Chapter 6 - Whispers in the Courtyard
By Monday morning, the landscape of Edenbridge Preparatory had fundamentally altered. The news of Sterling Industries' catastrophic financial collapse had hit the Wall Street Journal. The stock was in a freefall.
Serena arrived at school in an Uber. Her family’s Maybach had been repossessed at dawn.
As she walked across the circular driveway, the silence was deafening. The chauffeurs didn't nod. The students didn't part for her. Instead, they stared. They whispered.
Bankrupt. Fraud. Penniless.
Chloe, her most loyal follower, didn't even look at her. Chloe was currently walking next to Harper, desperately trying to laugh at a joke Harper hadn't even made. The hierarchy had recalibrated overnight, and Harper Cole was the new absolute zero around which the school orbited.
Serena’s heart pounded in her chest. Her world was dissolving. She retreated to the only place she felt safe—the student council office. She locked the door behind her and collapsed into her leather chair, tears of humiliation finally spilling over her mascara.
She needed to fight back. She couldn't lose the company and the school.
She logged into the school’s mainframe. Serena had always had backdoor access, secured by bribing the IT director. If Harper Cole was a genius, she had to have a weakness. Academic, personal, anything.
Serena scoured the encrypted files. She found Harper’s pristine academic record. But then, she found something else. A medical file.
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Harper had a history of severe panic attacks, stemming from a traumatic car accident three years ago. The file detailed her triggers: confined spaces, sudden loud noises, and extreme public confrontation.
Serena’s eyes gleamed with a vicious, desperate light. If she couldn't destroy Harper’s bank account, she would break her mind in front of the entire school.
