Chapter 22 Nothing Stays Buried
The moment I stepped onto school grounds the next morning, I knew something was wrong.
The air felt… tight. Charged. Like the last breath before a storm breaks.
Students stood in tight little groups, heads bowed together, voices barely above whispers. Phones were out in nearly every hand.
Payton jogged toward me from the parking lot, breathless like she’d sprinted the entire way. She skidded to a stop in front of me, then blinked.
“Wait. Hold on.”
She leaned back and actually studied me, eyes dragging from my boots to my hair.
“Okay, first of all… wow.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Wow?”
She laughed under her breath.
“Yes, wow. Ashley, when did you become… intimidatingly hot?”
I snorted softly. “It’s still me.”
“No, seriously.” She reached out like she wanted to touch my hair, then thought better of it.
“This suits you. You always had the face for it, you just… never used it.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“And now you look like you fell out of a magazine or something. You look… more confident. And taller. Somehow.”
“I didn’t grow overnight.”
“I don’t mean physically.” She grinned. “You look like you finally realized you’re allowed to take up space.”
Before I could respond, her smile faltered as her eyes slid past me toward the crowd.
“…Okay,” she muttered. “Now that I’ve worshipped your transformation, can we talk about why everyone is acting weird?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” I said, glancing around.
We started toward the building.
“This is creepy,” Payton whispered. “What are they all whispering about?”
“No idea.”
Payton grabbed the arm of a nearby girl. “Hey, what’s going on?”
The girl didn’t even look up from her phone. “Check the school forum.”
Payton and I exchanged a glance and pulled out our phones as we walked.
The school forum had exploded.
Every top post was about the basketball team.
The first thread was pinned in bright red text:
EXPOSED
I tapped it.
Screenshots flooded my screen, group chats, DMs, private threads between the boys everyone idolized, defended, and excused.
Girls’ social media profiles were pasted into messages like trading cards. Photos rated. Comments on bodies like inventory lists.
A literal point system.
“She’s a soft 6 but she'd drink anything.”
“That one is a 3.”
As I scrolled, it got darker.
“Bet I get her upstairs before midnight.”
“50 says I’m first.”
And darker.
“Does she remember anything?”
“She was too wasted to prove shit.”
“She better not go to the cops or we’re all screwed.”
“We all have more to lose than she does.”
My stomach clenched as I scrolled.
The second post detailed drug use. Screenshots of deals. Drops on school.
Info no one should ever have written down.
Idiots.
Another thread showed copies of school documents. Complaints. Reports. Disciplinary actions that… quietly vanished.
Girls’ names were blurred, but the descriptions were still there. Sexual misconduct. Assault allegations. Threats.
Dismissed. Buried. Deleted like nothing ever happened.
Payton leaned closer, her voice barely above a breath.
“Do you think this is about Tia? She transferred so suddenly… in the middle of the year.”
“…I don’t know,” I said.
But I did know one thing.
This hadn’t happened in my first life.
There had been no exposé.
No public reckoning.
No consequences.
Had my return changed something?
Had fate shifted?
I lifted my head from my phone and scanned the crowd.
That’s when I saw her.
Amy.
She stood apart from the others near the exit, books hugged against her chest. A faint smirk curved her mouth.
Our eyes met.
Slowly, she lifted two fingers in a lazy salute.
Then she turned and walked out of the building.
Payton was still reading. “Ashley… this is insane. If more girls talk, if someone presses charges—”
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
I didn’t wait for her answer.
I followed Amy outside.
Amy didn’t look like someone who had just detonated half the school.
She leaned against the brick wall like this was any other day, arms folded, eyes calm in the wreckage she’d set loose.
“You did this,” I said.
She smiled sideways. “Define this.”
“The forum. The leaks.”
This time she didn’t smile. “Yeah. I did.”
“You hacked them,” I said. “All of it. The chats. The files. The school records.”
She tilted her head slightly. “Not hacked. Excavated.”
“Why?” I asked.
She inhaled slowly. Let the air out through her nose.
“Because they needed to pay,” she said. “I was barely conscious. I don’t remember half of it. Just… flashes. Hands.”
My jaw tightened.
“I couldn’t sleep after that,” she continued quietly. “Every time I closed my eyes, I could still feel it. So I started digging. And the deeper I went…” Her gaze darkened. “The worse it got.”
I whispered, “Amy…”
“They thought their phones were private,” she said, her voice hardening.
“That their little groups were sealed ecosystems. They weren’t.
I wasn’t the first and I wouldn’t have been the last. They had folders.
Backup phones. Hidden cloud storage. Dummy accounts.
School servers still held deleted disciplinary reports, buried under admin-level access logs.
Someone worked very hard to protect them. ”
Anger burned in my chest.
“So I took everything,” she continued. “Every message. Every file. Every buried complaint.”
“And you just… released it?” I asked.
“Not just released,” she corrected. “I sent it to the local media. Two reporters. Three anonymous emails. Different servers. Different networks. Then I forwarded copies to the police through exits in other countries. They’ll never trace it to me.”
I stared at her.
“You’re insane.”
Her lips twitched. “Only when it matters.”
“And the school?”
“I sent internal audit copies to the board,” she said simply. “And to a lawyer who loves high-profile scandals.”
I let out a quiet breath.
“You’re really a hacker.”
“The good kind,” she smirked. “… with a mean streak.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then her eyes lifted to mine, unblinking.
“You showed up. You saved me,” she said quietly. “I owe you my life.”
I nodded once, then said the thing I hadn’t planned to say out loud.
“I want your help.”
Her expression changed instantly. Sharper. Focused.
“With what?”
“My family,” I said calmly.
That got her attention.
“I need to know what they’re doing,” I continued. “What they’re hiding. Where they go when no one’s watching. Emails. Phones. Computers. Everything.”
“You want total access,” she said.
“Yes.”
She tilted her head slightly.
“That includes your sister.”
I didn’t flinch.
“Especially my sister.”
“Why?”
“I’ll explain when I’m ready.” I met her gaze. “Just tell me if it’s possible.”
Amy studied me for a long moment.
“Devices talk when people don’t,” she said softly. “And people are careless about what they trust. Shared plans, saved passwords, habits. The same routines every morning and night. They call it convenience. I call it a map.”
“That’s what I want,” I said softly. “A map.”
Amy was silent for a heartbeat.
Then she gave one short nod.
“…Yes. I’ll help you.”