Chapter 9 Professor’s Confession – Belle #2
Selena Harpsons is not working alone. The network you and Luna exposed—the Queens, the Gallaghers, all of them—they were franchises.
Regional operations of a much larger organization.
The Architect isn’t one person. It’s a title, passed down through the Harpsons family for generations.
Selena inherited it from her father. Whoever comes after her will inherit it from her.
The surveillance footage I’ve collected goes back fifteen years. I found evidence of at least forty missing persons cases connected to “The Harvest” held on this island. Most were never reported. The families were either complicit or threatened into silence.
You’re in the footage, Belle. From when you were a child. So is Luna. So are dozens of other students currently enrolled here. Selena has been cultivating all of you for years, grooming you for roles in the network. Some as victims. Some as perpetrators. Some as both.
I hacked into her personal files. Found communication with network members who weren’t arrested—people with enough power and distance to avoid prosecution.
They’re planning something big. I don’t know what.
But it involves you, Max, Luna, and Erik.
You’re not here by accident. The “rescue” at sea, Dominic’s appearance, all of it was orchestrated to bring you back.
Get off this island. Take what evidence you can and run. Don’t trust the authorities—I found police files in her system, including Detective Harper’s reports. He’s been feeding her information from the beginning.
The network doesn’t end with Selena. Cut off one head, three more will grow. But if you can expose her, if you can show the world what’s really happening here, you might buy enough time to—
The file cuts off mid-sentence.
“No.” I frantically click, trying to reopen it, but the text document is gone. When I check the directory, half the files have already disappeared. The auto-delete Austin warned me about.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I start clicking files randomly, trying to save them to my laptop, but they’re deleting faster than I can copy. The Gallagher archive file—gone. The read-me document—gone. Surveillance footage from 2019, 2020, 2021—all vanishing before my eyes like they never existed.
“Copy the whole drive,” Max urges. “Just copy everything at once—”
“I’m trying!” But the system won’t let me. Each time I attempt to select multiple files, an error message pops up: ACCESS DENIED. SECURITY PROTOCOL ENGAGED.
Austin must have programmed it this way. One file at a time, forced viewing, ensuring that if Selena somehow intercepted the drive, she wouldn’t be able to access everything. Protect the information by limiting how it could be accessed.
But it also means I can’t save it.
I manage to copy three files before the directory empties completely: two random surveillance videos from 2022 and a spreadsheet listing names I don’t recognize with dates and dollar amounts. Not enough. Not nearly enough to prove what Selena is, what this place really is.
The thumb drive goes dark. When I try to eject it, the device isn’t recognized anymore. Completely wiped, rendered useless. Austin’s insurance policy against the evidence being traced back to him.
I sit back, staring at my laptop screen, my mind racing with everything I just learned. Selena has been in my life since childhood. The network is bigger than we thought. We’re here by design, not by accident. Detective Harper has been working for her all along.
“What do we do?” Max asks quietly.
I close my laptop with trembling hands. “Austin said to get off the island.”
“How? Selena controls the ferries. She denied Luna’s request to visit the mainland. We’re under constant surveillance.”
“I don’t know.” My voice breaks on the words. “I don’t know, Max. But we can’t stay here. We can’t keep pretending everything is fine while she watches us, plans for us, prepares us for whatever role she’s decided we’ll play in her network.”
My eyes drift to the laptop. Three files. That’s all I have left of Austin’s evidence. Three files that might not even be enough to prove anything to anyone.
And somewhere in Selena’s office, she’s probably already being alerted that someone accessed Austin’s unauthorized download. That the security protocol engaged. That evidence has been partially copied to another device.
How long do we have before she figures out it was me?
“We need to move fast,” I say, standing. “We need to talk to Luna and Erik. Like, really talk, not just sending each other carefully worded notes. We need to tell them everything, and then we must figure out how to get off this island before Selena decides we know too much.”
“And Austin?”
I think about the professor who risked everything to give me this information. Who hacked into Selena’s systems, knowing it could mean his life. Who left me a warning that was cut off mid-sentence by the auto-delete feature.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But we can’t help him if we’re trapped here too.”
We leave the study room, two students finished with their work, heading to our next class. Normal. Unremarkable. Nothing to see here.
But inside, I’m screaming.
Because I just learned that my entire life has been manipulated by someone I can’t even remember knowing. That Selena Harpsons has had her hooks in me since I was eleven years old, maybe younger. That everything I think I know about my past could be a carefully constructed lie.
And the only evidence I had of any of it just deleted itself from existence.
Welcome to Shark Bay University, where secrets go to die.
And sometimes, so do the people who discover them.