Chapter 6 - The Neon Counter-Attack
The sun began to set over the suburbs, painting the sky in bloody shades of orange and violet. Across town, hundreds of teenagers were slipping into tuxedos and sequined gowns, laughing in limousines, unaware of the war unfolding in the shadows of their perfect town.
At 7:15 p.m., we pulled our unassuming family minivan into the alleyway behind the Vance Development Headquarters—a sterile, six-story glass monolith that dominated the town’s small commercial district.
Arthur and Sarah were in the back seat, both wearing dark clothes. Sarah had a high-speed encrypted external hard drive tucked into her jacket. Kayla sat in the passenger seat next to me, wearing a hooded sweatshirt pulled up high to conceal her head.
"Look," Kayla whispered, pointing toward the front lobby window visible from the corner of the alley.
Through the glass, we could see Terry, the elderly night guard, leaning back in his chair with a massive pair of headphones on, staring intently at an iPad. The high school’s student news network was live-streaming the prom arrivals from the Country Club.
"He's distracted. Go," I whispered.
Arthur looked at me, his eyes filled with a mixture of terror and profound love. "If this goes wrong, Elena... take the girls and drive straight to the FBI field office in the city. Don't wait for me."
"We're coming out of this together, Arthur. Now move."
Arthur and Sarah slipped out of the minivan, melting into the shadows toward the basement delivery door.
Inside the car, the silence was suffocating. Kayla and I kept our eyes glued to the security monitors visible through the lobby window and the alleyway cameras we were monitoring via a hacked app Sarah had provided.
Five minutes passed. Then ten.
Suddenly, Kayla’s phone buzzed in her lap. It was an Instagram notification.
She opened it. It was a live video from her best friend, Chloe, at the prom. We watched the screen as the camera panned across the lavishly decorated country club ballroom. There stood Steven, looking dazzling in a custom white tuxedo, smiling for a crowd of parents and teachers. Beside him stood a beautiful girl from the junior class—a replacement he had clearly scrambled to find to keep up appearances.
Richard Vance was standing next to them, clapping his son on the back, looking like the king of the world.
"He thinks he won," Kayla whispered, her fingers tightening around her phone until her knuckles turned white. "He thinks he broke us."
May you like
"Let him think that for another five minutes," I said, my eyes tracking a sudden movement on the security monitor app. "Wait... Sarah’s in. The server room door just logged an administrative entry."
On the screen, a tiny green light flashed on the digital map of the building. Sarah and Arthur were inside the vault.
