Chapter 10: The Leak
882 Words
The hideout was tucked into the bowels of a forgotten city district—a place where cracked neon signs flickered above shuttered storefronts and the rain never quite stopped falling. It was a relic of old rebellion, back when information was smuggled on USBs and truth had to crawl its way through analog shadows.
They met her inside an old bookstore, where mold clung to the spines of censored novels and the ceiling sagged with the weight of silence.
Her name was Marla Vex—a rogue data journalist with a sharp tongue and sharper loyalties.
“You brought hell to my doorstep,” she said by way of greeting, arms crossed, eyes hidden behind blue-tinted glasses.
Kai held up the encrypted drive. “We brought truth.”
Marla raised a brow. “Same difference.”
—
Downstairs, through a coded panel behind the philosophy section, they entered a data vault laced with forgotten tech—satellite uplinks, scramblers, isolated servers kept alive by the hum of defiance.
Ivy got to work immediately, decrypting Gabriel’s files and cross-referencing them with the data chip from Lucien.
Elena stood back, heart pounding. So much of this had moved fast—too fast—but the moment felt suspended. Like the world was holding its breath.
Marla offered her a bitter cup of coffee. “You know, once this hits the feeds, you won’t get to be anonymous anymore. Rodrigo will make sure the world sees you as a traitor. Maybe worse.”
“I don’t care,” Elena said. “The world deserves the truth.”
Marla studied her for a beat. “Good. Because this truth? It’s nuclear.”
—
By midnight, the files were ready for leak: Gabriel’s voice recordings about Project Ouroboros, bloodline tampering logs, test results proving Elena’s unaltered DNA, and Lucien’s financial documents—names, locations, bribery routes.
“This is enough to burn half the Cabinet,” Ivy muttered. “Rodrigo won’t survive this politically—or legally.”
“We push it to the underground channels first,” Marla said. “Then it floods the surface networks.”
Kai turned to Elena. “Do you want to do the honors?”
She hesitated.
Then she stepped forward, placed her finger on the biometric scanner, and watched the countdown begin.
3... 2... 1...
UPLOAD COMPLETE.
—
The first signs came twenty minutes later.
Hashtags bloomed like wildfire across encrypted social threads: #ProjectOuroboros, #BloodlineTruth, #ElenaReyesSpeaks.
Then came the public shock.
Anonymous whistleblower accounts exploded with shares. Journalists reached out with trembling curiosity. Protests flared in university quads and government steps.
Rodrigo’s face flashed on every screen—smiling, shaking hands, hollowed by the now-incriminating context.
Elena stood by the vault window, the city flickering below her like a storm of lights. Her hands trembled, not from fear—but from the sheer weight of the moment.
She had done it.
She had finally struck the match.
—
But victory never comes unchallenged.
Around 3 a.m., Ivy’s terminal beeped.
She frowned. “Someone’s trying to trace us. Advanced backdoor sweep, state-level tech.”
“Rodrigo’s already retaliating,” Kai muttered.
“No.” Ivy’s fingers flew across the keys. “This isn’t government-grade.”
Elena stepped forward. “Then who—?”
Suddenly, the screens went black.
Then red.
A blinking message appeared:
“YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED QUIET.”
—
Gunfire exploded upstairs.
Marla swore and grabbed her pistol. “Back exit—go, now!”
Elena’s heart slammed against her ribs. “It’s Rodrigo’s mercs. They found us.”
Kai grabbed her hand. “Run!”
They bolted through the tunnel beneath the vault, the sound of boots and shouting echoing behind them. Smoke filled the passage—choking, acidic. Someone screamed. Maybe Marla. Maybe one of Rodrigo’s men.
They didn’t look back.
—
By dawn, they were tucked inside a gutted subway terminal miles away, panting, burned, bruised, but alive.
The leak had gone global.
And someone inside Marla’s network had betrayed them.
—
“I should’ve seen it,” Ivy whispered, staring at the broken drive in her hands. “Someone tipped Rodrigo off. Someone knew we were there.”
Elena sat against the cold wall, her voice hoarse. “It doesn’t matter. The world saw the files. It’s out there.”
Kai crouched in front of her, wiped a smear of soot from her cheek. “You did it, Reyes. You cracked his mask.”
She met his gaze. There was pride there. But also fear. And something deeper.
“I’m not finished,” she said. “He’ll try to twist this. Rewrite it. Paint me as his daughter-turned-terrorist. We need the public on our side before he spins the story.”
Ivy looked up. “Then we find the face he can’t discredit. Someone with power. Someone who knew Dara.”
Kai nodded slowly. “Someone with reach. And no allegiance to Rodrigo.”
“Who?” Elena asked.
Kai hesitated, then said, “The woman your mother tried to contact before she died. A senator. Her name is—”
“Valeria Rios,” Ivy finished, her eyes widening. “She disappeared three years ago after speaking out against Rodrigo’s reforms.”
Elena stood. “Then it’s time we found her.”
- Writer
