Chapter 77 THREE OPERATIONS
POV: CAMERON
He went back to his table, picked up his fork, and kept eating. The dining hall buzzed on, legacy kids shouting over each other, the usual Tuesday noise. He didn’t glance back at Vickey Harris.
He already knew what he’d see if he did. She’d have that sketchbook out again, pretending to focus, her hands just a little too stiff. She’d be putting on the act everyone tried when they wanted to look normal after something big—an act that was its own kind of giveaway, if you knew what to look for.
He did. He recognized that performance because it was the same one he’d perfected himself, a long time ago. He tucked that thought away, refusing to let it go any deeper.
He kept eating.
Running three operations at once was more than Derek had ever trusted him with before. Cameron had been handling Echelon’s student operations for two years, ever since Derek had sat him down after ninth grade and laid out the world as the Hayes family saw it—their place in it, what was expected, why he had to think in terms of outcomes instead of people. Since then, the jobs had always been one at a time. One person. One plan. One result.
This time was different.
There was the Vickey job. The Annabelle setup. The slow-drip of fake financial records he’d been feeding into the academic system for weeks, just enough to lead Whitney Stephens in circles without her realizing it.
Three jobs. Three timelines. Three chances for things to tangle up in ways he couldn’t fully predict.
Derek said the speed-up was necessary.
Cameron worked through the math while he ate.
Annabelle’s case was the simplest. Thornfield’s academic dishonesty system didn’t mess around—three days from the moment something was discovered to an official review, five more until the verdict for scholarship kids. By the time anyone even thought to ask questions, Annabelle would be gone. The file would say she cheated, and that would be the end of it.
The risk was Vickey. Always Vickey.
She’d deliver the papers. He was sure of that. The footage was enough to force her hand, and she understood the stakes—he’d seen it in her face that day at the ruins, the way she’d realized there was no way out.
But Vickey noticed things. That made her valuable, and dangerous.
He forced himself not to think about the supply closet. Not to remember the way she’d actually paid attention to him, not just gone through the motions. Not to recall what it felt like when someone looked at you and meant it.
He pushed the thought away before it could get any closer.
His phone buzzed under the table.
He checked it without picking it up.
Derek.
One line: Williams is in hospital. Fractured skull. Operation confirmed successful. Next phase begins Thursday.
Cameron read it. Didn’t react.
He set his phone face-down.
Next phase. Thursday.
He thought about what “next phase” actually meant, now that Whitney Stephens had a copy of the property record, Annabelle would be out of the picture by the end of the week, Ryder Williams was in the hospital, and the fake records were already in play. The speed-up Derek kept talking about wasn’t something to plan for anymore. It was already happening.
He finished his lunch. The dining hall kept spinning around him.
He didn’t look back at Vickey. He didn’t let himself think about the ruins, or the greenhouse, or that one moment in the surveillance room footage when the truth hit him so hard it tasted like ash.
He ate.
He did the math.
Thursday.