Chapter 68 Kristen
I spread the sheets of paper over my dorm room floor and looked down at the mess of scribbles, arrows, sticky notes, and half‑erased lines. It was chaotic, but that was the point. Chaos was something I could work with. Chaos was something I understood. Order and secrecy and polite half‑truths were what I had trouble parsing.
Anna was already crouched on the floor, red pen in hand, tapping out patterns and lines like some kind of criminal tactician. She had her tongue between her teeth in that half–focused way she always did when she was deep in a problem she enjoyed. I watched her for a moment and wondered how she stayed so calm when we were literally plotting a break‑in.
“Okay,” she said, pointing to one of the thicker lines on the paper. “This is the west wing corridor. No cameras. Literally no eyes on this stretch at all.”
I peered closer. The corridor ran like a spine down the side of the school, connecting labs and offices and the stairwell that led down to the basement. The system room was down there, tucked into a corner that most students and professors alike never visited unless they had a reason.
“Guards change at 11:50,” Anna added, her finger dancing along the flow of lines. “Everyone rotates. Shift patterns. I watched it for a week. The night tech at the power grid nods off for exactly three minutes between rounds.”
I arched a brow. “How do you know all this?”
Anna shrugged without looking up. “When you’re bored, you notice things. A lot of things. People repeat patterns like they don’t even realize it. Humans are predictable.”
Her grin was smug, but effective. That was when I noticed a small note she had written in the margin in tiny, precise letters: Professor Stone’s office cameras feed into the main loop. Main loop overlaps west corridor at 12:03 every night.
I blinked, then laughed despite myself. “Like what?”
She grinned wider. “Like which professors spend more time in the girls’ dorm than their own office. Not naming names or anything, but I noticed he leaves his office at exactly 12:00 every Tuesday and Thursday.”
I laughed harder this time, a rapid burst that echoed against the walls of my small room. It was absurd, ridiculous, and exactly the kind of ludic ridiculousness that made me feel alive again. There was no waiting around here. No passive acceptance. This was active. This was rebellion. This was the old‑fashioned way.
I folded my arms over my chest and studied our blueprint again. Guards and cameras and blind spots and windows and exits and every possible vector I could think of. It was ugly and it was messy and it was precisely what we needed.
“You’re a nightmare,” I told Anna, shaking my head.
She laughed and leaned back on her heels. “I prefer tactical genius.”
I snorted and sat down next to her. “So what part do I play in all this?”
She pointed at one of the arrows leading down to a boxed section. “You. You go in through the west corridor at the shift change. You have exactly three minutes of blind entry before the cameras kick back in and the guards have swapped. From there you hit the access panel, then the override triggers.”
I stared at her like she had just assigned me a spacewalk without a suit.
“Wait,” I said. “Access panel where? And override triggers?”
She tapped again. “Here.” Her finger rested on a tiny square marked security node. “This is the password station. It’s protected, but not as tightly as you think. It’s primitive compared to the mainframe. That’s why this corridor matters. No cameras. Low guard presence. Fast access.”
I swallowed, trying not to let the weight of it crush me. Security systems and protective spells and defense grids were supposed to be the stuff of nightmare logic. Not something I plotted on notebook paper with someone sipping soda next to me.
“You’ll need gloves,” Anna said, sounding almost maternal. “Real ones. No fingerprints. No digital traces. We have to pretend no one was ever there.”
“I’ve got a hoodie,” I said without thinking. The image of pulling an old sweatshirt over my head popped into my mind, but it felt inadequate, like trading armor for a borrowed blanket.
“This isn’t a prank call,” Anna replied, tone serious. “This is actual espionage, babe. Gloves, black shoes, loose clothes for movement, no jewelry, hair up. We’re not just sneaking in. We are trying to access a secured educational database without authorization.”
I blinked. And then I laughed again. Not a nervous laugh this time. A real one.
“You make it sound like we’re stealing the nuclear codes,” I said.
“We might as well be,” she said.
I scribbled notes rapidly, my pen flying across the paper with every detail she gave. Access point, password station, override triggers, guard rotations, camera cycles, blind spots. This was the menu now and I was reading it like nourishment.
“We move when the lights flicker,” Anna said, tapping another section. “Power cycles always trigger a small reboot. That will be our window. It’s short, but it’s enough.”
I leaned back to look at the whole mess. This was no longer a plan in my head. This was tangible. This was real. And more than anything I had felt in weeks, I felt in control.
Anna zipped up her bag with a final nod.
“You know,” she said, staring at me with that half‑amused, half‑serious look, “after this, if we get caught, we are so fucked.”
I looked at her squarely. “Then we don’t get caught.”
She hesitated for a moment, then nodded slowly. “You’ve changed,” she said with a grin that was almost proud. “You’re colder. I like it.”
I didn’t respond. My head was already racing ahead, running through every variable a dozen times faster than my thoughts could ever keep up.
Soon after she left, the room was silent. The notes lay spread across the floor like a battlefield waiting for troops. I stood in the middle of it and felt something unfamiliar but not unwelcome: resolve.
I was tired of asking permission. Tired of being told I needed guidance to rationalize every move. I wanted answers. And the world I lived in had more secrets than a graveyard at midnight.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out mindlessly, expecting another message from Anna about supplies or timing. Instead, it was a text from Leo.
I froze.
The message was simple.
A single line.
Don’t do that again.
I blinked at it. A cold flicker lit up in my chest. I knew exactly what he meant by that sentence. His tone was low. His words were a boundary. A warning. But it wasn’t just about the training yard anymore. It was about control. Ownership. The way he thought he could police my reactions and my body and my choices.
And I wasn’t having any of it.
I put my phone down and walked out of my room without reading it again.
The living room was dim, lit only by a lamp near the sofa. Leo was there. Not casual, not relaxed. Just standing. Still. Unreadable. That tension around him was like static electricity ready to snap at the smallest movement.
I stopped in the doorway and met his eyes.
He didn’t sit. He didn’t shift. He just stood there, arms loose at his sides, jaw locked.
“Don’t do that again,” he said, his voice low. Not angry. Not quiet. Just firm.
“Do what?” I asked, though my voice didn’t sound as calm as I thought it should.
He didn’t answer at first. Just watched me, eyes narrowed slightly, like he was trying to see more than just my face. Like he was searching for the intention beneath the words.
“Don’t do what you did in the training yard,” he said finally.
I scoffed. Something cold and sharp uncurled in my chest. “Or what?” I asked.
His jaw tightened. His expression didn’t change, but his posture shifted subtly, like he wasn’t going to repeat himself for my benefit.
I didn’t wait for him to clarify. I just turned.
“Didn’t think so,” I muttered.
I didn’t look back as I walked up the stairs. I didn’t give him another glance. I didn’t ask for an apology or a reason or explanation.
I just left.
Behind me was a room that felt colder the longer I stayed out of it. Behind me was a warning that didn’t acknowledge my autonomy. Behind me was a man who cared, but cared in a way that tried to shape my choices.
Not my father. Not my keeper. Not my judge.
Not anymore.
I reached my room and exhaled slowly. The weight of what we were about to do pressed into me like an old wound reopening. But it didn’t make me flinch. It made me focus.
I pulled the sheets of security plans toward me again and began writing, filling in details I had missed, running simulations in my head, building contingencies.
I was not afraid of the consequences.
I was afraid of not knowing.
And that fear drove me forward with a certainty I could not deny.
Tonight we would prepare. Tonight we would gather every possible piece of information.
And tomorrow we would step into the unknown with our eyes open, no longer guided by fear or permission, but by our own choices and our own courage.