTV still of Sienna and your documentation from Priya. The conversation about how I accessed the security server is going to be ugly, but I'm done waiting for her to move."
"Zane, you're going to get suspended. Or worse. You can't just hack school servers and walk into the VP's office."
"Possibly," he admitted, entirely unbothered. "But Osei is a pragmatist. He cares more about the integrity of the school than the 'how' of the evidence, as long as the evidence is undeniable."
"You're putting a lot of faith in a man who wears a three-piece suit to a high school."
"My father was on the board a few years back. I've seen Osei handle actual crises outside of these walls." A brief pause. "I know who he is, Mila. Trust me."
I was still reeling from that when Tessa materialized beside me between fourth and fifth period, looking like she'd just stepped out of a war room.
"Bianca is talking," she whispered, her eyes darting down the corridor.
My stomach did a slow, nauseating flip. "What's the word?"
"She was holding court at lunch. I couldn't get close enough to hear the whole script, but I caught 'Southvale' and 'scholarship fraud' and 'not who she says she is.'" Tessa gripped her bag strap until her knuckles turned red. "What exactly does she have, Mila?"
I didn't hold back. I gave her the clean truth right there by the lockers. Delaney. The grooming. Priya. The cover-up. The lie that had chased me across the city.
Tessa didn't blink. She didn't even look shocked. She just looked ready.
"Does Remi know yet?"
"Not the details."
"Tell her before the final bell. The two of us can flood the pipes, we'll make sure the real version of this story is the one people are whispering about before Bianca can drop her 'exclusive.'" She looked at me, her gaze fierce. "You have the actual documentation?"
"Yes, Priya sent it an hour ago. Official statements and all."
"Then we're ahead of the curve." She squeezed my arm, a quick, grounding pressure. "This is fixable, okay? We're going to fix this."
I drifted through the rest of my classes on pure, adrenaline-fueled willpower. By the end of the day, I was at my locker, shoving my textbooks into my bag, when a shadow fell over my shoulder.
It wasn't Tessa. It wasn't the warmth of Ace or the gravity of Zane.
It was Sienna.
She stood just on the edge of my vision, her posture rigid. I didn't give her the satisfaction of looking up. I finished my locker, clicked the lock into place, and only then did I turn.
"You should have left when the door was still open," she said. Her voice was quiet, stripped of its usual bite. She sounded... resigned. Like she was reading a weather report for a storm she knew was going to destroy her house, too.
I leaned back against the metal door. "Did Bianca send you here to deliver the final warning?"
A long, heavy pause.
"Yes," she whispered.
"Are you ever going to tell me something she didn't script for you?"
Sienna looked at me for a long beat. For a second, the mask slipped, and I saw a girl who was drowning in her own choices, someone who looked uncomfortably close to guilty.
"She has more," Sienna said finally, the words rushing out. "It's not just the Southvale thing. She found something about your mom."
The world seemed to tilt. The blood drained from my face so fast I felt lightheaded. "What?"
Sienna didn't answer. She just shook her head once, her eyes glassy, and walked away into the thinning crowd of students.
I stood paralyzed at my locker as the noise of the school faded into a dull, distant hum.
My mom? Bianca had crossed the line from my past to my family. She'd brought the woman who had worked three jobs to get me here into her twisted game.
I grabbed my bag and stumbled out of the building. I didn't stop until I reached the front steps, my breath coming in short gasps. I pulled out my phone and hit the only name that felt like a lifeline.
Zane picked up before the first ring finished.
"She's going after my mom," I said. My voice was steady, though I had no idea how I was still standing. "I don't know what she found, but Sienna warned me. She has something on her."
A sharp silence on his end. Then, his voice cut through the panic like a blade.
"Where are you right now?"
"Front steps. Near the stone pillars."
"Stay exactly where you are," he commanded. "I'm coming to get you."