CHAPTER 25 — "THE SHATTERING POINT"
Campus felt different that day.
Not just tense—haunted.
Students moved in clusters, whispering anxiously, glancing over their shoulders. A rumor had begun to spread, soft and shapeless, like smoke drifting through the halls. Lena heard fragments of it as she walked toward the library.
"Did you hear what she said?"
"Something about a professor…"
"No, I heard it was a student who—"
"Wait, wasn't she friends with—"
Names weren't spoken. Nothing was specific.
But Lena felt it tightening around her like a noose.
Someone was talking.
And she already knew who.
Lena reached the library steps when someone called her name sharply.
"Lena!"
She turned. Her friend, Cassie, rushed toward her, wide-eyed, panic radiating off her.
"Is it true?" Cassie demanded.
Lena's throat closed. "Is what true?"
"That you and Dr. Hale—" Cassie lowered her voice, "—were involved, and that he… manipulated you?"
Lena felt the ground tilt.
"No," she said, breath shaking. "Cassie, that's not—that never happened."
Cassie searched her face. "Then why is Maya telling everyone that it did?"
Lena froze.
It was happening faster than she expected.
Cassie gently touched her arm. "Lena… you know I trust you. But the way Maya is talking… she sounds really sure. Like she knows something."
Lena swallowed hard. "She's lying. She's lying because she's—"
She stopped herself.
She couldn't say "unstable."
She couldn't say "obsessed."
People would think she was attacking Maya.
But Cassie understood anyway. "You should go to someone. Tell them your side."
"I am," Lena whispered. "I already am."
Cassie hugged her tightly, then rushed off, leaving Lena alone on the steps, shaking with fear and rage.
Maya wasn't just escalating.
She was detonating.
Lena headed straight for Elias's office.
When she opened the door without knocking—panicked—she found Elias sitting at his desk, staring at his computer with a look she had never seen before.
He looked… devastated.
"Elias?"
He didn't look up right away.
When he did, the grief and fury in his eyes made her stomach drop.
"Someone emailed the department," he said quietly. "A student. An anonymous account."
Lena's heart pounded. "What did it say?"
He turned the screen toward her.
Lena felt sick.
It was a long message accusing Elias of taking advantage of his position, targeting vulnerable students, "grooming," manipulating. It named no one specifically—but the attached picture made Lena choke back a cry.
It was a blurry image of her leaving Elias's office last night.
Taken through the window.
Through the blinds.
From outside.
Maya.
Elias shut the laptop gently, as if afraid that touching it harder might break something in him.
"They've suspended me until the inquiry is over," he said. "Effective immediately."
Lena's breath shattered.
"What? They can't do that—you didn't—"
"They can," he said quietly. "Legally, they have to. Until they determine the truth."
Lena sank onto the couch. Elias followed her, sitting beside her with a heaviness she'd never seen.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered.
Elias shook his head. "You didn't do this. Maya did. And now she has every student on campus believing her story. And worse—she's turning the administration against us."
His voice cracked—barely noticeable, but real.
It broke her.
Lena took his hands in hers. "We're going to prove she's lying. We're going to stop her."
Elias's gaze softened, but there was an invisible wall of worry behind his eyes.
"This will get worse before it gets better," he said. "She's cornered. And cornered people attack."
The office felt suddenly small. Too small. The air thickened with tension.
Then—a sound.
A soft click.
Metal against metal.
Elias's head jerked up.
"That's the door," he whispered.
They both rose slowly. Elias stepped forward, and Lena instinctively grabbed his arm.
"Stay behind me," he murmured.
He walked to the door and opened it a crack.
No one was there.
Only an envelope on the floor.
Elias picked it up, fingers trembling slightly.
He opened it.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Just one sentence:
**"IF I CAN'T HAVE YOUR TRUTH, NO ONE WILL."**
Lena's blood ran cold.
There was a second item in the envelope.
A key.
A key to her apartment.
She staggered backward, clutching her chest as the horror sank in.
"She's been inside," Lena whispered. "Oh my god—she's been inside my home."
Elias's face hardened with a fury she had never seen. A cold, terrifying rage.
"Lena," he said, voice low and trembling, "this ends now. She crossed the line. She crossed every line."
He grabbed his phone. "We're going to Ramirez. Now. And then we're going to the police."
Lena bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. "Elias—what if she's there? What if she's waiting for me?"
Elias cupped her face, forcing her to meet his eyes.
"I won't let anything happen to you," he said, voice breaking into something rawer than she'd ever heard from him. "Not while I'm breathing."
Her knees buckled with emotion.
But before either of them could move—
A loud, echoing crash sounded from down the hallway.
Glass.
Shattering.
Someone screamed.
Elias grabbed her hand. "Stay close."
They rushed into the hall.
Students were gathered near the stairwell, panicked. Someone pointed at the landing below.
Lena and Elias moved forward—
And froze.
At the bottom of the stairs lay broken glass.
A shattered window.
And a single piece of paper taped to the railing.
Flapping gently in the draft.
Lena approached it slowly, heart pounding.
Her hands shook as she touched it.
It was a photo.
A photo of her sleeping on Elias's couch last night.
Taken inside the office.
From inches away.
A fresh tear slid down her cheek as she whispered the truth neither of them wanted to say out loud:
"She's here."