The moment the Providence files hit Queen's Crest inboxes, the school changed. Not over days or weeks but immediately.
Classrooms emptied. Parents stormed in. The Headmistress locked her office. The chapel bells didn't ring that morning.
But the whispers did.
"Is this real?"
"Did you see my name?"
"What is Project Providence?"
Amara sat in the library, surrounded by printouts. Highlighters, pens, sticky notes, those were her war tools. Toni sat across from her, hair in a loose bun, no makeup, eyes sharp. The girls weren't friends. But the enemy of my enemy.
"Page 17," Toni said. "Look at the symbols."
Amara scanned it. Asterisks next to certain names. Hers had two.
"What do two mean?"
Toni hesitated. "Trial-ready."
"Trial?"
"Testing. Emotional manipulation. The sessions in our first year, when we thought they were mentorship interviews? They were observing us."
Amara's throat dried. "So, we were rats."
"And some of us were favorites."
They looked up as the doors opened. Adrian entered, face pale but eyes steady. He dropped a bag on the table.
"Proof," he said. "Printouts, files, hidden letters. From the archives and my father's safe."
Toni narrowed her eyes. "Why now?"
"Because," he said, "they've started deleting."
---
By the next day, five students had fled campus. Two teachers resigned. The press was circling.
And someone set fire to the school's east wing records room.
Adrian got the alert first.
"Surveillance is down. Fire's spreading."
Amara stood immediately. "We need to get there."
Toni cracked her knuckles. "Then let's go."
Three of them ran through the side corridors, past shocked freshmen and crying seniors. Smoke was already thick. Alarms were dead.
When they arrived, a girl stood with a matchstick in her hand.
Ina.
Her eyes wide, her uniform burnt at the sleeve.
"Why?" Amara shouted.
Ina whispered, "Because if the truth stays buried, I'll never sleep again."
Adrian lunged forward, grabbing her wrist and yanking the matchstick from her hand.
"You're not helping!" he barked.
Ina crumbled, sobbing. "They used me. They told me I'd be queen someday. That I'd belong."
Toni's face was stone. "You still can. But not like this."
They stomped out the flames together. But no fire trucks came because someone had blocked the call.