Chapter 4 - The Infiltration
Getting back into Oakridge High while on active suspension was a crime in itself, but Sadie was past the point of caution.
At 3:30 PM, the main doors opened, spilling hundreds of students out into the parking lot. Sadie kept her head down, blending into the crowd of students pouring toward the buses. She slipped through the side entrance near the gymnasium, where the automatic lock mechanism was notoriously faulty.
The hallways were emptying fast. Custodians pushed yellow mop buckets across the polished linoleum. Sadie kept to the shadows of the locker banks, her heart thumping against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Leah’s locker was #142, located on the second floor near the science wing.
Sadie reached the locker, her fingers flying across the combination dial that Leah had texted her: 24 - 08 - 31.
The latch clicked open. Sadie pulled the metallic door wide. Inside lay Leah’s heavy leather backpack, containing her silver laptop.
Sadie grabbed the laptop and shoved it into her own bag. She was turning to leave when she heard heavy footsteps echoing down the hallway.
"Who's there?"
It was Mr. Crowe’s deep, booming baritone.
Sadie ducked behind an open locker door. Through the gap, she saw Crowe walking briskly down the corridor, holding a ring of master keys. He stopped right outside the chemistry classroom, unlocked the door, and stepped inside, leaving it slightly ajar.
Instead of running for the exit, Sadie felt a pull toward the door. If Crowe was synthesizing drugs in the school lab, there had to be physical evidence remaining—precursors, glassware, disposal logs.
She crept to the threshold of the chemistry room and peered through the narrow vertical window.
Crowe was standing at the safety fume hood in the back. He was wearing heavy rubber gloves and a respirator mask, carefully pouring a bright yellow liquid from an unlabeled flask into a glass beaker. On the stainless steel counter beside him stood several amber glass bottles marked with chemical symbols, along with a stack of small plastic baggies filled with the signature blue pills.
He was actively running a batch.
Sadie pulled out her phone. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the lens steady. She tapped the video record button.
Through the glass, she captured everything: Crowe weighing out crystalline powder on a digital scale, mixing it with the liquid, and pressing the compound into custom pill molds using an industrial hand-press hidden inside the fume hood.
Click.
The sharp, metallic sound of a latch releasing snapped through the room.
Sadie’s eyes darted downward. Her elbow had bumped against the metal trash bin beside the door.
Inside the classroom, the sound of glass clinking suddenly stopped.
"Is someone out there?" Crowe’s voice echoed, cold and sharp.
Sadie didn't hesitate. She turned and sprinted down the hallway.
May you like
Behind her, the classroom door slammed open. "Sadie!" Crowe yelled, his voice echoing off the concrete walls. "Stop right there!"
Sadie sprinted down the main staircase, her sneakers squeaking on the stairs. She bounded out the rear fire exit, pushing open the heavy bar. The alarm screamed behind her, a deafening siren that shattered the quiet afternoon. She threw herself through the metal doors and disappeared into the dense woods bordering the athletic fields.
