Chapter 101 Chapter 101
Suddenly, the phone in Mr. Curtis's pocket rang. He answered it mechanically, but in an instant, the device slipped from his hand, hitting the floor with a thud. His eyes wide with pure terror, he ran out of the room without saying a word.
He dashed down the hallway, his heart pounding against his ribs. But what he saw took his breath away.
Every classroom in the building that was using multimedia presentations, projectors, or interactive whiteboards was showing the same humiliating video. His secrets, his photos, his fetishes, and his lies were being projected for the entire school to see.
Roaring laughter echoed from the neighboring classrooms. Students pointed at the screens, discussing every detail with cruel enthusiasm.
Katherine's empire was established. She had not only defended herself; she had destroyed the system from within.
At the end of that trail of digital destruction, the video held the masterstroke. As if Katherine had edited destiny with her own hands, the recording showed only what was necessary: the cruel confrontation with Cristiane Pedrozo.
Jessica and Katherine had been erased from the images, leaving only the irrefutable proof of Cristiane's innocence and the pale face of Mirela being unmasked. The entire school went up in flames. In the hallways, the sound of laughter and the glow of looping monitors made the aggressors the institution's new national laughing stock. Teachers frantically moved their mice, but Katherine's system was an impregnable fortress.
Meanwhile, in Classroom 8, the silence of self-study was just an illusion. The school forum was on fire.
Gabriel, his eyes fixed on the screen, forwarded the video to Octavio and Cauan in seconds. “Man, these girls have lost their minds... look what they did to your photos!”
On the boys' cell phones, the image was grotesque. Their clothes had been removed by bold edits, replaced by muscular bodies covered in vulgar lipstick marks. Octavio felt a sudden nausea, a sensation of being touched by filthy hands just by looking at the screen. Cauan, his face obscured by rage, wasted no time: his fingers flew across the keyboard to send a desperate explanation to Dandara.
While Claire's empire crumbled, the architects of chaos were in another world.
Katherine and Jessica walked calmly through a convenience store. The store owner, mesmerized by his own cell phone, barely noticed the customers as he forwarded the viral video to his contacts. They paid the bill and went out into the sun, enjoying ice cream as if they had just left a regular literature class.
Jessica laughed out loud as she checked the forum. “You really are ruthless, Kath. You left them no way out. They're being crushed alive.”
Katherine lowered her head to take a bite of her cone, her expression as indifferent as the ice. “I warned them,” she replied, her voice weak and devoid of remorse. “I left the message telling them not to turn off their computers. If they don't listen, it's their fault.”
For the first time in hours, the suffocating weight she had felt since the night before—that shadow called João Arbex—seemed to dissipate. Revenge had been the perfect remedy for her melancholy.
Jessica opened a bag of chips and offered her some, still processing what she had seen in the lab. “How do you know how to do that?” she asked, admiration overflowing. “You just asked for their names, and in minutes, you had their lives in the palm of your hand. That code... I've never seen anything like it. You looked like a queen in control of an invisible army.”
Katherine took a potato chip, her eyes lost in the distant horizon of the athletic field. “I learned it when I was bored,” she said quietly.
A simple answer for a talent that bordered on the supernatural.
The two sat on the concrete bleachers, enjoying the breeze for ten minutes, until the sound of desperate footsteps interrupted the peace.
“I found you!” The voice was a muffled scream.
It was Mr. Curtis. The man who once exuded authority now ran like a fugitive, followed by veteran students whose reputations hung by a thread. A gust of wind blew softly, ruffling Katherine's soft hair as she sat motionless.
“Katherine... the teacher was wrong. I acted badly, I was unfair!” Curtis gasped, sweat dripping down his pale face. “Please, I beg you, delete the video now!”
Behind him, the others began a chorus of humiliating apologies, a symphony of belated regret.
Katherine raised her eyebrows, her icy gaze cutting through their pleas like a razor.
“Why are you apologizing to me?” she asked, with a calmness that terrified them. “I'm not the one you hurt.”
She would not accept cheap redemption. For Katherine, justice was not about forgiveness, it was about the weight of consequences.
“We also apologize to Cristiane Pedrozo! Look, we recorded it!” exclaimed one of the students, holding out his cell phone with trembling hands.
In the video, hastily recorded a few minutes earlier, the group appeared bowing before a stunned Cristiane. It was a spectacle of public humiliation, staged only to appease Katherine's invisible fury.
Katherine watched it all with an indecipherable expression. After the recording ended, she let out a dry sound, almost a sigh of boredom.
“As soon as the bell rings to end class, the video will be automatically removed,” she declared with the precision of an executioner.
Mr. Curtis and the veterans were paralyzed. Their lives were being dictated by a timer. And, as if fate were under Katherine's command, the bell echoed across campus at that very second, punctual and relentless.
Katherine stood up calmly, brushing ice cream crumbs off her skirt. “Let's eat,” she said, as if nothing had happened.
Jessica stood up right behind her, flashing a radiant, victorious smile at the stunned group. She knew that, at that moment, respect had been replaced by fear. Curtis, the professor who had been so proud of his career, was now an empty shell. His dignity had been incinerated in front of every student and colleague. There was no turning back. There was no redemption.