The morning after her livestream imploded, Keira didn't get out of bed.
She couldn't.
Her inbox had exploded overnight—texts, DMs, emails. Some sympathetic. Most invasive.
"So it's true?"
"You're not as strong as you pretend."
"Your 'confessions' project is over. How ironic."
By now, the entire school had seen the clip of her crying—vulnerable, broken, admitting something deeply personal.
Something she had never intended for public eyes.
But that wasn't the worst part.
The video had been private, part of a late-night call with her therapist. No recording had ever been saved—by her.
Which meant only one thing.
Someone had hacked her.
At school, she walked down the hallway like a ghost.
Students parted as she passed—some avoiding her gaze, others whispering behind their hands. A few took photos.
She caught a girl mutter, "Guess she finally got what she deserved."
Maya met her outside the homeroom, her expression stricken.
"Keira, you shouldn't have come."
Keira shook her head. "If I hide, they win. And I'm not done."
"You saw the message," Maya said. "Someone wants to destroy you."
In the media room, Keira stared at the laptop for hours.
She'd studied every frame of the hacked video.
The call. Her words. The exact timestamps. The IP watermark in the corner.
She wasn't just recorded.
She was watched in real-time.
Her laptop cam had been hijacked.
"I have a stalker," she whispered.
Maya leaned over her shoulder. "So who? Ethan? One of the exes?"
"No," Keira said slowly. "If it were Ethan, he wouldn't have been surprised during the livestream. And the others... they're not this smart."
Maya frowned. "Then who?"
Keira bit her lip. "Someone who knows me better than anyone."
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard as she typed one name.
Elijah Villanueva.
Senior. Her first-ever crush. Her best friend before everything fell apart.
He had disappeared from her life the year she broke down. Quietly. Coldly. Without goodbye.
No fights. No closure.
And now, he was back—seen lurking near the tech booth during the livestream chaos.
She'd thought it was a coincidence.
Now she wasn't sure.
That evening, she knocked on the old library door.
It creaked open, revealing the very person she'd hoped not to see.
Elijah.
He blinked, startled. "Keira?"
"You've been watching," she said flatly. "Admit it."
He stepped back. "What are you talking about?"
"I saw you during the stream. Near the control panel. You disappeared after the power glitch."
He looked tense. "Yeah, because I work tech support now. I was fixing the system."
Keira stared. "Then how did someone get access to a private therapy call from my laptop?"
Silence.
Then he sighed and opened the door wider.
"Come in."
The library was empty—rows of dusty books, scattered wires, old monitors.
Elijah led her to a hidden setup behind the history section—screens, servers, security footage. It looked like a hacker's cave.
Keira's stomach sank.
"You really have been watching me," she whispered.
Elijah turned. "I wasn't the one who hacked you. But I saw it happen."
Her heart skipped. "What?"
He tapped on the keyboard. A new screen popped up—encrypted logs, access histories.
"I've been tracking someone since January. They've been leaking data from student devices—emails, photos, even private journals. You're not the first, Keira. You're just the biggest target."
Keira sat, stunned. "Why didn't you say anything?"
Elijah looked guilty. "Because last year… I helped them. At first."
The words hit like a punch.
"You what?"
"I didn't know what it was," Elijah said quickly. "They called it a 'social truth experiment.' Said it was about exposing bullies. So I coded a gateway for them. Gave them access to the school server."
Keira stood up. "You betrayed me."
"I didn't know you'd be a target!" he shouted. "When I found out, I tried to stop them—but the system locked me out. They went deeper. They started targeting people for fun."
Keira's voice trembled. "Then who's running it now?"
Elijah hesitated.
"I think… they're one of your exes."
Thunder cracked outside.
Keira clenched her fists. "I'm going to find them. Whoever this puppet master is… they're next."
Elijah's expression turned serious. "Keira… this isn't just about you anymore."
He pulled up a new message on the screen.
It had been sent to him two hours ago.
"If she keeps digging, she won't make it to Episode 6."
— X