Chapter 8 - The Mirror Between Them

 

The sky was the color of wet ash.

Dwayne’s car sat at the curb, headlights cutting through a thin mist that rolled across the quiet street. Marcus sat in the passenger seat, phone in hand, scrolling through a list of addresses.

“This the one?” Dwayne asked.

Marcus nodded. “Yeah. Sienna’s lease was registered here. Condo on the sixth floor. Paid in cash every month for a year. Lease expired two weeks ago.”

Dwayne’s eyes stayed fixed on the building. It was clean and modern, all glass and steel, with trimmed hedges and cameras on every corner. “So she’s gone.”

“Or she moved,” Marcus said. “Question is where.”

Dwayne’s jaw tightened. “Someone’s covering her tracks.”

“Someone?”

Dwayne nodded. “She was too careful to just vanish. Someone helped her disappear.”

Marcus frowned. “You’re thinking big. Like she’s connected.”

“I’m thinking smart,” Dwayne said quietly. “She knew things only someone with access could know.”

Marcus rubbed the bridge of his nose. “All right, then what? You want to break in? Talk to the landlord? Pull security footage?”

Dwayne shook his head. “No. That’s not how this ends.”

Marcus turned to him. “So what’s the plan?”

“Thursday. She’ll text me again. Same time, same place. I give her the money, she disappears. But this time, I follow her.”

Marcus blinked. “Follow her? You sure that’s smart?”

“It’s not about smart,” Dwayne said. “It’s about done.”

Marcus leaned forward. “You’ve never gone after her before. Why now?”

Dwayne’s gaze didn’t move from the building. “Because I’m done being scared. I’ve been letting her control me since the day she showed up. Every text, every meeting, every word she said was meant to keep me in check.”

“And now?”

“Now I don’t care what happens next,” Dwayne said. “I just need to know how deep this goes.”

Marcus studied him carefully. “You think she’s working for someone?”

Dwayne nodded slowly. “No one plays that kind of long game alone.”

Marcus leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “So we follow her after the drop?”

“Yes. She’ll think it’s the same routine. I hand her the envelope, she walks off, and I drive away. You’ll be nearby, far enough not to draw attention. When she leaves, you track her. See where she goes, who she meets.”

Marcus exhaled. “No confrontations?”

“Not yet,” Dwayne said. “We just find her. Watch. Listen.”

Marcus gave a quiet, humorless laugh. “You sound like you’ve been planning this for weeks.”

“I haven’t planned anything,” Dwayne said. “That’s the point. I’ve been reacting to her, waiting for her next move, trying to make sense of it. But she’s not a mystery anymore. She’s a pattern. And patterns can be solved.”

Marcus looked at him for a long moment. “You sound different, man. Like you already made peace with something I don’t understand.”

Dwayne finally looked over. “Maybe I have.”

Marcus sat back, uneasy. There was something in Dwayne’s tone that didn’t feel like confidence. It felt like finality.

They sat in silence, the hum of the city filling the air.

Marcus finally said, “Thursday night then. I’ll be close.”

Dwayne nodded once. “You’ll know when it’s time.”

For a brief second, a thought flickered through his mind. What if this was exactly what she wanted?
He let it pass. Fear was a luxury he couldn’t afford anymore.

---

That night, Dwayne sat alone at his kitchen table. The glow of his laptop painted him in cold blue light. Lines of code filled the screen, each sequence sharper, cleaner, more intentional than the last.

He was tracing anomalies again. Phone pings. Encrypted IDs. Activity from devices that shouldn’t exist. Sienna’s ghost left a digital footprint no one else would notice, but he saw the pattern immediately.

She wasn’t running. She was being protected.

And whoever was protecting her had power.

He saved the data, encrypted it twice, and shut the laptop. The silence in the room felt almost heavy, like it was listening.

His phone buzzed.

He expected Marcus. It wasn’t.

Dr. Aaliyah Jackson:
You haven’t checked in this week. How are you holding up?

He stared at the message.

Her name on the screen stirred something he’d been trying to bury under logic. He typed, deleted, and typed again before sending:

Dwayne:
I’ve been working through things on my own. It’s helping.

The reply came faster than he expected.

Dr. Jackson:
That’s good to hear. Progress doesn’t always need to happen in my office. But isolation can feel like progress too, until it isn’t.

He smirked faintly. Even through text, she sounded like a therapist.

Dwayne:
I’m not isolating. I’m observing.

A pause. Then another message.

Dr. Jackson:
Observing what?

He stared at the question, thinking about how much to give her. Then he typed:

Dwayne:
Patterns. Behavior. The parts people try to hide.

Dr. Jackson:
That sounds… specific.

Dwayne:
It’s always specific. You just have to know where to look.

There was a long pause this time. Then:

Dr. Jackson:
Dwayne, I want you to be careful about where this focus takes you. Obsession can look a lot like clarity when you’re standing too close to it.

He read it twice.

For a moment, he almost told her everything. The plan. The drop. The network. The fact that he finally felt alive again.

Instead, he typed:

Dwayne:
You don’t have to worry about me, Aaliyah. I’m seeing things clearly now.

She noticed the shift immediately. He hadn’t used “Doc.”

Another pause. Then her final message:

Dr. Jackson:
Just promise me you’ll be careful.

Dwayne:
Always.

He locked his phone and set it face down. The faint reflection of the city lights shimmered across the screen.

He thought about her again, about the way she had listened on the trail that morning, how she hadn’t looked at him with fear even after hearing the truth.

She saw him.
Maybe too well.
And that was dangerous.