Chapter 3

For the next three days, I cut off all contact with Richard completely, blocking his number, his socials, and routing his emails directly to the trash folder.

Without my help, he hit a total wall with his final submission report. His skills were far too mediocre to even nail basic experimental error analysis, let alone pull together a project strong enough to compete for the Harvard full scholarship.

But I knew he would never back down so easily—not after making that ridiculous, degrading bet with Daphne. Panic makes rats do desperate things.

His first tactic was the classic gaslighting he’d perfected over the last decade. On Tuesday evening, he ambushed me outside the library.

The rain was coming down in sheets, and he stood there without an umbrella, looking like a drowned, pathetic puppy—a look that would have shattered my heart just a week ago.

"Bonnie, please," he begged, grabbing my wrist. His grip was entirely too tight. "I’m sorry about what happened. I’m stressed, okay? My parents are threatening to cut me off if I don't get this scholarship... You know you’re the only one who understands my project. One last time. For us."

I looked down at his hand on my wrist, then back up to his desperate eyes.

"There is no 'us', Richard," I said, my voice shockingly steady. I peeled his fingers off my skin one by one.

I walked away, leaving him screaming curses into the rain.

When emotional manipulation failed, they tried financial brute force.

The next morning, Daphne cornered me in the empty women's restroom. The suffocating scent of her Chanel No. 5 filled the tiled room.

She leaned against the door, twirling a solid gold pen, a smug, predatory smile on her perfectly painted lips.

"Let's skip the drama, Bonnie," Daphne purred, pulling a pristine checkbook from her designer bag. "Richard told me you’re throwing a little tantrum. It’s cute, really. But the Harvard spot is his. My father has already arranged a dinner with the admissions board."

She scribbled a number and fluttered the check toward me. "Fifty thousand dollars. Drop out of the scholarship race, sign a NDA about your little tutoring sessions, and you can pay for some nice state college."

"Tell your father to save his money," I whispered, my voice dripping with ice. "Harvard doesn't cash checks for IQ. And neither do I."

I pushed past her, ignoring her shrill threat echoing off the bathroom mirrors: "You're going to regret this, you cheap little nobody!"

Her threat only confirmed what I already knew: they were out of options. That night, the real game began.

Late Wednesday night, I was sitting in the dark of my dorm room, the blue light of my monitor reflecting in my eyes. At exactly 11:42 PM, a red alert box suddenly popped up on my screen.

Alert: Remote login detected for your cloud research shared folder. IP Address: Room 302, Science Building, St. Paul’s High School.

A cold smirk tugged at my lips.

He’d finally gotten desperate enough to resort to dirty tricks.

I didn’t change my password or kick him offline. Instead, I quietly monitored the backend access logs. He was frantically downloading an old set of experimental data and an analysis model I’d scrapped three months prior.

On the surface, the model looked flawless. But hidden within its experimental logic was a subtle, critical flaw. What’s more, I’d embedded invisible digital watermarks into every line of core code. Once decoded with a specific program, the name Bonnie Lane would show up clearly.

He probably thought he could tweak a few details and pass my work off as his own.

I launched my screen recording software and captured every detail: his login IP, download timestamps and full activity logs, saving everything as solid evidence.

“Got you, thief,” I murmured softly.

The following afternoon, the sky was a bruised, stormy purple as I headed to the administration building to hand in my final, pristine paper documents. As I turned the quiet stair corner on the third floor, a tall figure stepped out of the shadows, blocking my path.

It was Leander.

He was the only student at St. Paul’s who could keep up with me academically, consistently ranking second in our grade by mere fractions of a point.

Quiet, intensely observant, and notoriously aloof, he kept to himself and rarely spoke to anyone.

"Heard you actually grew a spine and stayed in the running for the Harvard scholarship," he said. He held out an iced Americano. His voice was deep, resonant, and laced with a quiet, dangerous kind of admiration.

I took the coffee, the ice biting into my palm, grounding me. "Word travels fast. How did you find out?"

"I’m on the final candidate list too." Leander stepped closer, leaning against the wall. His dark eyes locked onto mine, stripping away all my defenses. "I always thought it was tragically foolish of you to throw away a brilliant mind for a parasite. I’m glad you finally woke up."

I paused, my fingers tightening around the cold plastic cup. A bitter laugh escaped my throat. "Yeah. I just wish I’d woken up a decade sooner."

"It’s never too late." Leander stood up straight, closing the distance between us. He reached into his tailored blazer and pulled out a sleek, matte-black USB drive, holding it out to me between his long fingers.

"What's this?" I asked, hesitating.

"Insurance," he said softly. "These past few days, Richard has been running around like a headless chicken, begging people to fix his deeply flawed application. When that failed, he used Daphne’s connections to find a shortcut."

Leander’s lips curled into a predatory smile. "This drive contains 4K surveillance footage of Richard meeting with an underground academic ghostwriting syndicate at a local café. It also has the server logs showing their file transfers, plus bank routing records proving Daphne’s father wired twenty grand to a state review officer."

I stared at him in shock. “Why are you helping me?”

“I hate seeing hard-earned success stolen by rats,” a sharp glint flashed in his eyes. “Besides, you deserve the very best.”

I clutched the USB drive tightly, overwhelmed by a long-lost sense of warmth and resolve.

“Thank you,” I said earnestly.

“Don’t mention it.” A faint smile played on his lips. “I can’t wait to watch you put those rats in their place at graduation.”

I watched him walk away, and the cold resolve in my eyes sharpened into a steely edge.

Richard, Daphne — your time is running out.