Chasing Zeroes

CHAPTER 4: THE COUNTDOWN

Midnight made everything honest. Aria's bedroom held nothing but the blue glow of her laptop screen, curtains drawn, phone facedown, the rest of the house asleep and unaware that their scholarship daughter was about to commit several federal crimes before Monday.

She plugged in the drive.

Her isolated laptop—no cloud sync, no wifi, a machine she'd built for exactly this—recognized it instantly, and for three full seconds nothing happened, which was somehow worse than if something had. Then the authentication handshake began, lines of text scrolling past too fast to read individually, and Aria's pulse kept perfect time with each one.

The school firewall was supposed to be a wall. It behaved instead like a door someone had left deliberately unlatched. Julian's drive slid past two layers of encryption she'd spent six months failing to crack on her own, and she watched it happen with the specific nausea of realizing she'd been outmatched by a boy who fell asleep in trigonometry.

The directory tree unfolded on her screen, branch by branch, cold and administrative and utterly without mercy. Student Records. Disciplinary. Financial Aid — Permanent. Her cursor hovered over that last folder like it was live current.

Not tonight, she told herself. Reconnaissance only. She wasn't reckless enough to go digging on her first night in, not when a single misplaced click could trip a silent alarm three servers away and end this before it started. She noted the folder path, the permission structure, the exact click count it would take to reach what she needed, memorized it the way she memorized formulas—cold, exact, unshakeable—and logged out.

The screen went dark. Her room went darker. And Aria sat very still in it, understanding fully, for the first time, the size of the thing she was now capable of doing.

Monday morning arrived bright and merciless, sun slicing across the courtyard like it hadn't gotten the memo that Aria's life had quietly ended over the weekend. She felt the stares before she saw them—a slow-motion swivel of heads by the flagpole, phones angled a half-second too casually, the particular hum of a school that had found its new favorite story.

Rowan was waiting at Aria's locker, arms crossed, and this was not teasing-Rowan. This was the other one, the one who noticed everything and forgave slowly.

"You could've told me." Rowan's voice was low, clipped, hurt dressed up as anger. "Not the internet. Me."

"It happened fast."

"Nothing about Julian Voss happens fast, Aria, that's the whole point of him." Rowan glanced around, dropped her voice further. "He doesn't date. He collects rumors and walks away from them. You know this. Everyone knows this. And you're a scholarship kid with a spotless file dating the one guy on campus guaranteed to set it on fire."

Aria's mouth built the lie before her brain finished approving it, and that was the part that scared her—how easily it came now, smooth as a formula she'd memorized.

"We kept running into each other in the library. Weeks of it. Nothing dramatic, just—" she shrugged, aiming for shy instead of rehearsed, "—it built up before I even noticed."

Rowan studied her too long. "That's not a story. That's a press release."

"Rowan—"

"I'm not done being mad." But the edge softened, just slightly, loyalty winning out over suspicion the way it always eventually did. "I'll be mad at lunch. Go to class."

She left in a huff of perfume and unresolved feelings, and Aria exhaled like she'd passed an exam she hadn't studied for.

"Aria. Congratulations, by the way."

Asher arrived like he'd been queued up the moment Rowan cleared the frame—crisp uniform, clipboard against his chest, the kind of smile that photographed well and meant nothing. Student council president, valedictorian-adjacent, the golden boy every brochure wanted on its cover.

"Thank you," Aria said, careful, pleasant, giving him nothing.

"Julian." Asher said the name like he was tasting it for flaws. "Didn't peg him for the relationship type. How long's this been building, exactly? Weeks, you said?" His eyes flicked toward Rowan's retreating back—he'd heard, then, or made a point of hearing. "Funny. I don't recall seeing you two anywhere. And I notice things."

"We kept it quiet."

"Clearly." He tapped his clipboard once, an idle little gesture that felt anything but idle. "It's just—Julian's been unusually curious about things that aren't his business lately. Server maintenance schedules. Staff badge logs. I run council audits, so I see the requests. Strange hobby for someone who cuts half his classes." His smile didn't move. "And now he's got the top scholarship student on his arm. Convenient distraction, don't you think? For someone."

Aria kept her face perfectly still, a skill four years of poverty and precision had taught her better than any acting class could have. "I wouldn't know anything about that."

"Of course not." Asher's tone dropped, gentle as a blade wrapped in silk. "Just—a scholarship is a fragile thing, Aria. The board watches girls like you very closely. Closer than they watch boys like Julian, if we're honest. I'd hate to see a bad-boy phase cost you something you worked so hard for."

He smiled once more, unhurried, and walked away like he'd merely commented on the weather.

Aria stood frozen by her locker, cold despite the sun. Asher wasn't jealous. Asher was watching—badge logs, server schedules, Julian's movements catalogued with a precision that matched her own. He wasn't guarding his title. He was guarding something else entirely, and now, by association, he was watching her too.

Her phone buzzed against her hip.

Unknown number. No name saved yet, though she already knew.

Courtyard looked fun. Don't let the golden boy see you sweat. — J.

Aria stared at the screen, students flowing past her in the bright, oblivious morning, and felt the shape of it settle into place—two boys circling each other through her, a countdown clock already ticking, and no version of the next four weeks that ended without someone getting burned.