Liam didn't sleep that night.
He sat at the edge of the kitchen counter, hands clasped, the note from Roxy still trembling between his fingers. He'd read it over and over, committing every word to memory, trying to decipher the truth from whatever tricks the Watcher might be weaving.
"She has Jenny."
Not this Jenny — the one sleeping peacefully in the next room — but the one from their real world. The one Zayn had left behind without a choice. The one carrying Aydin before this fractured universe twisted reality around them.
She was still trapped.
And if that was true…
Then so were they.
He looked at the CD case again. No new track. No light. Just that message burned into the surface:
"One of you will betray the others."
And the newer one:
"Soon."
Liam closed his eyes and whispered, "Roxy… if you're really in there, if you're still watching… tell me what to do."
No voice answered this time.
Just the silence.
Until — a sound.
Not a whisper. Not a memory.
A crack.
From the hallway mirror.
Liam stood slowly and approached it. The mirror had been perfectly normal for weeks — untouched. But now, spiderweb-thin fractures laced across its surface. At the center, a black dot pulsed.
He raised a hand toward it.
The pulse reacted.
And suddenly, he saw it — her.
Not the Watcher.
Roxy.
Only her eyes. Wide. Frightened. A flash of red light behind her — and then darkness.
"Roxy!" he called out.
But the mirror snapped back to glass.
Behind him, a voice interrupted.
"Who were you talking to?"
He turned.
Harry stood there, leaning in the doorway, arms crossed.
"No one," Liam replied too quickly.
Harry didn't blink. "Liam… I heard you say Roxy's name."
Liam stayed silent.
"Was she here?"
Liam hesitated. "I don't know. Maybe. I think she's trying to help us."
Harry stepped closer. "Or she's being used by the Watcher."
"She wouldn't—"
"She's not here, Liam," Harry cut in, voice calm but firm. "She hasn't been for a long time. You said so yourself."
"She's in the mirrors," Liam said, his voice more desperate now. "She left a message. She said the Watcher has Jenny. The real Jenny."
Harry's face changed.
"Zayn's Jenny?"
Liam nodded. "This version is only a reflection. A safe copy to keep him from remembering too much. The real one is still out there."
Harry stepped back, rubbing his hands over his face. "God, how far does this go?"
"She said the illusion is trying to break into our world," Liam said. "Ours. The real one. She's building something, Harry. Maybe a door. Maybe a prison. I don't know."
Harry was quiet for a long moment.
Then, "We need to tell the others."
Liam hesitated. "What if one of them is the reason we're still stuck?"
Harry gave him a hard look. "Then we need to figure it out before it's too late."
—
Morning came like a whisper — not a sunrise, just a slow gray light that slipped under the curtains.
They gathered in the living room again. Jenny had already made coffee. Aydin cooed from a makeshift bassinet as the five of them sat in a circle, exhausted and wary.
Liam told them everything.
The message. The mirror. Roxy's eyes. The truth about the real Jenny still being trapped.
Zayn didn't say anything at first. Just stared down at the baby in his arms.
Then: "If she's not real… what is she?"
Jenny — the one beside him — looked up. Her expression didn't change. She didn't cry. She didn't blink.
"I don't know," she said softly. "But I feel like I'm supposed to protect him."
Zayn swallowed. "You've done more than I could've ever asked."
But deep in his chest, he felt the fracture widen.
Was this version of Jenny just a construct?
Was Aydin?
He looked into his son's eyes.
No.
No matter what Roxy said, no matter what world they were in — he was real.
He had to be.
"I'm going after her," Zayn said.
"What?" Louis asked.
"I'm finding Jenny. The real one. I need to know what happened to her."
"You can't just—"
"Yes, I can," Zayn snapped. "We've been sitting in this flat for days, waiting for the next track to show up. What if she's the next piece?"
Liam pulled out the note. "There might be a way."
He held it up for everyone to see.
The back had changed again.
A new line now etched below the last one:
"Beneath the stage, where the silence lives."
"The first studio," Niall murmured. "The one marked on the map back at the cabin."
"I still have that map," Harry said quickly, already digging through the old box they'd packed away.
Within minutes, it was spread across the table. Aged and frayed at the edges, but the red scrawl still visible.
"Studio?" one mark said.
"Basement," another.
That's where they needed to go.
—
They arrived by sundown.
The old studio sat on the edge of a wooded lot, half-swallowed by vines and decay. But the door was open, creaking on its hinges like it had been waiting.
Inside, it was dust and silence.
Until they found the stage.
It was small, wooden, built like a rehearsal space. The instruments were untouched. Lights hung above, flickering faintly — barely powered by something unknown.
And beneath it…
A trapdoor.
Liam pried it open.
A staircase descended into pitch black.
Zayn moved first.
The others followed, one by one.
The basement was vast. Cold. Lined with mirrors along every wall.
But these weren't normal mirrors.
Each one showed moments.
A concert. A dressing room. A tour bus. A hospital.
Jenny.
The real Jenny — crying in a waiting room, a hospital band on her wrist.
Another mirror — her reaching out, as if sensing someone watching.
And then—
A mirror turned black.
A new image appeared.
The Watcher.
Standing at the center of a hall of mirrors, arms outstretched.
And behind her…
Jenny.
In a glass cell.
Pregnant. Crying.
Still waiting.
Zayn dropped to his knees.
"She's alive."
Louis stepped forward, fists clenched. "Then we go in. We break the mirrors. We get her out."
Liam stared at the reflection.
The Watcher tilted her head.
Smiling.
As if she'd been listening the whole time.
And then the words formed across the glass in blood-red script:
"You're almost home."
"But who will pay the price?"