Chapter 20: The Rumor Mill

The central corridor of Riverdale Prep’s western wing was a sensory overload of polished linoleum, slamming locker doors, and the collective, high-pitched hum of hundreds of students rushing before the morning warning bell.

Lulu stood near the high arched display cases, her fingers trembling slightly as she clutched a sleek silver tablet against her chest.

Her soft-spoken, gentle Omega nature usually kept her far away from the sharp edges of campus politics, her quiet afternoons usually spent buried in vintage library paper or reading the softer threads on the school forums.

But right now, her large, doe-like eyes were wide with a mixture of sheer anxiety and intense fascination as she tapped the glass screen, a bright red notification icon flashing over the Riverdale Confidential landing page.

"Milo... look at this... look at what just hit the top of the main board," Lulu whispered, her small voice nearly swallowed by the echoing chatter of the passing varsity lacrosse team.

She shoved the glowing screen directly into Milo’s face, her thumb scrolling through a rapidly expanding wall of anonymous text that was accumulating hundreds of views every single second.

The title of the thread was bold, black, and completely devastating: SPOTTED ON THE RIDGE: COUNTER-DIAGNOSTIC METRICS IN SECTOR 3.

The anonymous text beneath it was short, jagged, and laced with a terrifying amount of precise logistical data from the midnight night drills.

Anonymous Poster #772: Anyone else catch the tracking map layout before the instructors locked the depot terminal? The Northmont golden boy didn't just leave his station... he spent forty minutes entirely off-grid in the deep woods with the captain. Word is, the valedictorian was completely out of commission... dropped flat on his back in a restricted sector. What the hell happened out there between the two rivals?

Milo's breath hitched completely, his fingers loosening around his own leather satchel as his highly intuitive mind instantly connected the dots back to the faint, unmistakable trace of cedar he had caught on Ash's collar just an hour ago.

"Oh my god..." Milo muttered, his hand flying to his mouth as he scanned the lower comments, where students were already wildly speculating on everything from illegal doping scandals to an unscripted, secret physical confrontation between the school's top two Alphas. "This is... this is going to turn into an absolute slaughterhouse by noon."

...

"Delete it."

A cold, gravelly voice cut through the air behind their shoulders like a sheet of dropping ice, causing both Omegas to leap backward with a sharp, synchronized gasp of pure terror.

Ash stood less than two feet away, his back perfectly straight, his uniform jacket buttoned with absolute, military precision all the way to the very top silver hook of his collar.

His stormy blue eyes were two freezing, volatile stones, the muscles along his sharp jawline twitching with a visible, frantic spasm as he stared down at the glowing tablet screen in Lulu's hands.

The deep, biological satisfaction that had anchored his limbs during the morning hours vanished instantly, replaced by a sudden, suffocating wave of pure, unadulterated paranoia that turned his skin completely pale.

"Ash... we were just... it just popped up on the global feed—" Lulu stammered, her soft voice cracking as she instinctively clutched the silver tablet tighter against her uniform skirt, her body shivering under the intense, defensive aura radiating from the captain.

"I don't care where it popped up," Ash hissed, stepping directly into their personal space, his boots hitting the floorboards with a heavy, threatening thud that made the surrounding underclassmen pause.

He leaned down, his face dropping until his eyes were level with Milo's, his breath coming in short, jagged bursts through his nose.

"You tell your little forum moderators to take the thread down right now... every single mirror link, every single screenshot... you wipe them from the local server before this gets out of hand."

"Ash, you can't just censor the student board!" Milo argued softly, his own protective instincts flaring as he took a half-step in front of the trembling Lulu. "People saw the terminal data... if you lock the thread, everyone is just going to assume the rumor is true!"

"I said lock it!" Ash growled, his hand firing out from his pocket to slam flat against the metal surface of a nearby locker, the heavy iron door rattling violently down the entire row.

