Chapter 17 - This Time Everyone Was Watching
Eli Grant was inside the gym.
Ryan had grabbed him from the equipment corridor after Eli returned for a forgotten backpack.
Police confirmed it from camera footage.
That changed everything.
Ryan was no longer a missing student having a breakdown.
He was holding someone against his will.
A tactical team entered through the east wing.
Maya listened from the command area as negotiators took over the call.
Ryan refused to speak to them.
"Maya or nobody," he kept saying.
Eli could be heard crying in the background.
Maya looked at Bennett.
"Let me talk from the hallway. Not the gym. Just close enough that he thinks I came."
Bennett hated it.
Ruiz hated it more.
But the negotiator agreed if Maya stayed behind two armed officers.
They entered through the music wing.
The school at night felt smaller and more dangerous.
Maya stopped outside the gym doors.
"Ryan!"
His voice echoed from inside.
"Come in!"
"Let Eli walk out first."
"No."
"Then you don't want me. You want an audience."
"I said come in!"
Maya could hear the panic under the anger now.
"You spent years making people scared because you thought fear meant respect. It doesn't."
Something crashed inside.
"Shut up!"
"Your dad used money. Hargrove used records. Danner used silence. You used humiliation. Same trick. Different costume."
Ryan screamed, "YOU DON'T KNOW ME!"
Maya's voice stayed level.
"Then prove it. Let Eli go."
A long pause.
The side gym door opened.
Eli stumbled out.
An officer pulled him to safety.
Then Ryan ran.
Not toward the exit.
Toward the upper bleachers.
Police rushed in.
Maya stayed back until a sharp metallic clang echoed above them.
Ryan had climbed onto the maintenance catwalk behind the scoreboard.
He held his tablet over the railing.
"Everybody's files are on here!" he shouted. "One button and they all go out!"
The negotiator told him to set it down.
Ryan looked toward Maya below.
"You want to be the hero? Come take it."
Maya did not move.
"No."
Ryan blinked.
"What?"
"I'm done playing your games."
He stared at her.
For the first time, the entire gym was full of witnesses he could not control: police, teachers, students outside the glass doors, cameras broadcasting live from the parking lot.
Ryan's hand shook.
Then the tablet slipped.
He lunged for it.
May you like
His foot slid off the catwalk edge.
And suddenly Ryan Mercer was hanging twenty feet above the gym floor by one hand.
