Chapter 116 Breaking Bea

Chapter 116 Breaking Bea
Bea's POV
MY HANDS were shaking so badly that I could barely type.
Three computer monitors illuminated the dark corners of my bedroom, filling the room with the cold glow of rapidly moving code. Lines of red text raced across the screens as I entered one command after another, desperately trying to stop the intrusion.
Nothing worked.
My private server was under attack again.
It was the system I had spent three years building and hiding, the one I used to store sensitive files that had disappeared from official records. Court documents, police reports, witness statements, recordings, and everything Malcolm and I had recovered about Aleli’s past were stored there.
I had designed multiple layers of security specifically to keep anyone from finding it.
Yet someone had gotten inside.
“Come on, work,” I pleaded, striking the keyboard harder as another defense collapsed.
The warning on my screen changed.
ACCESS OVERRIDE.
My stomach dropped.
I entered another command, but the system rejected it.
Then the folder containing Aleli’s case began changing.
The scanned court documents disappeared first.
I watched in horror as the files vanished one after another.
The recordings of Uncle Jerry’s phone calls disappeared next, followed by police reports, witness statements, and the list of names that had been removed from the local court system.
“No, no, no.” I leaned closer to the screen, frantically trying to stop the deletion. “You don't get to do this.”
I reached toward the power cable, intending to shut everything down before the remaining files disappeared.
Before I could touch it, all three monitors froze simultaneously.
The code vanished.
The command windows disappeared.
The entire desktop turned black.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then a single line of white text appeared in the center of every screen.
STOP DIGGING.
I stared at it.
My mouth went dry.
This wasn't someone randomly trying to break into my system. Whoever had done this knew exactly what they were looking for. They knew which files mattered, knew how my security worked, and had deliberately left a message behind.
They wanted me to know they could reach me.
My chair creaked beneath me as I slowly leaned back.
The fear I had been ignoring for weeks finally caught up with me.
I had spent so much time telling myself that we were simply uncovering old information, that the people responsible for those missing records belonged to the past.
I was wrong.
Someone was still protecting that past.
And they were powerful enough to reach into my room without ever showing their face.
I grabbed my phone from the desk and called Malcolm.
He answered almost immediately.
“Bea? What's happening? Did you find something about the hotel photographs?”
“Malcolm,” I whispered, my voice already breaking. “It's over.”
There was a pause.
“What do you mean?”
“My server was breached.” I stared at the black monitors as I spoke. “They got through everything. They didn't just access the files, Malcolm. They erased them.”
His voice immediately sharpened.
“What? How?”
“I don't know.”
“You said that server was isolated.”
“It was.” I wiped my trembling hand against my sweater. “That's what scares me. It was hidden. I built it specifically so nobody could find it, and they bypassed my security in minutes.”
“Did they leave anything behind?”
I looked at the screens.
“Yes.”
My voice dropped.
“They left a message.”
“What message?”
I swallowed.
“Stop digging.”
Silence filled the line.
Then Malcolm spoke again.
“Bea, listen to me. We can rebuild the files. You have backups, don't you? We can recover some of what was lost.”
“No.”
My answer came so quickly that even I was surprised.
“Bea—”
“No, Malcolm.” I stood so abruptly that my chair rolled backward and struck the side of my bed. “We are not rebuilding anything.”
“You can't just stop.”
“I can, and I will.”
His voice became more urgent.
“Look at what happened to Aleli today. Someone leaked those hotel photographs, and now the entire school thinks she's some kind of manipulative girl who used Kristoff. Kristoff has abandoned her, whether he has a reason or not, and she is already being destroyed by the rumors. If we stop now, who is going to protect her?”
My chest tightened.
“I know what is happening to her.”
“Then you understand why we can't walk away.”
“No,” I said, my voice trembling. “You don't understand why we have to.”
I turned toward the monitors.
The words STOP DIGGING were still glowing against the black screens.
“This isn't Debbie anymore,” I said. “It isn't school gossip, and it isn't some rich family trying to protect its reputation. Someone with serious access just entered a private system that was never supposed to be visible to them.”
Malcolm remained silent.
“They knew exactly what to erase,” I continued. “They didn't destroy random files. They removed the records connected to Aleli's case, Uncle Jerry, the witnesses, and the missing names. That means somebody knows what we're looking for.”
“Then we have to be more careful.”
I shook my head even though he couldn't see me.
“That's what I thought before tonight.”
I lowered myself onto the edge of my bed.
“Malcolm, we're kids. We don't have government connections. We don't have lawyers, investigators, or people who can protect us if someone decides we've become a problem.”
“We can't abandon Aleli.”
“I am not abandoning her,” I said quietly. “I'm refusing to get all of us killed trying to uncover something we don't understand.”
His breathing became heavier through the phone.
“You're scared.”
“Yes.”
The admission came out before I could stop it.
“I am terrified.”
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
“I've never been afraid of computers,” I finally said. “I've always been confident that if someone built a system, I could understand how it worked. If something was locked, I could find another way in. But tonight made me realize that the system isn't the thing I'm fighting.”
I looked at the message again.
“I'm fighting whoever is behind it.”
“Bea…”
“I can't do this anymore.”
My eyes burned as I continued.
“I am shutting down my network. I'm deleting the tools I used to access those archives, and I'm stepping away from the investigation.”
Malcolm's voice softened.
“Please don't make this decision because you're scared.”
“I'm making it because I'm scared,” I admitted. “And because being scared is telling me something important.”
I wiped my cheeks when the first tears finally fell.
“We crossed a line, Malcolm. We touched something that someone desperately wants buried. If they can reach me this easily, what happens when they decide warning me isn't enough?”
He didn't answer.
“I care about Aleli,” I continued. “You know I do. But I can't protect her by destroying myself. I can't protect her if I become another person she has to lose.”
“You're asking me to walk away too.”
“I'm asking you to survive.”
My voice cracked.
“You can hate me for this. You can call me a coward. Maybe tomorrow I'll hate myself for it too. But tonight, I need to stop before they decide to stop me for good.”
Malcolm remained silent for several seconds.
Finally, he asked quietly, “What are you going to do about Aleli?”
I closed my eyes.
“I don't know.”
That was the hardest part.
“I just know that I can't keep digging.”
I looked once more at the warning on my screen.
The words seemed colder now.
More personal.
More final.
“You have a choice too, Malcolm,” I whispered. “You can keep chasing these ghosts until they come for you, or you can walk away while you still have the chance.”
I drew a shaky breath.
“I love Aleli as a friend. But tonight, I choose staying alive.”
The line remained silent.
And for the first time since this investigation began, I closed my laptop without trying to find another answer.