CHAPTER 14 — The Fire Inside the Research Wing
Professor Hughes wrapped the notebooks in her robe.
We crawled through the smoke.
The hallway outside was already burning.
Students shouted somewhere beyond the flames.
A metal shelf collapsed behind us.
The exit was blocked.
“This way!” Professor Hughes coughed.
We entered the laboratory.
Windows lined the far wall, but we were on the third floor.
Smoke thickened around us.
I grabbed a stool and slammed it against the glass.
Once.
Twice.
The window cracked.
Professor Hughes helped me strike it again.
The glass shattered outward.
Firefighters appeared below.
A ladder rose toward us.
Professor Hughes climbed first, protecting the notebooks beneath her gown.
As I followed, an explosion shook the building.
The ladder jerked.
My foot slipped.
For one terrifying second, I hung above the courtyard by one hand.
A firefighter caught my wrist.
“Don’t let go!”
“I’m trying!”
He pulled me onto the ladder.
When we reached the ground, Daniel ran toward us.
“Was anyone else inside?”
“I don’t know.”
Then I saw Ethan near an ambulance.
Blood covered his forehead.
He had entered the building after seeing smoke and helped two students escape.
“You okay?” he asked.
“You’re bleeding.”
“So are you.”
Neither of us had noticed the cut across my palm.
Investigators found an incendiary device in Professor Hughes’s office.
Security footage showed a man entering the building wearing a maintenance uniform.
The image was blurry.
But I recognized the way he walked.
My father.
Professor Hughes handed the notebooks to Daniel.
“No more secrets.”
That night, the university board postponed the vote.
Public pressure was growing.
Students organized a protest demanding my degree be protected.
For the first time, strangers weren’t filming my humiliation.
They were standing beside me.
Then Daniel received a call.
My father had been seen near the hospital where Dean Grant was recovering.
By the time police reached Grant’s room, the bed was empty.
On the pillow lay a note.
May you like
Emily has twenty-four hours to return what belongs to me.
Or the dean dies.
