For two days, Queen's Crest existed in a vacuum. There were no classes,no meetings. Everyone's eyes were wide, frantic, bloodshot, searching for answers.
They didn't come.
Security guards were doubled. The staff lounge became a war room. And Headmistress Fallon hadn't shown her face since the Providence exposure.
But something else was happening beneath the chaos.
A reshuffling of power.
In the West Wing dormitories, Amara paced in a circle, a blueprint of the academy spread across the floor.
"There's a hidden basement." Her voice was tight, deliberate. "Below the old kitchen, before the east wing renovations. It's sealed now, but Adrian thinks there's a way in."
Toni crossed her arms from the corner of the room, leaning against the bookshelf. "And you believe him?"
Amara looked up, gaze firm. "I don't need to believe him. I need to prove he's not lying."
A beat.
Then, Toni walked forward, heels silent against the rug. "Let's crack it open."
---
Three hours later, Adrian, Amara, and Toni were crouched in the shadows of the academy's abandoned east wing, behind a locked service elevator.
Adrian pulled out a rusted access key.
"Got this from my father's old coat. Don't ask questions."
He slid the key into the panel beside the elevator. It clicked.
A low hum. Then, the old metal doors rattled and groaned open.
Dust. Darkness. A smell of old paper and secrets.
The elevator led them down farther than expected. When the doors opened again, it wasn't a basement.
It was a corridor lined with glass offices, old desks, and overhead lights that blinked faintly to life.
"Providence HQ," Adrian whispered. "This is where they monitored everything."
Toni stepped inside first, her gaze cold and unblinking. "They watched us from here?"
Amara moved to a console and pressed a button. Footage flickered to life, grainy black-and-white clips of students from past years. Crying. Arguing. Being comforted by staff.
Being tested.
"No wonder some of us cracked," she muttered. "We were their syllabus."
They explored the corridor slowly, each room filled with relics of control. Files, footage, psych evaluations, handwritten notes labeled with student names.
Including theirs.
---
AUTHOR'S NOTE
You're probably asking how did the Providence project stay hidden so long? Simple: wealth, connections, and silence. Providence wasn't just surveillance, it was behavioral sculpting. Top-tier students were emotionally engineered into roles: leaders, followers, martyrs, manipulators. The "tests" weren't obvious, they were embedded into student life. That mental breakdown you had in year two? They filed it under "emotional volatility calibration." They weren't watching. They were steering.
—
At the far end of the corridor, they found a single black door with a brass label: THE SEED ROOM.
It was locked with both a fingerprint panel and a 4-digit code.
Adrian stepped forward. "If my father was part of this, maybe I"
He placed his thumb on the scanner. A green light blinked.
Then he typed: 1-9-7-5.
Click.
The door swung open.
Inside was a single chair, a projector, and a wall of mirrored panels.
A voice crackled from the corner speaker distorted, prerecorded.
"If you've found this room, the cycle has broken. Providence ends here."
They stood still, letting the silence stretch.
Amara stepped forward, looking into the mirror.
Her own reflection blinked at her.
Then something behind the glass moved.
"Toni," she said, stepping back. "That's not a mirror."
Toni's eyes narrowed. "It's a window."
---
They turned to Adrian.
"What's behind it?" Amara asked.
Adrian hesitated. "There were whispers... about a chosen successor. Someone who would take Providence global. Girls were candidates. But only one was the original test subject."
The silence sharpened.
Toni said it first. "Ina."
"No," Adrian whispered. "Not Ina."
He looked at Amara.
"You."
Amara's face stayed still but her hands curled into fists. "What the hell are you saying?"
"You had the highest adaptability score. The strongest psychological durability. Every manipulation they tried you endured. That's why they watched you most."
Amara backed away, disgusted.
"They made me," she said. "But they'll never own me."
The glass flickered. A hidden screen activated behind it, surveillance footage, real-time, of the school. Students panicking. Teachers in meetings. Police being turned away at the gate.
Providence wasn't dead.
It was watching them still.
---
Back aboveground, the consequences arrived quickly.
A general assembly was called. Parents were ushered into the great hall. Reporters were denied access but circled like vultures.
When Headmistress Fallon finally stepped onto the stage, escorted by two armed guards, the hall fell silent.
She lifted the microphone.
"Queen's Crest was built on power. On excellence. On secrecy. But that secrecy was poisoned. We will unearth it publicly. Providence has been dismantled. Those responsible have been removed."
Lies.
Half-truths.
The real puppeteers weren't gone. They were just adjusting their grip.
From the shadows, Amara, Toni, and Adrian watched it all unfold.
Toni leaned in close. "This isn't over."
Adrian nodded. "This is war."
Amara's voice was calm, but electric.
"Then let's make them bleed."
---
End of Chapter 35