As soon as I got to class, I sat completely at the back, scribbled a few indications on a sheet of paper, went to see Mackenzie and then I put subtly in her hand a paper in which I asked her to meet me in a secluded corner of the library as soon as soon as class finished. I was trying to get as much clues as possible on the identity of our stalker and through the plan I had just expertly crafted I was sure to obtain many, many indications on our mysterious individual.

Here are a few elements and details of my plan (take notes they might be useful one day!): First, what’s already been done: the note. There were three very important elements to this part of the plan:

1. Sitting at the back of the class when I wrote my note.

2. Writing instead of communicating verbally with Mackenzie.

3. Asking Mackie to immediately meet me somewhere after class.

The point of this elements were simple, they could help me establish without a doubt if whoever was following me was in my class. I was sure that if my stalker saw me communicate with Mackenzie this way they would probably write a stereotypical message along the lines of "Your friends can’t help you" or "If you ask for any help I might have to ruin them too", you know stupid sentences. The stalker seemed to act like they were in a movie or something and I was pretty sure that that poor delusional person would try to dissuade me from getting any help from anyone. Not only would me getting help make their "ruining" of me more difficult, it would also mean there would be increased chances that they got caught. Problems, I was sure that they probably didn’t want to deal with it and that yet the poor fool forgot to say anything about that. Anyway, going back to my plan to establish the photographer identity, like I said my plan was to first to establish if they were in any of my classes and then to establish if I knew them personally. I was already pretty sure that whoever had been taking pictures of me was in my dorm, otherwise they wouldn’t have known about Temperance and me. We hadn’t been hiding but the picture was taken the first time we met since the day we started dating so unless it was a coincidence that they had camera on them as Temperance and I were out I was sure that whoever had photographed us had listened to my conversation with my friends and sisters.

While class was going on, I decided to establish a list of suspects (Yes, I was really getting into this whole investigation thing. I mean for once, I could establish plans that didn’t have anything to do with me getting away with slightly questionable things!). Anyway, I decided to establish a list of people who were with in my different classes that also were in my dorm, in total there were about 15 or so people who fit the criteria, 7 of them being in the class I was in right now.

I scratched one name immediately, Mackenzie’s, not only was she my sister and I had total confidence on her; she and Allison were one of the main reasons I was still in this school. She planning to get rid of me right now didn’t make any sense especially now that I wasn’t an illegal anymore.

Thinking about it even more, I was pretty sure that I could eliminate Adele, Beatricia and Maud from the list. Adele and Beatricia could have also gotten rid of me quite easily and seeing how we sleep in the same room if they were appalled by me they would have already made my life hell. Very similar for Maud she had gotten plenty of chances to get rid of me, it couldn’t be her either. Only Adele was in my current class so that only reduced the number of suspects in this class to 5, one of them being Kendra, Mackenzie’s roommate. She was suspect number one for now, she didn’t really like me and no I wasn’t only thinking that because the first time we met she was rude to me I wasn’t petty. She was generally very rough with me when we had P.E and she clearly didn’t like the fact that I was Mackie’s newly discovered sister. Apparently she and Mackie were childhood friends and they decided to go to this school together, things should have been perfect between them but since the beginning of the school year they haven’t really been around each other that much except after curfew. The first day of school Mackie was in the bus with me instead of her and pretty much every day since then, Mackie has been around me or my friends. At this point saying that I was monopolizing Mackenzie’s time was pretty much a euphemism. Although I said that, I couldn’t be sure it was Kendra, in the letter the person who took the picture talked about Temperance and not Mackenzie, I wasn’t even sure that Kendra knew that Temperance existed.

As I kept reflecting on the subject, I scanned the class for people who were looking at me, I didn’t see anyone turn towards me, but I noticed 3 bags that could contain the camera used to take the picture… Among the bag owners there was someone whose name was on the list her name was Brittany and I was pretty sure that her room was across from mine. She was very quiet, but not as shy as Temperance, maybe there was some kind of link there? Could I have disrupted a sisterhood of introverts?

The bell rang and my sister and I met at the library like we had planned. We sat beside each other in a table at the back. Of course to be sure that nobody listened to us, we were back to the wall.

I took out a sheet of paper, put it between us and started writing.

"Sorry for these arrangements, I just want to be sure we aren’t heard."

