The drive back from Jessica's college was a tense, silent affair. The weight of their new, impossible mission had settled over them, a heavy, suffocating blanket. They were no longer just a group of kids trying to save a friend. They were now entangled in a complex, high-stakes criminal conspiracy, and they were hopelessly, completely, out of their depth.
They went straight to Nina's house, their de facto war room. The whiteboard, which still had the faded remnants of their last, successful campaign, was wiped clean.
"Okay," Nina began, her voice a sharp, focused command that cut through the anxious silence. "Let's break this down. We have two objectives. Objective one: we have to stop the frame job. We cannot let Yuna's father take the fall for this. Objective two: we have to secure our asset. We have to get Jessica out from under her father's control, permanently."
