Chapter 3 - The Severed Connection
Red emergency lights flashed rapidly in the dim hallway.
Malik backed away from Caleb, his eyes wide with absolute terror.
"You have a gun?" Malik whispered, his voice trembling uncontrollably.
"No, I swear I don't have anything, they are framing me!" Caleb shouted over the blaring alarms.
He lunged forward and grabbed Malik by the arm, pulling him toward a janitor's closet.
They tumbled inside the small, dark room, and Caleb quickly locked the heavy wooden door.
Malik struggled, trying to punch Caleb in the chest to get away.
Caleb shoved him against the wall and covered his mouth with his hand.
"Listen to me, I am trying to save your life," Caleb hissed.
Malik stopped struggling, realizing Caleb was genuinely terrified too.
Caleb slowly removed his hand and pulled out his cell phone to call the police.
He stared at the screen, letting out a frustrated groan.
There were zero bars of service, and the Wi-Fi symbol had a red line straight through it.
"The school has military-grade signal jammers installed in the walls," Caleb explained.
Malik shook his head, looking completely bewildered by the situation.
"Why would Mrs. Baxter want to hurt me over a stupid scholarship?" Malik asked.
"Because it is not about the scholarship, Malik, it is about the money behind it."
Malik’s eyes widened as a sudden realization hit him.
He admitted that earlier that morning, he had found a strange ledger in the library computer lab.
The ledger showed millions of dollars being funneled from the school district into an offshore account.
The name attached to the offshore account was Evelyn Baxter.
"She is stealing the school's funding, and she knows you saw the ledger," Caleb said.
Heavy, synchronized footsteps suddenly echoed in the hallway outside their closet.
It did not sound like regular police officers; it sounded like a private tactical team.
A bright beam of a flashlight swept under the gap of the closet door.
Caleb and Malik held their breath, pressing their backs flat against the cold concrete wall.
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They heard a deep, rough voice speak into a tactical radio just outside the door.
"Check every single closet in this corridor, and shoot the boys on sight."
