Episode 13: Ryan’s Doubt Cracks
759 Words
Aria and Lena arrived at the coffee shop on 5th and Mercer just before noon.
The place was busier in daylight—students with laptops, a couple of remote workers, the hiss of the espresso machine constant. Elias Crowe sat in the same back booth, coat draped over the seat, pale eyes scanning the door until he spotted them.
He didn’t stand.
Aria slid in across from him. Lena took the seat beside her, protective.
Elias’s gaze flicked to Lena, then to Aria’s bandaged palm.
“It spread,” he said quietly. Not a question.
Aria unwrapped the gauze.
The mark was darker now—black lines fully encircling her wrist, the symbol in the center raised slightly, like scar tissue.
Elias exhaled slowly.
“Your mother’s was on her throat,” he murmured. “Took longer to show.”
Lena leaned forward. “You knew her mom well?”
“Well enough.” His voice was soft, careful. “She saved my life once. I couldn’t save hers.”
Aria’s throat tightened.
“What now?” she asked.
Elias slid a small cloth pouch across the table.
Inside: coarse salt, a silver compact mirror (polished on one side, blackened on the other), and a vial of clear oil.
“Temporary measures,” he said. “Salt disrupts. Silver reflects it back on itself. Oil—olive with myrrh—burns it.”
He glanced around the shop, lowered his voice.
“The real ritual is dangerous. Needs preparation. A place it’s been before.”
“The asylum,” Aria said.
Elias nodded. “Your mother tried there. Failed. But the ground remembers.”
Lena’s hand found Aria’s under the table.
Aria’s phone buzzed.
She ignored it.
It buzzed again.
She pulled it out.
Unknown number.
She showed the screen to Elias.
He went very still.
“Answer,” he said. “Speaker.”
She did.
Silence.
Then a man’s voice—tired, familiar.
“Ms. Thompson? This is Detective Ryan Holt.”
Aria’s stomach dropped.
“I pulled your mother’s file,” he continued. “Official cause was heart failure. But the nurse’s notes… she kept screaming about shadows eating her reflection.”
Lena’s grip tightened.
“I thought you should know,” Ryan said. “In case it helps.”
Aria found her voice. “Why are you telling me this now?”
Silence on the line.
“My sister disappeared five years ago,” he said finally. “Left a note: ‘It’s not me in the mirror anymore.’ We thought suicide. No body.”
The coffee shop noise faded to nothing in her ears.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I dismissed you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have.”
Another pause.
“I have security footage from her apartment the night she vanished. You need to see it.”
He gave an address—a precinct downtown.
“Come alone,” he added. “Or with someone you trust.”
The call ended.
Elias watched her carefully.
“He’s marked too,” he said quietly. “Whether he knows it or not.”
Aria looked at Lena.
Lena nodded.
They stood to leave.
In the coffee shop window, their reflections rose with them.
But Elias’s stayed seated a second longer.
Watching.
They met Ryan in a small interview room at the precinct—gray walls, metal table, one-way mirror that Aria avoided looking at.
He looked worse than she remembered: suit more rumpled, eyes red-rimmed, like he hadn’t slept either.
He didn’t shake hands.
Just slid a flash drive across the table.
“Watch this.”
He plugged it into a department laptop.
Grainy security footage: hallway outside an apartment door. Timestamp five years ago.
Ryan’s sister—mid-twenties, blonde, smiling—waved at the camera, keys in hand.
Unlocked her door.
Stepped inside.
The door closed.
Ten seconds later, the door opened again.
She stepped back out.
Waved at the camera again.
Smiled.
Then walked down the hall.
But the timestamp hadn’t advanced.
Same ten seconds.
Rewound.
Played again.
She waved.
Door closed.
Opened.
Waved again.
Over and over.
The real her had gone inside.
The reflection had come out.
Ryan stopped the video.
“That’s the last anyone saw her.”
His voice was flat.
Aria felt cold.
Lena reached for Ryan’s hand without thinking.
He didn’t pull away.
“I think it’s starting again,” he whispered. “With you.”
In the one-way mirror behind him, his reflection didn’t move when he spoke.
It just stared.
At Aria.
- Writer
