I now wanted to find the source for me. Because I couldn’t shake the fact that my kid sister was pregnant. That she’d been led astray by some blogger hiding behind a website. Sitting behind a computer screen, telling people what to do without a care for what happened to them after.

The person had to pay.

Somehow.

They had to be held accountable.

Fuck, I sound like Tanner.

But he didn’t have a clue. Not really.

Didn’t matter. This wasn’t for him.

I dug and searched and scoured. For so hard and so long that Tanner left the office for a late lunch, unable to sit there and watch me for a moment longer.

Nothing.

Not a trace.

It wasn’t possible. Everything left a trace. The person had simply hidden it too well.

Where would you hide content if you wanted no one to discover you?

A lightning bolt hit my brain and I face-palmed myself.

Of course.

Tor. One of the dark webs I hadn’t checked yet.

A memory, buried and cloudy, begged for my attention. Who had I spoken to about the dark web? Had Amber and I talked about it? I was already too in the zone to think on it for long.

I switched servers, slipping in easily.

Once inside, it only took a few lines of code-recognition and some analytics before I’d locked on to a social media account that had been logged in while connecting to the site. A few clicks of the keys and—

“No.” I froze, my fingers on the keys, as I saw the profile picture. Read the name. “Amber.”

I checked and re-checked, desperate for it to be a mistake. That I’d accidentally stumbled upon something else of hers. Some other project—

The challenge.

The contingency plan.

Tessa.

Everything made sense in a sick, twisted sort of way.

Amber reaching out this morning, scared so much she was contemplating torching something vital.

Tessa blaming the blog for her pregnancy. For the next eighteen years of her life not belonging to her anymore.

How could she do this?

I wasn’t sure who I was more upset with—Amber for being the source or Tessa, for listening to it.

Months ago, when I’d asked Amber who she thought could be behind the blog…

“There are six girls in Griffin’s class,” she said. “Holly, Kristy, Sara, Quinn, Monroe, and me. Could be any one of them.”

Her words echoed in my head.

“Me.”

Fuck.

She’d included herself.

But I hadn’t included her.

I’d thought she would’ve told me then and there.

And if not in front of her friends, the second we were alone.

Something sharp sunk into my chest, jagged and hot and hurting.