> "If you're seeing this,
I didn't make it."
— Sade
---
🎥 The Video File
The room was silent except for the soft whir of the laptop fan.
Sharon sat cross-legged on the floor, Zuri asleep on the bed behind her, earbuds in as she double-clicked the file marked:
> "If anything happens to me."
The screen flickered. Then:
Sade's face.
Hair pulled back. No makeup. Eyes tired but alert. The wall behind her was plain — a dorm room, maybe. Or a teacher's office.
She looked into the lens.
> "This is for Sharon. Or for whoever finds this.
I don't care if they erase me — someone has to know."
Sharon's breath hitched.
Sade inhaled slowly.
> "They call it the Circle, but it's not about school politics.
It's about power. Blackmail. Control.
They find what makes you weak and make you beg to protect it.
They did it to me. They did it to Mara.
They'll do it again."
She glanced behind her, nervous.
> "The head of the Circle isn't a student. It never was.
It's Ade Martins. He was supposed to be gone.
But he still has access. Still runs things through Bianca, through files.
I found proof. I hid it. Not here. Not in this file.
If you want to find it…"
The screen glitched.
> "...go to where the fire never burned.
Where ashes live but nothing was destroyed.
It's still there. I made sure."
Then her voice broke.
> "I didn't want to drag you into this, Sharon.
But if you're already here…
Don't stop.
Even if they make you bleed."
The screen went black.
---
🧬 Reina Steps Forward
The next morning, Sharon found Reina waiting at the back of the chapel — hood up, journal in her hand.
"You watched it," Reina said. "Didn't you?"
Sharon nodded.
Reina exhaled like a weight had shifted.
"I didn't tell you everything."
"Obviously."
Reina looked up. "Sade gave me the flash drive. Told me to keep it until the next fire started."
"And you decided now was the time?"
"No. The Circle decided." Her eyes were dark. "They're tightening things. Cutting people off. Zuri's being watched. Nora's been summoned for 'board questioning.' Damian's avoiding everyone. Something is coming."
---
🚨 School Locks Down
By midday, a new announcement was made:
> Effective immediately, all personal devices must be handed in for inspection due to a "security breach."
Access to public Wi-Fi was disabled.
Digital lockers suspended.
Phones. Laptops. Tablets.
Everything.
But Sharon had already hidden the drive — inside a hollowed-out dictionary in the back of the old library.
She wasn't that careless.
> You erase shadows by exposing them to light, she thought.
But you survive by staying in the dark long enough to see clearly.
---
🧨 Final Scene: The Note
That night, Sharon returned to her room to find Zuri gone and her pillow folded neatly.
A single note lay on the blanket.
Typed. Unsigned.
> "If you go looking for where the fire didn't burn,
be ready to burn for real."
And taped to the bottom…
> A burnt chessboard tile.
The queen.
Cracked straight down the middle.
---
📌 End of Chapter Eighteen
> Sade had spoken.
But now, Crescent Grove was speaking back —
And it wasn't whispering anymore.
---
🔜 Coming in Chapter Nineteen: Where the Fire Didn't Burn
Sharon deciphers Sade's clue and heads to the only fire-damaged room that wasn't consumed — the old literary basement.
Zuri returns, but she's different. Too quiet. Too compliant.
Reina takes a dangerous risk — and ends up cornered.
Sharon finds a metal box beneath the floorboards… with a key and a final message.