Chapter 3

The room was dead silent. The only sound was the faint hum of the projector.

Dean Harrison stared at the screen, then at Stella's wrist, then at me. The pieces were clicking into place in his mind.

"What is the meaning of this, Mr. Davenport?" he asked, his voice dangerously low.

Stella found her voice first. "She's trying to frame me! She's obsessed! She probably paid someone to make that video!"

Ethan rushed to her side. "This is insane. We all know Ava. This girl is a psycho."

But their words were hollow now. The seed of doubt had been planted, and it was growing fast.

I knew I had to press my advantage. The tattoo video proved their deception, but it didn't prove I was the coding prodigy, the National Merit Scholar. It didn't prove I was the one who had earned a place at this university.

"There's a simple way to solve this," I announced, my voice ringing out in the silent hall. "Right here, right now."

I turned to Stella. "You claim to be me. You claim to have my grades, my achievements. So prove it."

I pointed to the laptop on the lectern. "Let's have a little test. A simple coding challenge. Something any first-year computer science major should be able to handle. Let's see you write a recursive algorithm to solve the Tower of Hanoi problem. You can even pick the language."

A new wave of murmurs swept the crowd. This was a specific, technical challenge.

Stella's face, already pale, turned a shade of green. I knew from my past life that she couldn't write a single line of code. She'd paid other students to do all her high school projects.

Her eyes darted to her parents, pleading for help.

Mr. Davenport stepped forward, his face flushed with anger. "This is outrageous! Our daughter will not be subjected to a public quiz show! She is the victim here!"

"What's the matter?" I asked, my voice laced with mock innocence. "It should be easy for you. After all, you're the salutatorian. You're the coding prodigy from Detroit."

The fear in Stella's eyes was undeniable. She was trapped. If she refused, she admitted she was a fraud. If she accepted, she would be exposed in minutes.

"She's trying to humiliate me!" Stella cried, tears welling in her eyes. "This is bullying!"

The Dean looked at her, his expression hardening. "It seems like a reasonable request, under the circumstances."

The trap was closing. The Davenports and Ethan were shouting, trying to create chaos, to deflect, but it was too late. Everyone in the room could see it.

The girl on the stage was terrified of a simple academic test.

And in that moment of chaos, as they were all distracted, the main screen flickered again.

But this time, it wasn't my phone.

This time, I had no idea what was coming.