Chapter 2

Ethan, the star of the show, was now playing the part of the wounded brother to perfection. He wiped a fake tear from his eye, his shoulders slumping.

"I just... I can't believe he would do this," he said to Principal Thompson, his voice full of sorrow. "I looked up to him. I really did."

His performance was sickening, but it was working. Murmurs of sympathy rose from the students around him. They saw a hero, a whistleblower who had bravely exposed a fraud despite the personal cost. They didn't see the snake that he was.

"You did the right thing, son," Principal Thompson said, placing a comforting hand on Ethan's shoulder. "It takes a lot of courage to stand up for what's right, especially when it involves family."

Family. The word felt like a joke.

"Sir, you have to believe me," I said, stepping toward the principal, desperate to make him see the truth. "He's manipulating you. He's been jealous of my grades for years. This is his way of destroying me."

Principal Thompson's face hardened, his patience gone. "Mr. Turner, do not insult my intelligence by accusing your step-brother of such a vile scheme. The evidence is right here." He slapped my binder, which he still held in his hand. "Your own detailed notes, used to cheat. It's open and shut. Now, I told you to leave."

"But it's not fair! You haven't even investigated!"

"Fair?" A girl I'd known since middle school, Jessica, scoffed from a nearby table. "You cheated your way to the top and took opportunities from people who actually earned them. How is that fair?"

Her friends nodded in agreement. The tide of opinion was a tsunami, and it was crashing down on me. Ethan had poisoned the well so completely that there was nothing I could do. He looked over at me, his eyes full of that same triumphant malice, but his face was a mask of pain for everyone else to see.

"Liam, just stop," Ethan said, his voice pleading. "Just admit what you did. Maybe they'll go easier on you."

He was twisting the knife, enjoying every second of it. He wanted me to confess to a crime I didn't commit, to complete my own humiliation.

I saw my friends, people I'd eaten lunch with every day, whispering and shaking their heads. They wouldn't meet my eyes. In the space of ten minutes, I had become a pariah. My entire world had been dismantled.

Just as a security guard started walking toward me, the library doors swung open with a loud bang.

My mother, Sarah Turner, and my step-father, Robert Hayes, stood there. Robert's face was a thundercloud of fury. My mother's was pinched with embarrassment and anger. Someone from the school must have called them.

"What is the meaning of this?" Robert boomed, his eyes immediately locking onto me, already passing judgment.

Ethan rushed over to them. "Dad, Mom... I'm so sorry. I had to tell them. I saw him..."

His voice trailed off, and my mother wrapped her arms around him. "Oh, my poor baby. You did the right thing."

She looked at me over Ethan's shoulder, and her eyes were not the eyes of a mother. They were cold, filled with a disgust so profound it made me feel sick. This was it. This was the bigger conflict, the one that had been brewing under the surface of our family for years. And it was about to explode.

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