I didn't touch the flash drive for twelve hours.
Not because I lacked curiosity. Because I had too much of it. There's a difference.
Curious people open mysterious drives immediately and end up featured in cybersecurity warning videos. Paranoid people wait first.
I was evolving.
The black drive sat on my desk beside my laptop while rain rattled softly against the apartment windows. Tiny silver raven engraved into the metal. No fingerprints visible from what I could tell.
Which either meant:
careful handling, OR I desperately needed sleep. Possibly both.
I leaned back in my chair, staring at it. Someone had planted that drive beside me in the library without being seen. Meaning: they got close unnoticed they knew what I was investigating they wanted my attention specifically None of those options felt emotionally healthy.
My laptop screen glowed faintly beside me, displaying another dead-end search on Noah Ellery. Still almost nothing online. No tagged photos. No social accounts. No digital footprint large enough for a twenty-one-year-old university student.
It bothered me deeply. People didn't disappear from the internet naturally anymore. Not completely. A knock sounded against my bedroom door.
"You alive in there?" Isla called.
"Physically? Unclear." She pushed the door open holding two mugs of coffee.
"You've been awake all night."
"So has half this city."
"Yes, but most people aren't glaring at USB drives like they insulted their bloodline." I instinctively covered the flash drive with my sleeve.
Too late. Isla noticed immediately. Detectives were honestly exhausting. "What's that?"
"Nothing."
"Ayla."
"Decorative crime stick?" She didn't laugh. Rude.
Instead she stepped closer, eyes narrowing slightly. "You're hiding something."
"I'm protecting your peace."
"You're terrible at lying."
"You raised me poorly." Isla sighed and set the coffee down beside me. Then her gaze shifted toward my laptop screen. The name NOAH ELLERY reflected faintly in her eyes. The room went very still.
"Ayla," she said carefully, "where did you hear that name?" My pulse slowed instantly.
Interesting. "You know him?"
"No." Too fast. She realized it immediately too.
I leaned forward slightly. "Isi."
She rubbed a hand across her jaw before answering. "His case came through the department briefly."
Department. Not police? Specific wording again. "What case?"
"Officially?" she asked quietly. "Suicide."
"And unofficially?"
Silence. Thunder rolled somewhere beyond the windows. "Stay away from this one."
That wasn't denial.
That was fear.
Real fear.
I stared at her. "You think he was murdered."
She looked away first. Which was answer enough.
____
Ravenwell looked almost unreal beneath evening rain. Fog crawled low across the pathways while yellow light spilled from stained-glass windows onto wet stone. The university felt less like a school at night. More like a machine pretending to sleep.
I crossed the courtyard toward the cybersecurity building with the flash drive hidden inside my coat pocket. Bad idea? Absolutely. But someone had gone through serious effort to get this drive to me. Meaning whatever was inside mattered. And there was exactly one person on campus paranoid enough to understand hidden files, erased metadata, and anonymous messages.
Kael Mercer. Unfortunately. I don't trust him but we can use each other anyway, or i can threaten him.
The cybersecurity department occupied the newest building on campus — all dark glass and sharp steel instead of gothic stone. Still unsettling somehow. Different kind of predator. The lobby sat mostly empty except for rows of glowing monitors and exhausted students surviving on caffeine and poor emotional decisions. I spotted Maya immediately near one of the vending machines.
"Jesus," she said when she noticed me approaching. "You look like you haven't slept since the Victorian era."
"Comforting." She handed me a packet of chips without explanation. Oddly kind.
"Why are you here? also at night? is that even allowed?" she asked.
"I could ask you the same thing."
"Psychology students and computer science students share one thing," Maya said. "Mutual suffering." Fair. Then her eyes narrowed slightly.
"You're looking for Kael." Not a question.
"How do you know that?"
"Because nobody voluntarily visits this building at this hour unless they're desperate, unstable, or in love."
"I'm none of those." Maya looked unconvinced.
"He's downstairs," she said finally. "Lab level."
I frowned. "There's a downstairs?"
"There's always a downstairs in creepy universities." again fair. She started walking away before pausing briefly beside me.
"Ayla?"
"Yeah?" Her expression shifted slightly. More serious than usual.
"um…" she hesitated, "just be careful who you trust here." Then she disappeared down the hallway before I could respond.
The warning lingered unpleasantly in my chest. The lower level smelled like overheated electronics and recycled air. Rows of servers hummed behind reinforced glass walls while blue monitor light flickered across dark floors. Almost nobody was down here. Which somehow made it worse. I found Kael alone near the far end of the lab. Headphones around his neck. Black hoodie. One hand moving rapidly across a keyboard while lines of code streamed endlessly across multiple monitors. For a second, he didn't notice me. And without the constant tension in his posture, he looked…
Young.
Just tired and human and overworked.
Then he looked up.
The effect vanished instantly. "What are you doing here?" Straight to hostility. Excellent communication skills.
I crossed my arms. "Nice to see you too."
"You shouldn't be in this building at this hour."
"And yet." His eyes narrowed slightly.
Then they dropped toward my hand fist. Noticed the shape immediately. Of course he did. "What's in your hand?"
"No hello first?"
"Ayla." There it was again. That sharp warning hidden beneath my name.
I pulled out the black flash drive slowly and placed it onto the desk between us. Kael went completely still. Actually still this time. No movement. No expression.
Just silence.
"What's this?"
"With responsive eyes, its a flash drive."
He rolled his eyes, "I can see that, i mean why are you showing me this?"
I remained silent wondering if explaining him is ok or not and before i could say anything he asked, "Where did you get that?"
Interesting reaction.
"Library." His jaw tightened hard enough for me to notice from across the desk.
"Who gave it to you?"
"No idea."
"That's not possible."
"Well unfortunately my mysterious campus stalker forgot to leave a business card." Kael grabbed the drive instantly. Too fast. Panic flashed across his face before he buried it again.
But I saw it.
And suddenly my heartbeat picked up. "Kael."
No response. "Why are you scared of it?"
"I'm not." Lie. Clear one. He plugged the drive into his lab computer and opened the flash drive folder.
The monitors flickered once.
Then black.
Every screen in the lab shut off simultaneously. The room dropped into darkness. For one suspended second, neither of us moved. Then emergency backup lights flooded the room deep red. Alarm systems began blaring overhead. My pulse spiked instantly.
"What did you just do?" Kael stared at the dead monitors.
"No," he muttered quietly. Not to me.
To himself.
The screens flickered back suddenly. One file appeared automatically.
PROJECT VEIL.
ACCESSING ARCHIVED SUBJECT RECORDS...
A loading bar crawled slowly across the screen. Then photos began appearing rapidly.
Student IDs.
Psychological profiles.
Behavioral evaluations.
Dozens of them.
Some marked:
WITHDRAWN.
TRANSFERRED.
DECEASED.
Cold spread through my stomach. "What is this?" Kael didn't answer. Because he looked horrified.
Then—
every monitor in the room flashed white violently.
A new message appeared across all screens simultaneously:
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED.
And beneath it:
RUN.
The lab doors slammed shut automatically. The lights died again. And somewhere in the darkness someone started banging from the other side of the door.