His ears were burning a deep, furious crimson, the golden puncture marks hidden beneath his high canvas collar throbbing with a sharp, painful heat in response to his rising blood pressure.

He could feel the eyes of the entire hallway shifting toward him, the low whispers starting up behind the locker doors as the elite student body began to analyze his uncharacteristic, explosive display of panic.

He was losing control of the campus baseline, his hard-won reputation as the untouchable, dominant king of Riverdale Prep slipping away because of a single anonymous leak from the deep woods.

Miles away from the western wing, sitting near the high windows of the varsity lounge, Sterling sat with his heavy boots propped up on a leather footstool, a dark, venomous smirk twisting his caked jawline.

His throat was still heavily bruised, a thick band of purple discoloration hidden beneath his wide uniform collar—the permanent, psychological reminder of Sebastian's lethal midnight warning.

Sterling had sworn a binding biological vow of silence in that mud clearing; his own Alpha pride would never allow him to tell a single soul that he had been completely broken and crushed into submission by a Northmont elite.

But a vow of silence didn't mean he couldn't play the administrative board like a piano.

He had used a secondary, untraceable terminal in the sports complex to leak the exact coordinates of Sector 3, knowing that even if he couldn't name Ash’s true secondary gender without invoking Seb’s wrath, the simple implication of a hidden, private scandal would be enough to destroy the valedictorian's crown from the inside out.

It was a slow, calculated revenge that kept his hands entirely clean while the rumor mill did the dirty work for him.

Back in the crowded hallway, the circle of gossiping students was closing in, their smartphones tilting up to capture the rare sight of Ash's cracking composure.

"Look at him... he's practically hyperventilating..."

"Is it true? Did Northmont actually take him down in the woods?"

Ash’s vision went slightly dark at the edges, his lungs locking up as the claustrophobic weight of the public scrutiny pressed heavily against his skull.

Before his trembling fingers could snatch the tablet from Lulu's grip to rip the screen away, a large, broad shadow materialized from the end of the corridor.

Sebastian walked up through the parting crowd with absolute, unbothered composure, his long legs moving with a slow, deliberate rhythm that instantly drew every eye away from Ash's pale face.

The fine gold chain of his glasses swung gently against his sharp cheekbone, catching the sterile fluorescent light of the ceiling as he reached the center of the confrontation.

Without a single hint of hesitation, and without offering a single word of explanation to the stunned onlookers, Seb reached out his long, pale arm.

He casually, possessively threw his thick arm over Ash’s rigid, unyielding shoulders, his large palm settling flat against the curve of Ash's neck with an immense, grounding weight.

Thud.

The physical contact sent a sudden, shocking jolt of pristine, dominant cedar pheromones exploding through the crowded hallway, a dense chemical wall that immediately blanked out the stale classroom air.

The cedar scent didn't just float over Ash's uniform; it instantly bonded with the hidden wild rose sweetness leaking from his collar, the two fragrances fusing in mid-air in front of the entire student body.

"The student council report is finalized," Seb announced smoothly, his low velvet voice carrying an intolerable level of public authority that silenced the whispers within a single second.

He didn't look at the tablet, his gray eyes remaining fixed on Milo's stunned face with a cold, unyielding warning that brooked zero argument.

"The administrative layout for the festival requires the captain's immediate presence in my office... clear the aisle."

Ash froze under the sudden, massive weight of the arm, his breath catching in his throat as his entire body instinctively leaned half an inch closer into the foreign warmth of Seb's chest.

He wanted to tear the arm away, he wanted to drive his fist into Seb’s perfect jaw for making the scandal a thousand times worse, but his newly marked biology was completely ruling his limbs.

The surrounding crowd let out a collective, low gasp of pure, unscripted shock as Seb began to guide Ash away down the hall, his grip unyielding.

The rumors weren't suppressed; they had just been validated in the most public, dominant way possible, leaving the entire rumor mill churning into overdrive behind their backs.