"What’s happening Brooke, did you finally crack from all the pressure? Have you discovered a secret conspiracy against you or have you joined a secret society?"

I chuckled, but then very seriously took out the photograph and passed it to her.

She took a look at the picture and then turned it and read it.

"Are you Afraid?" She wrote.

"Not that much there isn’t a lot that person can do. I kinda want to catch them though, if they are a student I may want to send them to Temperance’s moms in case they aren’t taking their meds or in case they might be developing a condition. I don’t want imagine the alternate option though otherwise it could be something way creepier that I would want to handle on my own and I would have to stop this whole investigation thing fast. "

"What?"

"I don’t really think it’s plausible due to the proximity to us needed to learn everything about me, but the culprit could be somebody working for the school."

"We would have to get the police involved then, especially because of the comments on Temperance. Talking that way about a 14 year old can’t be sane. Anyway, you are right about the fact that there aren’t that many adults who could listen to our conversations the way a student could. I mean the only employees who could do that would be the dorm supervisors, maybe the janitors and the security guards."

A series of thoughts went through my head. Guards… security… surveillance… surveillance cameras! I scanned the room for them and noticed that right behind us there was one of them and it was looking at us, well at our backs more precisely, but still at us. If this was a show about crime on television with improbable technology, I would be worried about a security guard zooming in on our sheet of paper and reading what we had written. Those things don’t (yet) happen in real life so I dismissed the thought while commenting on it on the sheet of paper.

"We should be thankful that whoever is in the camera behind us can’t read our text right?"

Mackenzie turned and looked at the camera for longer than a person normally would. Once she faced me, she looked a little bit shocked.

Mackenzie turned the sheet of paper and started whispering to me "That surveillance camera is from dad’s company one of their newer models. It records in an incredibly good resolution and it’s equipped with an insane zoom function, allowing the reading words in a sheet of paper from quite a distance away."

"Are you serious?"

She pulled her tongue out.

"Halfway, it is a sophisticated camera that records in a very good quality and that automatically starts recording in thermal mode when it becomes too dark for normal recording, but I don’t think it could zoom to the point of reading our sheet that’s completely ridiculous and completely useless on a secu… That’s actually a great idea Brook pitch it to dad to when he gets back from his journey across the world he might give you good money for that idea especially when you remind what you had to live through to get this idea."

I stopped listening at thermal mode… Thermal imaging such a thing could have allowed someone to see me exit my room at night...

I stated writing down on the sheet of paper again.

"How do you know all those details?"

"Dad funded the school security system the year before Chanel and the twins got here. Dad also makes sure that the school always has the best technology, from his company, possible in order to make sure we are safe."

I doubted the last part of her sentence.

"How do you know the details about this camera in particular?"

"Dad talked about it extensively last year. Apparently law enforcement agencies and a few employees wanted to install a system in which bugs would synchronise with the cameras, and then send the combined data to specific computers. Dad wasn’t sure about it because apparently the system was very easy to hack into and third parties could have easy access to the data."

I didn’t really like the information that Mackie had just given me, it itched my curiosity and at the same time it made me incredibly afraid. Something incredibly creepy could be happening as we spoke right now.

"We got side-tracked, but this whole security thing is really worrying me. Could you do something for me? Go to the place where we always seat for supper and breakfast at the cafeteria and check under the table and under the chairs very subtly, I will check in my room if there isn’t anything hidden somewhere, if you find anything communicate with me via text. Actually thinking about texting, text the girls and ask them to have a snack in the cafeteria and ask them to check under their seats and under the table where they usually seat, this way it would be less suspicious that you entering alone the room alone and checking under our places all alone."

On those instructions we separated.

First things first, searching for security cameras, there aren’t supposed to be any in the rooms, I mean we change here! I firstly looked at the corners to see if there wasn’t anything hidden and then looked more closely if I couldn’t find anywhere where a person could hide a camera.

I didn’t find anything that looked like a camera and I also didn’t find anything that looked like a listening device. Just to be sure I made a search on the web on effective places to hide bugs. One search indicated that a good place to hide a bug was a computer mouse. I did buy one despite having a laptop. I needed it for gaming purposes: track pads aren’t that great. Anyway, I carefully dismantled my mouse and sadly found the parasite I had hoped wouldn’t have been hiding inside of it.

I crushed it and at the same time I received a text message.