Chapter 2 - The Video Everyone BelievedSadie spent the first forty-seven minutes at the police station convincing herself someone would realize there had been a mistake.
Sadie Monroe did not.
She was on her knees beside Leah before the glass stirring rod finished rolling across the floor.
“Leah?”
No response.
Leah’s eyes fluttered. Her lips looked strangely pale beneath the black residue staining the corner of her mouth.
Sadie grabbed her shoulder.
“Leah, look at me.”
Their teacher, Mr. Daniel Whitaker, froze behind the demonstration table.
Twenty-seven students stood around them inside Franklin Ridge High School’s chemistry lab, but for several seconds nobody seemed to understand what was happening.
Then Leah convulsed.
Someone screamed.
Sadie reached for her phone.
“Call 911!” Mr. Whitaker shouted.
“I already am.”
Sadie put the call on speaker and carefully rolled Leah onto her side.
The dispatcher answered.
“911. What is your emergency?”
“My classmate collapsed,” Sadie said quickly. “Seventeen-year-old female. She’s breathing, but barely. She swallowed something from a small bottle.”
Mr. Whitaker’s face changed.
“What bottle?”
Sadie pointed toward the floor.
A clear plastic laboratory vial lay beneath the table.
Inside was a thick black liquid.
Mr. Whitaker stepped toward it, then stopped.
“Don’t touch anything.”
Leah made a choking sound.
Sadie stayed with her.
She had learned basic first aid because her mother worked nights as a respiratory therapist and had insisted Sadie know what to do during an emergency.
“Stay awake, Leah.”
Leah’s fingers tightened weakly around Sadie’s sleeve.
“Don’t…”
“What?”
Leah’s eyes opened.
Terror filled them.
“Don’t let them…”
Her voice disappeared.
“Don’t let who?”
Leah went limp.
Sadie’s heart slammed against her ribs.
“Leah!”
Sirens approached from somewhere beyond the school parking lot.
The classroom doors opened three minutes later.
Paramedics pushed through the crowd.
Two police officers followed.
Everything happened quickly after that.
An oxygen mask.
A stretcher.
Questions.
Students crying.
Mr. Whitaker repeatedly ordering everyone away from the lab tables.
Sadie stood against the wall, trembling.
She watched paramedics wheel Leah toward the hallway.
One of them looked at Sadie.
“You may have saved her life.”
Sadie barely heard him.
Because Principal Danner had just entered with Officer Raymond Keller.
The principal looked pale.
“Everyone stay where you are.”
Students stopped moving.
Officer Keller spoke quietly with Mr. Whitaker.
Then another officer began collecting backpacks.
“What’s happening?” someone whispered.
“They think drugs were involved.”
Sadie’s stomach tightened.
She looked toward the black vial.
Something about it bothered her.
Leah had been working beside Sadie during the experiment. Twenty minutes earlier, Leah had looked completely normal.
Then she had taken something from her pocket.
Sadie remembered asking what it was.
“Vitamin drops,” Leah had said.
But Leah had looked nervous.
Very nervous.
Now Officer Keller reached Sadie’s desk.
“Which backpack is yours?”
Sadie pointed.
“The gray one.”
He lifted it.
Sadie expected him to unzip the main compartment.
Instead, he opened the small front pocket.
Almost immediately, his expression changed.
He reached inside.
Then slowly removed a clear plastic bag.
Six blue pills dropped into his gloved palm.
The room went silent.
Sadie stared.
She had never seen them before.
“What is that?”
Officer Keller looked at her.
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
Someone behind her whispered, “Oh my God.”
Sadie shook her head.
“No. Those aren’t mine.”
Officer Keller examined the bag.
Principal Danner looked sick.
“Sadie…”
“They’re not mine!”
Mr. Whitaker moved forward.
“Officer, we should be careful here.”
“We will.”
Officer Keller turned toward Sadie.
“Is there anything else in your bag we should know about?”
“No!”
Students were filming again.
Sadie saw phones everywhere.
Her face.
The pills.
Leah’s empty chair.
A girl near the window whispered something to her friend.
Sadie caught only two words.
“She poisoned…”
“No.”
Sadie stepped forward.
“I didn’t give Leah anything.”
Officer Keller lifted one hand.
“Stay where you are.”
“I helped her!”
“I understand.”
“She had the bottle before she collapsed.”
“Sadie.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
The second officer returned from the hallway and quietly spoke into Keller’s ear.
Whatever he said changed everything.
Keller looked toward Mr. Whitaker.
Then toward Sadie.
“Miss Monroe, place your hands in front of you.”
Sadie stopped breathing.
“What?”
“We need to take you with us while we determine what happened.”
“You’re arresting me?”
“At this point, you are being detained.”
The metal cuffs clicked around her wrists.
Someone gasped.
Sadie looked at Mr. Whitaker.
For one second, she expected him to defend her.
Instead, he turned away.
That hurt more than the handcuffs.
Sadie had been his best student for two years.
She had won the regional chemistry competition.
He had written her college recommendation letter.
He knew her.
Or she thought he did.
Officer Keller guided her toward the door.
Students stepped aside.
Phones followed her every movement.
Sadie wanted to disappear.
Then, just before she reached the hallway, Mr. Whitaker suddenly moved.
He crossed the room fast.
Too fast.
He grabbed Leah’s chemistry notebook from the lab table.
Sadie noticed because nobody else did.
He opened it.
Tore out one page.
Folded it.
And slipped it into the inside pocket of his white laboratory coat.
Sadie stopped.
Officer Keller tugged gently at her arm.
“Keep walking.”
Sadie stared at her teacher.
Mr. Whitaker looked up.
Their eyes met.
And for the first time that day, Sadie saw something on his face that frightened her more than the police.
Not confusion.
Not concern.
Fear.
Then Mr. Whitaker quietly pushed Leah’s notebook beneath a stack of worksheets.
Like he wanted everyone to forget it existed.
Sadie turned toward Officer Keller.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“My teacher just took something.”
Mr. Whitaker went still.
“Sadie,” he said softly, “you’re confused.”
“No.”
She looked straight at the officer.
“He tore a page out of Leah’s notebook.”
Every student in the room turned toward Mr. Whitaker.
His face drained of color.
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Then the fire alarm began screaming.
And every light in the chemistry lab went out.
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