Two girls near the vending machines exchanged frightened glances.

Another student lowered his phone and slipped it into his pocket.

Nobody answered.

Harris turned back toward Liam.

“There.

Nobody supports your version.”

Liam felt something colder than fear settle in his stomach.

He understood why the others were silent.

They had seen what happened to students who complained, and they knew the principal’s opinion of Tank.

But understanding their silence didn’t make it easier to stand alone.

Harris tightened his grip on Liam’s arm.

“My office. Immediately. You’re finished at this school, kid.”

Tank’s teammates exchanged relieved looks.

The quarterback straightened his varsity jacket and gave Liam a small, satisfied smile.

Harris continued, loud enough for the cafeteria to hear.

“What you did is criminal assault.

I’m contacting the authorities.”

Liam didn’t struggle as the principal led him toward the administrative wing.

The cafeteria began making noise again behind them, but the conversations were subdued.

Students whispered rather than laughed, and several watched Liam leave with expressions that suggested they knew something terribly unfair was happening.

As he passed a booth near the corner, Liam noticed a slight movement.

Emma Brooks sat behind her open biology textbook, perfectly still.

Her phone was positioned sideways, with its camera barely visible above the pages.

For an instant, their eyes met.

Emma made the smallest possible nod.

Liam didn’t respond, but he remembered it.

They entered the administrative hallway, where framed photographs of championship football teams lined the walls.

A large bronze plaque near the main office thanked the Mercer family for its generous support of Westbridge High.

Beside it hung a poster announcing that the school board would meet that afternoon to discuss campus safety and future athletic funding.

Liam had seen the poster earlier in the week.

The school had been promoting the meeting for days, promising parents that its new safety procedures were among the strongest in the district.

Principal Harris had even made a morning announcement about Westbridge’s excellent disciplinary record.

Liam wondered how many incidents had disappeared from that record simply because nobody wanted to challenge the quarterback.

Harris pushed open the office door.

“We’ll find out what the police think about that little performance,” he said with a sneer.

The thick wooden door closed behind them.

The main office smelled of printer paper and lemon furniture polish.

A secretary sat at the reception desk, typing quickly, while a clock above the filing cabinets ticked much louder than Liam remembered.

Harris directed him toward a rigid plastic chair in the waiting area.

“Sit there.

Don’t move.”

Liam sat.

As the adrenaline gradually faded, the ache near his temple became harder to ignore.

He touched the tender area with two fingers and winced.

Through the office window, he could see students crossing the courtyard, continuing an ordinary school day.

For everyone else, the afternoon was proceeding as usual.

For Liam, everything seemed to be balancing on one decision made by a man who had already decided he was guilty.

He lowered his hand and looked toward the ceiling.

Mounted in the corner was one of the school’s new security cameras.

Harris loved those cameras.

During assemblies, he frequently boasted that the expensive surveillance system could document almost anything that happened on school property.

Liam had noticed the little red indicator on that camera many times before.

It was normally visible from the waiting chairs, a steady point of light beneath the lens.

But now he saw something strange.

The indicator was dark.

He looked more carefully.

There wasn’t even the faintest red glow.

Then he remembered something he had noticed in the cafeteria just before Tank approached his table.

The camera above the vending machines had been dark, too.