Chapter 5 5

Dallas burst into Room 302. Empty. Thank God.

She threw the ice pack onto Whitney's bed. She dropped to her knees beside her own bed and reached into the hidden compartment she had taped to the underside of the frame.

She pulled out the black laptop.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, flipping the lid open. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. No mouse. Just command lines.

The screen illuminated her face in a ghostly green glow. Her eyes shifted. Gone was the bored, sleepy girl. In her place was a predator.

"The study hall terminals are the only access point," she muttered to herself. "But until I get there, I have to defend from the outside."

Accessing St. Jude's Root Directory... Bypass authorized...

She saw the battle in real-time. Black Eagle was tearing through Lance's defenses like they were tissue paper. He was ninety percent through the encryption.

Not on my watch, Dallas whispered.

She didn't patch the firewall. That would take too long.

Instead, she wrote a script. A honeypot.

She created a fake directory. Labeled it Donor_List_Platinum. She left it slightly unguarded.

Black Eagle took the bait. The attack stream diverted, hungry for the prize.

Got you, she hissed.

She executed the Counter-Strike command.

The moment Black Eagle's code touched her fake file, a virus uploaded back up the stream. It was a logic bomb designed to fuse the BIOS chip on his motherboard. It wouldn't just shut him down; it would permanently brick his hardware and simultaneously broadcast his precise GPS coordinates to every open port within a ten-mile radius.

On the screen, the red alert bars turned green. Traffic normalized.

Threat Neutralized.

Dallas exhaled. A long, shaky breath. She quickly wiped her logs. She disguised her entry as a system auto-update.

She heard the key in the lock.

Snap.

She slammed the laptop shut. She shoved it under her pillow. She grabbed a Vogue magazine from Whitney's desk and flopped onto her back on the bed.

The door opened. Sloan walked in, followed by a girl Dallas hadn't met. Penny Moon. Penny was small, nervous, looking at the floor.

Hey, Sloan said. Whitney is looking for you. She wants her ice.

Dallas pointed to Whitney's bed without looking up from the magazine. It's melting.

Penny looked at Dallas. Her eyes lingered on the pillow where the laptop was hidden. There was a spark of recognition there. Fear? Or something else?

Dallas's phone buzzed.

Aunt Nora: Dinner tonight. 7 PM. Your mother is coming. Don't be late.

Dallas groaned. She let the magazine fall over her face.

The victory against Black Eagle tasted like ash now.

She stood up. I have to go out.

Be careful, Sloan said softly. Curfew is at ten.

Dallas grabbed her hoodie. She walked out into the hallway. The adrenaline was fading, leaving her cold and empty.

She took the bus to the wealthy side of town. The ride was forty minutes of stop-and-go motion that made her stomach churn. She watched the houses get bigger, the fences get higher.

She arrived at Aunt Nora's house. It was a modest mansion compared to the Bentley estate, but it still screamed money.

She stood on the porch. She took a deep breath, putting on her armor. The mask of indifference.

She rang the bell.

The door opened. It wasn't Nora.

It was Inger Bentley. Her mother.

Inger was wearing Chanel. She looked perfect. And she looked at Dallas like she was a stain on the carpet.

You're late, Inger said. Her voice was ice.

Hello, Mother, Dallas said.

Inger stepped back, wrinkling her nose. You smell like public transportation. Go wash your hands before you touch anything.