Page 103 of Under the Lights

No matter how long it took or who I had to ask, Iwouldfigure it out. I wanted to know everything. I needed to know everything. Because this wasn’t just curiosity.

This was about her. And when it came to Sierra, I didn’t do detached. I didn’t do chill.

Thumbing through some neatly stacked papers on her desk, the sight got me thinking. My girl was somewhat of a neat freak. Everything she owned was categorized, organized, and had a designated spot.

Pulling open one of the drawers of her desk, I started rifling through the various files and folders.

There. A manila folder labeledZeta Gamma Gamma— the name of her former sorority. Chances were, I’d only find boring reports or some kind of initiation ritual manual in there, but I had to check.

What if there was something tying her to this whole situation? I had no proof yet, but my suspicions weren’t completely unfounded.

I protected what was mine. If there was any chance at all she could be dragged into this, I had to know.

Digging it out of the drawer, I opened the folder and started flipping through the mess inside. At first glance, it looked like chaos: loose papers, faded ink spreadsheets, screenshots of emails, and scanned receipts. Most of the pages were covered in Sierra’s familiar handwriting.

Her notes were sharp and slanted, crammed in the margins. There were arrows connecting unrelated items and circles drawn in thick ink. Red pens, black pens. Highlighters. Some pages looked like they’d been handled a hundred times.

Everything seemed disjointed, like maybe she was just spiraling — grasping at straws. But the longer I stared, the more the pieces began to fall into place.

Dates lined up. Vendors repeated. Amounts didn’t match. Some of the notes pointed out double charges. Others were timestamped, with words like “see Venmo?” or “no paper trail??” scrawled beside them.

And then I saw it.

FORGED,written in red marker, circled twice on the corner of a scanned receipt.

My chest tightened. My pulse pounded in my ears as I lowered the folder to my lap and stared at the wall in front of me.

What the fuck was this?

Some of the numbers weren’t just off — theyscreamedshady. Had Sierra been part of something, and it all gone sideways? Had they kicked her out to cover their asses?

I sat with the thought for a second, mulling it over.

No.That wasn’t possible.

Sierra was sharp, guarded, brutally honest — even when it would’ve been easier not to be. She could be prickly, sure, but she didn’t lie. And she didn’t steal. Whatever this was, she wasn’t involved in it. Not like that.

Then it hit me —hard.

What if she’d found this? What if she’d been trying to expose it?

I examined the folder once more, this time with heightened scrutiny. I skimmed the margin notes and receipts with highlighted charges and mismatched dates. Then, I looked at the rough timeline she had tried to map out between sheets.

This wasn’t the kind of mess someone made to hide a crime. It was what someone built when they were trying to prove one.

Fraud. No —embezzlement. That’s what this looked like.

And if Sierra had been digging into it, if she’d gotten too close to the truth? Of course, they’d push her out. Get rid of her before she could blow the whole damn thing open.

I pulled out my phone, planning to snap a picture of the worst-offending documents, when a loud buzz made me jump. Her phone — still plugged in on her nightstand — lit up with a text.

Did she leave it behind? That didn’t seem like her.

I was already nosing around… so what was a little more?

Casting a quick look around, I shuffled over to it and peered down at the device.

Unknown: You should’ve walked away when you had the chance. This isn’t just college politics anymore.

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