Chapter 2 - Twenty-Three Minutes
The conference room beside Principal Howard’s office had never felt smaller.
Emma sat beside Lucy at one end of the table, their mother Claire between them. Across from them sat Principal Howard, Ms. Alvarez, Officer Daniel Ruiz, and Detective Marisol Vega from the juvenile investigations unit.
Madison had been placed in another room.
Her mother was on the way.
Lucy kept both hands wrapped around a paper cup of water.
She was thirteen, but that afternoon she looked younger.
Her brown hair was still damp from the sink where the nurse had helped her clean orange sports drink from it.
Claire touched her shoulder.
“You don’t have to rush.”
Lucy nodded.
Detective Vega spoke gently.
“Tell me what happened in your own words.”
Lucy stared at the table.
“I went into the locker room after second-period PE because I forgot my history notebook.”
“Was anyone else there?”
“Madison was. Tessa and Brooke too.”
Emma watched Lucy’s knuckles whiten around the cup.
“They told me they wanted my phone.”
“Why?”
Lucy swallowed.
“Because I had screenshots.”
Detective Vega didn’t interrupt.
Lucy continued.
“Last night, someone added me to a group chat by mistake. It was called The Scoreboard.”
Principal Howard frowned.
“I’ve never heard of that.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” Lucy said.
Her voice was barely audible.
“It was Madison’s group.”
Emma had already seen the screenshots.
Names.
Numbers.
Points.
Cruel comments beneath photographs of students being embarrassed in hallways, classrooms, buses, parties.
Ten points for making someone cry.
Twenty for getting a public argument on video.
Thirty for making a victim apologize for something they hadn’t done.
And beside some names were dollar amounts.
“What did the money mean?” Officer Ruiz asked.
Lucy looked at Emma.
“I don’t know all of it.”
Emma took over.
“Some students were paying Madison’s group to remove videos before they were posted publicly.”
Howard’s face hardened.
“Paying how?”
“Gift cards. Digital payments. Sometimes cash.”
Claire stared at him.
“You had no idea this was happening?”
Howard looked shaken.
“No.”
Lucy spoke again.
“They realized I had screenshots because I asked one of the girls in the chat why they were doing it.”
Detective Vega leaned forward.
“What happened this morning?”
“Madison blocked the locker-room exit.”
Lucy’s voice began trembling.
“Tessa took my phone. Brooke searched my backpack.”
Claire made a small sound but stayed silent.
“They wanted my password. I wouldn’t give it to them.”
“And then?”
“They pushed my backpack into the equipment cage.”
Lucy shut her eyes.
“When I went after it, Madison closed the gate.”
The equipment cage was a floor-to-ceiling metal enclosure used for balls, training mats, and folding nets. It had a latch on the outside.
“She locked it?”
Lucy nodded.
“Tessa said they were just scaring me.”
“How long were you inside?”
“Twenty-three minutes.”
“How do you know?”
Lucy lifted her smartwatch.
“The recording.”
Emma plugged the flash drive into the laptop Detective Vega had placed on the table.
“I copied it before I came downstairs.”
The first audio file began.
At first there was only rustling.
Then Lucy’s voice.
“Give me my phone back.”
Madison answered.
“Tell us who you sent the screenshots to.”
“No one.”
“You’re lying.”
A metallic bang followed.
Lucy flinched beside Emma even though she had heard the recording before.
Then came Brooke’s voice.
“Just delete everything and we’ll let you out.”
Lucy said, “You broke my phone.”
Madison laughed.
“Then you should’ve handed it over when I asked.”
The conference room became completely still.
The next part was worse.
Not because anyone screamed.
Because Madison sounded calm.
“You tell anyone about The Scoreboard and tomorrow everyone gets a video of you crying in here.”
Lucy’s recorded voice whispered, “Why are you doing this?”
“Because people need to learn what happens when they embarrass me.”
The audio continued for eighteen more minutes.
At one point, Tessa said they should stop.
Madison refused.
Finally a custodian’s voice could be heard outside.
The girls fled.
Lucy shouted until the custodian found her.
When the recording ended, Claire wiped both cheeks.
Principal Howard stared at the dark laptop screen.
Detective Vega removed the flash drive carefully.
“I’m going to make a forensic copy. Emma, keep the original.”
Howard looked at Lucy.
“I am so sorry.”
Claire’s head snapped toward him.
“Sorry?”
“Mrs. Parker—”
“My thirteen-year-old daughter was locked in a cage inside your school.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
Lucy touched her mother’s sleeve.
“Mom.”
Claire inhaled and sat back.
A knock came at the door.
The school secretary appeared.
“Mr. Howard? Dana Reed is here.”
Madison’s mother entered before anyone invited her.
Dana Reed wore a navy suit and carried a leather portfolio under one arm. She was chair of the district’s community advisory committee and had spent six years raising money for Westbridge Secondary’s arts and athletics programs.
Emma had seen her on banners.
At fundraisers.
Beside politicians.
Dana looked first at Madison’s empty chair, then at Detective Vega.
“What exactly is happening?”
Howard stood.
“Dana, we’re discussing an incident involving Madison and Lucy Parker.”
“You’re discussing my daughter without me?”
“Madison is in a separate supervised room.”
Dana looked at the Parker family.
Her gaze settled on Emma’s stained sweater.
Then on Lucy.
For a moment, something unreadable passed over her face.
Detective Vega said, “Mrs. Reed, I’ll speak with you and Madison separately.”
Dana ignored her.
She looked at Howard.
“You need to be careful.”
Howard’s expression cooled.
“With what?”
“With turning teenage drama into a criminal accusation before you understand the context.”
Emma felt Claire stiffen.
Lucy looked down.
Dana continued.
“My daughter has been targeted by Emma for months.”
“That’s not true,” Emma said.
Dana finally looked at her.
“You’re emotional. Your sister is emotional. Everyone in that cafeteria was emotional.”
Emma almost laughed.
Instead she asked, “Have you heard the recording?”
Dana’s face remained controlled.
“No.”
“Then maybe you should.”
Detective Vega closed the laptop.
“Not here.”
Dana’s eyes sharpened.
“You have a recording?”
Emma realized something.
Madison hadn’t told her mother.
Not yet.
Dana looked toward the flash drive.
Then at Lucy’s smartwatch.
The color left her face.
Only slightly.
But Emma noticed.
And when Dana turned back toward Principal Howard, her next words changed the room.
“Robert,” she said, “before anyone listens to anything else, I think you should remember what happened last semester.”
Howard went completely still.
Emma looked from one adult to the other.
“What happened last semester?”
Nobody answered.
And suddenly the evidence on Lucy’s watch no longer felt like the beginning of the story.
May you like
It felt like the continuation of something the adults already knew.
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