Dirty Little Secrets

20.

SUMMER'S POV.

I sat on the concrete steps outside the music building, the cold soaking right through the fabric of my dress. My hand was still throbbing slightly from the force of the slap I’d delivered to Kingsley’s cheek, and my chest felt completely hollow. I just wanted to crawl into bed, lock the world out, and pretend none of this was happening.

Bzzzz.

My phone vibrated in my palm, revealing George's urgent notification in our old group chat.

George: Everyone meet in the Computer Room on the third floor of the tech building right now. No excuses. I have proof of who leaked the video. Bring Summer if she’s with you.

I stared at the glowing letters with a heavy, numb heart. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to face Kingsley after what happened in the hallway, and I certainly didn't want to see whatever "proof" George thought he had found. But the text mentioned the leaked video—the very thing threatening my entire academic existence. But regardless, I went, dragging my heavy feet toward the tech building,.reluctantly.

When I finally pushed open the heavy door to the third-floor computer lab, the atmospheric tension in the room was thick enough to suffocate. Felix was already hunched over one of the glowing monitor terminals, his fingers hovering above the keyboard, while George stood rigidly behind him with his arms crossed. Dira was sitting in a corner chair, looking thoroughly disheveled, terrified, and completely stripped of her usual arrogance.

And then there was Kingsley. He was leaning against the back wall, his face completely pale, his eyes dark, and a faint crimson mark still coloring his jawline.

The moment the door clicked shut behind me, four pairs of eyes snapped to my face. I was the last one to arrive. They had all been waiting for me.

"Finally," George muttered, his voice tense as he stepped forward, "Someone decided to grace us, with her presence." He said sarcastically.

George quickly explained the situation to me, gesturing toward Dira. He revealed how he had cornered her, how she confessed that she hadn't edited or even wanted to upload the video, and how an anonymous account had paid her a massive sum to post it.

"Dira gave us her phone," George said, pulling the device out of his jacket pocket. "The message came from an encrypted burner, but Felix is running a packet sniffer to back-trace the routing data. We’re going to find out exactly who is behind this, Summer."

Felix started to trace where the message originated, his fingers suddenly flying across the mechanical keys in a flurry of commands.

"I need you two to sit down and stop hovering," Felix muttered without looking away from the glowing blue terminal lines. "You're blocking the light."

With the lab packed with equipment, the only available space left was the double-bench right in front of Felix's monitor. The tension between Kingsley and I heightened as we sat next to each other on the narrow seat. Neither of us spoke. Neither of us even looked at each other, but the micro-distance between our shoulders felt like a wall of solid ice. The memory of the slap hung violently in the air, making every breath I took feel completely jagged.

"Come on, come on..." Felix muttered, tapping the enter key. A progress bar illuminated the screen, flashing as it attempted to peel back the layers of encryption on the blackmailer's message.

We all leaned in, staring at the glass screen, waiting for a breakthrough.

FLASH.

A bright, mocking red prompt box filled the entire center of the monitor.

> CRITICAL ERROR: IP ROUTING DISCONNECTED. ACCESS DENIED.

"Damn it!" Felix barked, slamming his palm against the edge of the desk. The effort to trace it proved entirely abortive, as it kept showing error prompts no matter how many times he bypassed the firewalls. He ran his hand through his hair, letting out an frustrated sigh. "The sender used a layered proxy script. The second my trace pinged the server, it executed a self-destruct command on the data log."

"So we have nothing?" George demanded, stepping forward, his brow furrowed.

"Not completely nothing," Felix countered, squinting closely at the raw hex-code strings lingering at the bottom of the script. "The command script didn't originate from an outside mobile network or a home router. Look at the gateway tag. It only gave us a clue that the person used the school's computer. Specifically, a hardwired terminal right here on the NYU campus main server network."

My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit. The blackmailer wasn't just a distant shadow; they were right here. They walked these hallways. They sat in our classes. They were watching my every move on campus.

"This is perfect," George said, a dark, triumphant look flashing across his features. "A campus terminal means a registered student login ID. The IT department keeps a physical log of every single user session. If we give this data to Professor Finerty, he can force IT to pull the security logs and the name of the student who executed the script."

"No!" I gasped, the word tearing from my throat before I could even attempt to stop it. I bolted upright from the bench, my chair rattling against the floor tiles, my eyes wide with absolute panic.

"What do you mean, no?" George asked, turning to face me, his voice laced with pure disbelief.

"We can't go to the Dean with this," I pleaded, my voice trembling violently as the image of the anonymous hospital text flashed behind my eyes. "Please, George. If we bring this to Professor Finerty, it will only ruin me the more. He already placed me on disciplinary probation today, and my scholarship is under review. If we start dragging the campus IT servers and cyber-harassment investigations into his office, the administration will suspend me before they even find out who the real culprit is! It will blow everything out of proportion!"

This made Kingsley and George incredibly frustrated and angry. They didn't know the real reason for my silence; they didn't know that if an investigation went too deep, the blackmailer would release the "Dark Bird" prostitution photo and destroy my life completely.

George finally lost his temper, his chest heaving as George lashed out at her, entirely sick of my constant walls and stubborn secrecy. "Are you out of your damn mind, Summer?!" he yelled, stepping directly into my space. "Someone is actively trying to destroy your life, and you're standing here defending them?! You are always rejecting help! Every single time Kingsley or I try to pull you out of the mud, you push us away and insist on drowning alone! I am tired of watching you break yourself when the solution is right in front of us!"

I flinched, his harsh words cutting deep, but I kept my jaw locked tightly in silence. I couldn't tell them the truth. I couldn't risk it.

Beside the desk, Kingsley slowly stood up from his leaning posture. The fury that had been radiating off him in the Dean's office had settled into a cold, devastating clarity. He didn't yell. He didn't argue. Kingsley just stared at her with a look of profound disappointment that made my heart shatter into a million pieces.

"Sometimes, it is always good to ask for help," Kingsley said, his deep voice slicing through the quiet room like a razor blade. He stepped past Felix's chair, stopping just an inch away from me, his eyes boring straight into my soul. "It won't ruin you, Summer. It is an evidence that you actually have someone by your side. But I guess you'd rather treat everyone around you like an annoyance than accept that fact."

He cast one final, icy glance at my trembling hands, turned squarely on his heel, and he stormed out angrily, slamming the heavy computer lab door behind him, leaving us drowning in the echoing silence.