Chapter 12 - THE FIRE AT WESTBRIDGE
Flames tore through the administration building.
Students poured from dorms while alarms echoed across campus. Fire crews attacked the blaze from three sides.
Richard Hale had not set the fire to destroy one ledger.
He was destroying twenty years of records.
Lily called me from inside the business building.
“Evan and I found the backup archive, but the east hallway is blocked.”
“Get out.”
“The files prove which students lost scholarships.”
“Lily, leave them!”
“If we abandon this, they’ll erase those people again.”
I ran toward the building before Marcus could stop me.
Inside, smoke swallowed the ceiling. I found Lily and Evan near the archive room, trying to move a server cabinet that weighed hundreds of pounds.
“We can’t carry it,” Evan coughed.
“We don’t need to.”
I remembered the emergency network installed for the business competition. If we reached the control room, we could upload the archive.
We crawled through a lecture hall as windows exploded behind us.
At the control room, Evan connected the server. The upload began.
Eight percent.
Twelve.
Smoke thickened.
Then the door opened.
Richard Hale entered holding a metal bar.
“You Sterling women never know when to stay buried.”
He swung at Evan. I shoved Evan aside and felt the bar scrape my shoulder.
Lily hit Hale with a fire extinguisher. He stumbled but didn’t fall.
The upload reached forty-three percent.
Hale grabbed Lily by the throat.
I pulled the emergency sprinkler lever. Water blasted through the room. Hale lost his footing, and Evan drove him against the wall.
Seventy-nine percent.
The ceiling groaned.
“Move!” I shouted.
We ran as burning panels collapsed behind us.
Ninety-four percent.
The network cable snapped.
Outside, we watched flames consume the control room.
The upload had stopped at ninety-nine percent.
Hale laughed as firefighters handcuffed him.
“You risked your lives for an incomplete file.”
Evan checked his phone.
“It completed.”
Hale’s smile vanished.
The archive had been sent to every major news organization, the Justice Department, and thousands of former Westbridge students.
Then Lily opened one last recovered folder.
Inside was a list of people who had received stolen scholarship money.
May you like
The final name was Nathan Sterling.
My father had received the first illegal payment twenty years ago.
