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I walked toward the gate, my feet heavy. Every step felt like a betrayal of the past. As I approached the security checkpoint, a man in a dark suit stood near the ropes, his eyes scanning the crowd with a predator’s precision. He wasn’t checking IDs. He was waiting. My skin crawled as I realized he was standing right next to a small, maintenance-access door, and painted on the wall, barely visible in the dim light, was a small, perfectly rendered black square.
My breath hitched. The note. The square. The man. It was all real.
I turned on my heel, ignoring the confused looks from the passengers behind me, and walked back toward the main terminal. I couldn’t board that flight. If I did, I would be stepping into a trap laid out by people who had been watching us for years. I had spent my entire adult life trying to outrun our history, but Lily was right—you cannot outrun a shadow if you don’t know who is casting it.
I pushed through the revolving doors and back into the humid New York night. I didn’t know where to go, and I didn’t know if Lily was still alive, but I knew one thing: the safety I had been chasing was a lie. I pulled the note out one last time and looked at the black square. It wasn’t a warning; it was a key. I had spent years thinking I was the victim of our family’s bizarre legacy, but looking at that mark, I realized I was part of it.
I stepped into the flow of the city, vanishing into the night. I wasn’t running away anymore. I was hunting. I looked back at the airport one last time, watching the plane I was supposed to be on taxi out toward the runway. It was carrying nothing but my old life—a life I no longer wanted. Whatever awaited me in the darkness, I would face it. The house with the crossed-out window wasn’t my prison anymore. It was my final destination. I would find Lily, and together, we would burn the pattern to the ground.