Devlyn closed his bedroom door with a soft click and locked it.
He tossed his bag onto the floor, sat at his desk, and booted up his laptop. The screen glowed against the dim light of the room.
A few clicks later, he was on the login page of a small digital banking app, one that didn't ask too many questions and didn't send monthly statements to your house.
He entered the username of the account he had just created two days ago
The password was random, stored in an encrypted file. Just another layer of security in a long list of precautions. He wasn't stupid.
A soft ping accompanied the dashboard loading in.
His smirk formed instantly.
$27,345.89
Clean. Untouched. Untraceable.
He leaned back in his chair, arms behind his head, soaking it in like a warm bath.
"People always say money doesn't buy happiness," he muttered. "They just never had enough of it."
He scrolled through the transaction history, only three deposits. $25,000 by Craig, $2,000 by Janice and the rest, he transferred himself as a test
Devlyn chuckled to himself. "Craig was so easy to break. All bark, no spine."
Craig had always been arrogant. The kind of person who thought the school ran on his name. Principal's son. Star athlete. Popular. Above consequences.
But Devlyn saw through that from the start.
He watched Craig closely. The way he moved, the way he talked when teachers weren't around.
Devlyn noticed when Craig started slipping into the AV club alone after hours.
When the first whisper about "leaked photos" started floating around, Devlyn knew exactly where to look. Cameras in the girls' locker room.
Set up clumsily but hidden well enough that no one would find them, unless they were looking.
Devlyn didn't report it. Instead, he documented it.
He filmed Craig setting the cameras up. Took high-resolution photos of Craig unlocking the AV club cabinet with a key he shouldn't have. He even hacked into the hidden drive where the footage was stored.
And then he waited.
He let Craig feel safe. Let him gather more footage. Let him dig the hole deeper until he could bury himself in it.
Then, late one evening, Craig got a message.
"Nice filming. I rate your camera angles 7/10. Too much tilt. $25,000 or your mom gets a copy.
Craig didn't respond at first. He thought it was a joke. Or a bluff.
The next day, a flash drive was waiting in his locker.
One file. One video. One of the girls he filmed, undressing, unaware, and vulnerable.
No voice. No threats. Just simple evidence.
Craig skipped practice. He looked pale in class. He stopped joking with his friends.
Devlyn watched it all with quiet satisfaction.
Then came the confrontation.
Craig cornered Devlyn near the stairwell between class periods.
"You think this is funny?" Craig hissed, grabbing his collar.
"You trying to blackmail me? You have no idea who you're messing with."
Devlyn didn't flinch. He smiled.
"You're right," Devlyn said calmly. "You're the son of the principal. You're the golden child. Untouchable. But you see… that's what makes it so much more fun when you fall."
He leaned in closer.
"You've got until Friday. After that, I start distributing. I've got five copies, all encrypted and spread across the school. You touch me, I release them. You go to the cops, same deal. Pay the money and it all goes away."
Craig looked at him like he was staring at a stranger. For the first time, he realized Devlyn didn't just want money.
He wanted to own him.
"I want 50 grand." He said casually.
"I don't have fifty grand," Craig said, breathless.
"Then beg your mommy," Devlyn whispered. "Tell her it's for something noble. Maybe college. Or therapy."
He patted Craig on the shoulder before walking off.
Craig paid the next day. Clean transfer. No trace to Devlyn, he made sure of it. Through a chain of crypto wallets and apps, it landed in the secret account.
But it was only half the money.
But something broke in Craig after that.
He stopped speaking to his friends. He deleted all his social media.
His girlfriend dumped him when he showed up to her house crying one night and wouldn't say why. His parents thought it was stress. His teammates thought it was burnout.
Only Devlyn knew the truth.
Craig had been stripped bare. All his power, his pride, gone. And unlike Janice, he couldn't pretend it never happened. Devlyn made sure of that. He sent Craig another message just three days before his death.
"You know, I will leak it if I don't get the rest soon."
That was it. Just that.
Craig didn't reply
Devlyn hadn't laid a finger on him.
But he didn't need to.
He sat in his room now, staring at the bank account balance again.
$27,345.89
And he thought about how cheap human life could be when you knew where the cracks were.
Craig thought this much money would solve it. Make it go away. But it was not enough.
Craig stopped looking in mirrors.
The person staring back at him felt like a stranger, sleepless, sunken-eyed, haunted. It started with the first message, and since then, sleep had become impossible.
He'd wake up gasping at night, the image of his father's face watching one of the videos burned into his brain.
He deleted every app. Erased all contacts. Changed his phone number.
But Devlyn still found him.
He'd find a note in his locker, a flash drive on his desk, a whisper in the hallway.
Sometimes it was nothing, just a blank file named "your turn." Other times, it was worse.
One day, there was a printed photo of him placing the camera in the locker room, taken from across the gym.
No one else could've gotten that angle. No one else could've gotten that close.
Devlyn was always watching. Always listening.
Craig started skipping classes. Hiding in bathrooms. Walking home through alleys.
He stopped speaking in full sentences. Even his dad noticed.
"You're not okay, son," Principal Carter had said, placing a hand on his shoulder.
Craig shrugged him off.
He couldn't tell him.
'I watched girls change for fun. I broke them down into pixels and kept them like trophies. And now someone's doing the same to me.'
Devlyn hadn't just threatened him with exposure. He'd done something worse, he'd made Craig see himself.
All the things he did. All the lives he hurt.
And the fear never left. It stuck to him like oil.
Every time he walked into school, he was sure that today was the day the videos would leak. That people would stop smiling.
That someone would finally look at him and say, "You did this."
He saw Janice in the hallway once. She didn't meet his eyes.
Everyone would know, soon enough.
He was trapped in a prison built out of secrets, and every day the walls got smaller.
Two days later, Craig stood at the rooftop entrance, hands shaking, breath fogging in the cool morning air. No one else was around. The rooftop was off-limits. But Devlyn had a way of leaving doors open when he needed them open.
In his pocket, Craig had a note. No words. Just a photo.
It was him, crying on the floor of the AV room.
He didn't even remember the camera being there.
That's how deep Devlyn had gotten.
He thought about jumping. About leaving quietly. But it didn't feel right.
He found the metal hook bolted to the wall by the maintenance staff for decorations during school festivals. They never took it down.
He stood on the ledge. He tied the rope, he didn't even remember where he'd gotten it. Maybe it didn't matter.
There were no tears left. No pleading. No "what ifs."
Just this numb silence. Like everything in his head had finally burned out.
As he slipped the rope around his neck, he muttered two words.
"I'm sorry."
No one was around to hear it.