Silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. I waited, my breath held captive in my chest, a desperate, foolish hope flickering that he might, just might, say something human. Something kind.

Then, his voice, devoid of inflection, came through the phone. "Ellie, you were... convenient. You understood the systems. You anticipated my needs. You maintained order. You allowed me to focus on the truly important work."

The words hit me like a physical blow, each one a hammer striking against the brittle walls of my remaining sanity. Convenient. Maintained order. Allowed him to focus. He wasn't talking about a person. He was talking about a well-oiled machine. A highly efficient piece of lab equipment.

A cold, hollow laugh escaped my lips. This was it. The absolute, unvarnished truth. All the years, all the sacrifice, all the quiet devotion. Reduced to a single, dehumanizing word. Convenient.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to rail against the injustice, against his monumental blindness. But the words died on my tongue, replaced by a profound, soul-crushing weariness. What was the point? He would never understand. He couldn't.

"I see," I finally managed, my voice flat, dead. "Thank you for your honesty, Alston."

And then, I hung up. The click of the receiver was the sound of a decade shattering into a million irreparable pieces.

Later that afternoon, the institute's monthly academic colloquium began. My transfer was still a week away, my attendance still mandatory. I sat in the back row, a hollow shell, watching as Kiara Gamble, radiant and confident, took the stage.

She began her presentation, her voice clear and authoritative, detailing the "novel high-strength polymer composites." My work. My words. My intellectual property. The room buzzed with admiration. Heads nodded. Distinguished professors smiled.

Just as she was concluding, a disturbance erupted from the back of the room. An anonymous email, projected onto the screen, flashed a series of damning screenshots. Raw data logs. Early draft abstracts. All clearly bearing my name, Ellie Cleveland, as lead author, dating back years. A precise, irrefutable timeline of my research. The email accused Kiara Gamble of blatant plagiarism and Dr. Alston Scott of intellectual fraud.

A gasp rippled through the lecture hall. Kiara's face, a moment ago so triumphant, went stark white. Her eyes darted frantically around the room, then landed on me.

My heart pounded. I hadn't done this. I swear, I hadn't. Despite the rage, the betrayal, my professional ethics were still intact. But Alston, from his seat in the front row, turned his head, his gaze piercing, accusatory, directly at me.

He thinks I did this. The thought was a fresh stab of pain. Even now, after everything, he still saw me capable of such calculated malice. He didn't know me at all.

Before the murmurs could escalate into full-blown chaos, Alston rose. He walked to the stage, a calm, imposing figure. He put a reassuring hand on Kiara' s trembling arm.

"Ladies and gentlemen, there seems to be a... misunderstanding," he announced, his voice carrying surprising authority. "Dr. Gamble is a valued member of my team. Her contributions to this project are significant. These anonymous accusations are baseless." He paused, then his eyes flickered to me, a cold, dismissive glint. "And as for Dr. Cleveland's involvement... she performed some preliminary data collection early in the project. Necessary, but ultimately, not central to the innovative breakthroughs presented today."

The gasp this time was louder, more widespread. Preliminary data collection. He had just publicly, unequivocally, stripped me of my decade of work, my entire professional identity. He had reduced me to a lab technician, a mere data inputter. The applause for Kiara, moments ago so enthusiastic, now seemed to mock me. Whispers, louder now, filled the room. Did you hear that? Just preliminary? After all these years...

Kiara, her face still pale, looked up at Alston, a silent plea in her eyes. He gave her a faint, almost imperceptible nod, a gesture of quiet reassurance.

A white-hot fury, unlike anything I had ever felt, surged through me. My hands clenched into fists. My entire body trembled with it. This was not merely inconvenience. This was utter annihilation. My dignity. My reputation. My very existence as a scientist. Erased.

I pushed myself to my feet, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. Every eye in the room turned to me. I ignored their stares, the pity, the judgment, the insidious joy of watching someone fall.

I started walking, a controlled, furious march towards the stage. Towards them. Towards the man who had stolen everything. He would not get away with this. Not this time.

Alston' s eyes, which had been fixed on the now-silent crowd, snapped to me. A flicker of alarm, of something akin to fear, crossed his face. He knew. He knew what I was about to do.

He took a quick step forward, his hand reaching out, ready to intercept me.

Chapter 8

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