Chapter 4 - Escort to Nowhere
The two campus security guards flanked Leo instantly, their heavy hands gripping his shoulders with practiced roughness before he could even take a defensive step back.
“Let go of me! I didn't do anything wrong!” Leo shouted, struggling against their grip, his blue hoodie twisting violently as they dragged him away from his desk.
Mrs. Vance watched the extraction with an expression of absolute detachment, adjusting the lapels of her dark blue blazer as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. She didn't look at Clara, nor did she acknowledge the gasps of horror rippling through the remaining students in the rows behind her. Julian simply turned around in his front-row seat, watching Leo get hauled toward the exit with a cold, triumphant smile that sickened everyone in the room.
Clara shrank back into her chair, her tear-stained face pale as death. She reached out with her uninjured hand to pull her test booklet off the desk, but Mrs. Vance’s manicured hand slammed down over the paper, pinning it firmly to the wood.
“You’ll stay right where you are, young lady,” Mrs. Vance whispered, leaning in so close that her breath brushed Clara’s ear. “We are going to have a long conversation about academic integrity, and who actually dictates the standards of this institution.”
Clara swallowed hard, her throat burning. She knew what happened to students who crossed the Vance family. Last semester, another boy had questioned Julian’s athletic scholarship eligibility; within a week, he had been expelled for a fabricated drug possession charge that the administration miraculously substantiated with forged locker-room footage.
As the classroom door slammed shut behind Leo and the guards, the heavy silence returned, heavier and more suffocating than before.
Down in the basement, Arthur grunted as the screws holding the server housing finally gave way. He plunged his hand into the humming interior, his fingers wrapping around the hot metal chassis of the master hard drive. With a sharp wrench, the SATA cables snapped, and he pulled the drive free just as the heavy security office door splintered inward with a deafening crash, showering the concrete floor with splinters and dust.
Principal Harrison stepped through the wreckage, his face dark with fury, flanked by two more guards holding heavy zip-ties.
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“Hand over the drive, Arthur,” Harrison demanded, stepping forward with his hand outstretched. “Or you’ll lose your pension and your freedom tonight.”
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