Avery stepped back.

Nia was not taller.

Not stronger.

Not louder.

But something about seeing her stand changed the room.

“Your aunt won a trophy,” Nia said. “My sister spent the rest of high school being told she imagined what happened.”

“That’s not my problem.”

“No.”

Nia nodded.

“It wasn’t.”

Avery looked confused.

“Wasn’t?”

“Until your family started threatening me too.”

Avery’s eyes flicked toward the students around them.

“What are you talking about?”

Nia took out her phone.

She showed Avery the message.

LET DEAD PEOPLE STAY DEAD.

Avery’s face changed.

“I didn’t send that.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“You’re trying to make it look like I did.”

“No. I’m showing you what someone thinks they’re protecting.”

Avery glanced around.

Students were openly watching now.

One boy had his phone partially raised.

Mr. Keller finally stepped forward.

“That’s enough.”

Nia looked at him.

“Now it’s enough?”

Mr. Keller stopped.

The question landed heavily.

Avery turned toward him.

“What does that mean?”

“Nia,” he warned.

But Nia was tired of warnings.

She pulled the flash drive from her pocket.

Avery stared at it.

“What is that?”

Mr. Keller’s face lost its color.

Nia looked directly at Avery.

“Ask him.”

Avery turned.

“Mr. Keller?”

He did not answer.

“Ask him what happened October fourteenth.”

Mr. Keller removed his glasses.

Several students began whispering.

Avery looked from him to Nia.

“What happened?”

Mr. Keller’s voice was barely audible.

“Your aunt entered this classroom while Danielle Brooks was presenting her project.”

Avery froze.

“So?”

“She later accessed Danielle’s project files.”

“No.”

Mr. Keller swallowed.

“Avery—”

“No.”

She shook her head.

“My aunt developed that project.”

Mr. Keller said nothing.

Avery’s voice rose.

“Tell her.”

He could not.

That silence broke something.

Avery grabbed the notebook from Nia’s desk.

Gasps filled the classroom.

Nia reached for it.

“Give it back.”

Avery held it against her chest.

“This is what you’re using?”

“Give it back.”

“A dead girl’s notebook?”

Nia’s expression became dangerously still.

“Give it back.”

Mr. Keller stepped forward.

“Avery.”

She opened the notebook.

The first page contained Danielle’s handwriting.

Avery stared at it.

Then something slipped from between the pages.

A photograph.

It landed face-up on the floor.

Avery looked down.

So did Nia.

Neither moved.

The picture had been taken six years earlier inside the Franklin Ridge science lab.

Danielle stood beside her prototype.

Mr. Keller was behind her.

And on the far side of the photograph, partially reflected in the glass cabinet, was Lauren Caldwell.

Holding her phone toward Danielle’s workbench.

Avery picked up the photo.

Her face went pale.

Nia had seen it dozens of times.

She had never considered it absolute proof.

Avery apparently saw something else.

The phone case.

She recognized it.

“My aunt still has this case.”

Nia frowned.

Avery stared at the photo.

“It’s in a box at my grandmother’s house.”

“Avery.”

“My grandfather gave it to her before she went to college. She keeps everything.”

Her voice weakened.

“This picture was taken before the competition?”

“Yes.”

Avery looked at Mr. Keller.

He nodded.

Students began murmuring.

Avery dropped into the empty desk beside Nia.

For weeks, Nia had imagined what it would feel like when Avery finally understood.

She expected satisfaction.

Instead she saw a seventeen-year-old girl watching the mythology of her family collapse in real time.

Avery whispered, “My mother told me Danielle tried to steal Lauren’s project.”

Nia felt anger rise again.

“She lied.”

Avery shook her head.

“No.”

“She lied.”

“No, you don’t understand.”

Avery looked up.

“My mother didn’t hear that story from Lauren.”

“Then who?”

“My grandfather.”

Thomas Caldwell.

The donor.

The man whose money had transformed Franklin Ridge.

The man whose company still funded laboratories, internships, teacher grants, and the scholarship Avery had expected to receive.

The classroom door opened.

Principal Hayes entered with the assistant principal.

Apparently someone had alerted the office.

“What is happening?”

Nobody answered.

He saw the phones.

“Put those away.”

No one moved.

Principal Hayes looked at Nia.

“Come with me.”

Avery stood.

“No.”

Everyone turned toward her.

Hayes blinked.

“Excuse me?”

“She didn’t do anything.”

Nia stared at Avery.

Five minutes earlier, Avery had been threatening her.

Now her hands were shaking.

Principal Hayes’s voice hardened.

“Avery, return to your seat.”

“No.”

She held up the photograph.

“What happened to Danielle Brooks?”

Hayes’s face revealed the answer before he spoke.

“I don’t know what you’ve been told—”

“My family paid for this building six days after my aunt took her files.”

The room erupted.

Principal Hayes snapped, “Everyone put your phones away immediately.”

The boy recording lowered his phone.

But it was too late.

The video had already been sent to three people.

By the end of the period, it reached half the school.

By lunch, it was outside the school.

By evening, it had been viewed more than eighty thousand times.

The part everyone shared was not Avery confronting Nia.

It was Avery turning toward the principal and asking the question nobody at Franklin Ridge had been willing to ask for six years.

“What did my grandfather buy?”

The district issued a statement that night.

Franklin Ridge Schools takes all allegations concerning academic integrity seriously. We are reviewing claims relating to a historical student competition and will cooperate with any appropriate inquiry.

Monica read the statement from her phone.

Then she looked at Nia.