### **Chapter 10: The Challenge**
Elle Hoods had never believed in settling.
Harvard Law had given her debates, trials, lectures—but nothing had tested her as much as the quiet moments after the verdict, when she was left alone with her thoughts. Change didn't happen in a courtroom alone. It happened in conversations, in doubt, in the slow unraveling of certainty.
The professor had assigned an independent project—an opportunity to challenge existing legal frameworks. Most students chose familiar cases, reinterpreting precedents to refine technical arguments. Elle chose something else.
She submitted her topic with a single sentence: **"The system is designed to fail those who need it most."**
No citations. No hedging. Just truth.
Preston Montgomery III read over her proposal with barely concealed frustration. "You really don't believe in neutrality, do you?"
Elle leaned back. "Neutrality is a privilege. Some people don't get to believe in it."
Preston frowned. "You act like there's no fairness in law."
Elle didn't hesitate. "There's fairness in the *idea* of law. But ideas don't convict people. Systems do."
Silence.
For the first time, Preston didn't have an immediate response. He simply watched her as if realizing—truly realizing—that her arguments weren't theoretical. They were lived.
The professor reviewed her proposal with pursed lips, scanning the single sentence over and over as if expecting more explanation to materialize from the blank space beneath it. "Miss Hoods," he finally said, "This is a bold claim. Are you prepared to defend it?"
Elle smirked. "I've been defending it my whole life."
The professor exhaled. "Your assignment requires structured legal analysis, not ideology."
Elle nodded, unfazed. "And the law requires justice, not tradition. Yet here we are."
The room shifted around her, the weight of Harvard's expectations pressing against the edges of her certainty. She had felt this pressure before—in courtrooms where verdicts had been predetermined, in conversations where her existence was questioned before her intelligence. She didn't shrink from it. She thrived in it.
Preston leaned back, arms crossed. "So what's your argument, then? That the law itself is broken?"
Elle considered him for a moment, then shook her head. "Not broken. Built wrong."
The professor narrowed his eyes. "That's a dangerous stance."
Elle smiled. "Only if it works."
Harvard Law wanted her to learn the rules. Elle Hoods was here to rewrite them.
And she wasn't stopping anytime soon.