Harper noticed the subtle shift first — the way Sofia avoided eye contact, the short answers, the silence that lingered longer than it used to. It wasn't just teenage moodiness. It was something heavier. Something scared.
She found Sofia in the hallway that evening, staring at her phone, shoulders hunched.
"You okay, Soph?"
Sofia jumped, then quickly turned off the screen. "Yeah. Just texting Naomi."
Harper offered a soft smile. "I'm making tea. Want some?"
Sofia hesitated. "Sure."
They sat in the quiet kitchen, Harper sipping chamomile while Sofia barely touched hers. Outside, wind pressed gently against the windows. The calm felt false. Thin.
"Did something happen at school?" Harper asked gently. "With your friends?"
"No." Sofia's voice was clipped. "Just tired."
But Harper caught the way her fingers trembled when she set the mug down.
She didn't push. Not yet.
Across town, Naomi was setting up an old laptop, her fingers flying across the keys.
"I masked the IP address and created a private relay. If we bait him again, it won't lead back to your devices."
Sofia, watching from the bed, nodded slowly.
"And the burner phone?" she asked.
Naomi tossed it over. "Cheap, anonymous, prepaid. Perfect."
Sofia stared at the box. "So what's the plan?"
Naomi took a deep breath. "We start messaging him from a new fake identity. Someone who's onto him. We say we know who he is. We tell him we've seen what he's done. And we watch how he reacts."
Sofia's throat tightened. "What if he knows it's us?"
"He won't. We've changed the language, the tone, everything. And once he panics… we screen record everything."
Sofia looked at the phone again. "What do we call ourselves?"
Naomi smiled grimly. "The Mirror."
That night, Harper sat beside Jacob on the couch, scrolling through her messages.
"Ian hasn't texted again since I blocked him," she said. "But it feels like he's just… paused."
Jacob wrapped an arm around her. "We've done all we can. Let the police handle it."
Harper nodded, but her jaw tightened. "Still. I'm not letting my guard down. Not again."
Upstairs, Sofia stared at the blank screen of the burner phone.
Naomi's voice echoed from the call still open on her laptop.
"Send the first message."
Sofia typed slowly:
The Mirror: We see you, Ian. And we're not the only ones. You're being watched, just like you watched her.
Her finger hovered… and pressed send.