The sun never rose for Queen's Crest that morning. Grey clouds blanketed the school in a suffocating hush, the kind that filled the lungs with questions. A storm hadn't begun, but everyone felt it coming. On their skin, in bones, behind the eyes.
Toni sat in the music room, her fingers ghosting over the piano keys without pressing a single note. Her reflection wavered on the glossy lid, her face paler than she remembered, her crown of curls tied back like she was preparing for war.
Her phone buzzed again.
[From: Ralene] They're moving her. Midnight. Infirmary basement. Cameras will go down for 17 minutes.
Toni didn't reply.
She stood and left.
---
Adrian paced his room like a caged wolf. His walls had been scrubbed of anything personal. His photos, awards, even the framed painting his mother once mailed from Rome. All gone. Everything was boxed, as if he knew he wouldn't finish the semester here.
He wasn't wrong.
The video had done its job. Project Providence was no longer a whisper. It was a scream. And Queen's Crest was bleeding credibility.
A knock interrupted him.
He opened the door to find a junior girl trembling with a note in her hand.
"They told me to give you this... if you're still here."
Adrian took it gently. The girl fled before he could thank her.
He read it once, then twice.
We need to talk. Archives. Tonight. You won't be alone this time.
It wasn't signed, but the handwriting… he recognized it. Sharp, angular, pressed hard against the paper.
Amara.
---
The archives were colder now. Someone had left a window open, and wind slithered through the old files like a warning. Adrian arrived first. He waited six minutes before he heard the door creak.
Amara stepped in, hair tied back, eyes unreadable.
"You look like hell," she said.
"Good. I feel worse."
"I assume you got my note."
He nodded. "And you're not here to stab me, which is surprising."
"Don't tempt me."
A beat of silence.
Then Amara pulled out a folder from under her jacket.
"Toni got this. It's part two of the Providence files. The other half wasn't digital. It was locked in the old staff storage, beneath the chapel. She risked everything to get it."
Adrian opened it.
Inside were color photographs, psychological assessment logs, and rows of names. Girls. From Queen's Crest and three other elite institutions. Each page had symbols and phrases like "compliant risk", "breeding potential", and "asset viability."
His stomach twisted.
"This isn't just grooming. It's sorting."
"Exactly," Amara said. "It's systemic. Like we were bred, branded, and boxed."
A voice cut through the room.
"Except some of us refused the box."
They both turned.
Toni.
She stepped forward, holding up a small USB. "I downloaded the names. Families. Donations. Everything. They knew this school was a pipeline. They just didn't think we'd look backward."
Adrian stared. "What do we do with it?"
Amara didn't blink. "We go forward. We leak the whole damn story."
"Then we run," Toni added. "Because the moment this goes out, we become targets."
"We already are," Amara whispered.
---
Midnight.
Ina crouched behind a crate outside the infirmary. Her face was smudged with dirt and determination. She had a walkie. It crackled.
"Ina, now. Move."
She slipped inside. The basement was damp, the air sour with bleach and secrets. She saw two guards wheeling a bed. On it was Lulu. Sedated. Motionless.
Ina threw a small metal object across the room. It clanged.
Both guards turned.
She moved.
One guard yelled.
A scuffle. A blow.
Lulu opened her eyes just in time to see Ina slam a chair into one of the guards.
"Wake up, you idiot," Ina hissed. "You have ten minutes before they send more."
Lulu sat up groggily. Her IV ripped from her arm.
Together, they ran.
---
Three girls ran through the night.
Three more waited in the archive, uploading files to a secured cloud.
By dawn, a headline spread across international feeds:
"EXCLUSIVE: ELITE SCHOOLS IMPLICATED IN SECRET GENETIC, PSYCHOLOGICAL GROOMING PROGRAM"
Pictures. Proof. Names.
The world did not yawn.
It gasped.
Queen's Crest gates were shut by noon. Military trucks parked outside. Journalists swarmed the campus. A news helicopter circled overhead.
Inside, the real storm had only begun.
And somewhere, behind the gold-trimmed curtains of politics and power, a council of men and women sat in silence.
Project Providence had been exposed.
Now came the purge.