Avery was frozen in her doorway, the quiet heavy with the lingering tingle of the man's words. "The game is just beginning."
Her own heart thumped within her bosom. It had arrived too suddenly. In one moment, she was clenching the cipher, trying to solve it, and, poof., he was present. A foreign man, as though he'd crossed through cracks in the fabric of her very life. No sudden flash of footfalls, no foretelling, but a troubling prescience which had vanished quite so suddenly as not to move even when it became clear something had invaded its place.
What did he want? Who was he?
She slammed the door shut with great force, locking it behind her with shaking hands. Her heart rate didn't stop, and her brain kept going back to the note he had left for her: "The game is just beginning."
Game.
Had she been the victim of another's cruel game? Was she to be the next piece in whatever ghastly puzzle had been unfolding in her life? All her being wanted to flee, but her legs were immovable.
No.
Avery gritted her teeth, her fists curling. She'd been in denial long enough. It was time to face it. To learn who was behind the manipulations. To learn why she was being manipulated. No more hiding out. No more acting as if she had no clue what was going on.
But before that, she needed to know. Knowings that had been concealed years ago when she had never received that cryptic message.
She backed away from the door, heading to her desk. The cipher sat there, glaring up at her, patiently waiting. The symbols danced in the light, as if teasing her for not being able to decipher them.
A hard rap on the door startled her. Avery's breath was caught in her throat.
She didn't have to guess who it was this time.
Reed.
Her heart didn't calm down, but she moved toward the door anyway, sliding it open slowly.
There was Reed standing there, staring at her. The moment he saw her face, his eyes relaxed, concern dancing across his features. He stepped inside without speaking, the tension between them so thick.
What did you do?" he asked, his voice low, but there was a thread of urgency beneath it.
Avery hesitated before answering. "Someone was here. He… he said, 'The game is just beginning." She swallowed hard, trying to push the fear back down. "And then he disappeared."
Reed stiffened, his eyes narrowing. "Did you see his face? Anything that could help us identify him?"
"No," Avery replied, her voice strained. "He was in shadows. I barely saw him before he was gone."
Reed stepped further into the apartment, his eyes scanning the room as if he believed the man could return at any moment. "Do you think this has something to do with the killer?"
"I don't know," Avery replied, her tone weighed down with uncertainty. "But I don't think this is a coincidence. I think I'm being drawn into this—whatever is happening."
Reed stood in front of her, his eyes intense. "It's not a coincidence, Avery. You're not a bystander in all of this. I think you're the key."
Avery shook her head. "I'm the key to what? I don't even know what this is anymore."
Reed's expression softened. "We need to figure out what this man was saying. What he's saying to you. But most of all, we need to know who is doing it all."
"I know," Avery whispered. "I just don't know where to start."
Reed's gaze stayed with the cipher sitting on her desk, and Avery could feel, for a flicker of time, the strength of his weight. He did not need to speak the words out loud so that she might hear: that this cipher would unlock everything. The solution to all things.
"I will help you," Reed stated, the tone steady.
Avery's head bobbed, but her mind was already racing, remaking the connections of her own past. There was something inside those symbols—something that touched her. She just had to crack it.
But the more she thought about it, the more she realized something else. Someone had given her this path of breadcrumbs. Someone was leaving her a game. But who? And why?
Before she was able to speak another thought, her phone beeped on the table.
Avery glanced at it in haste, and her heart sank. Another message.
"The pieces are out, Avery. Find them. But beware, because the final puzzle awaits where you wouldn't expect."
She read it again. The final puzzle.
Her mind returned to her sister disappearing. Had this been the same game all along? Had Alina possessed information that she did not? Was she alive, trapped in the same web that Avery had stumbled into by accident?
"Avery?" Reed cut into her racing thoughts. He had moved closer, his hand on her shoulder, returning her to reality. "What was the message?"
"It's more of the same," she said, her voice thick with dread. "The pieces are scattered."
Reed's eyes darkened. "What does that mean?"
"I don't know." She swallowed, trying to focus. "But it feels like a warning. A reminder that I'm being watched. That whoever is doing this is always one step ahead of me."
Reed's gaze hardened. "We won't let them win, Avery. Not while I'm here."
Avery glanced back at him, the determination in his gaze mirrored in her own. For the first time in a very long time, she sensed the stirrings of something—something she could not define. But it seemed to be pushing her forward, away from the blackness of her past and into something much more dangerous.
"I don't know if I can do this," she responded, her voice little more than a whisper. "But I can't turn back now."
Reed dipped his head in agreement, releasing his grip from her shoulder. "We'll do it together. And we'll figure out who's doing this. All of it."
Avery wasn't able to answer before her phone buzzed once more.
Her heart rate skipped a beat.
She pulled it out, her hands shaking as she scanned the message.
"I'm closer than you think, Avery. You can't hide from your past forever."
The words are a punch to her gut.
Reed saw the color drain from her face. "What's wrong?"
Avery couldn't talk at first. The message had left her gasping, trembling. Who was it?
"Who is it, Avery?" Reed prodded.
"It's him. He's the murderer. He's—He's stalking me," she whispered, talking almost soundlessly.
The air in the room grew thick with tension, as if each passing moment was bringing them closer to something they were unable to avoid. Avery could feel the noose tightening, the weight of the puzzle pressing against her breast.
And then, as Reed moved forward, Avery's phone vibrated again.
The message was short.
"The game has begun. The final move is yours."
Avery's breath was lodged in her throat.
She was no longer a player.
She was the one being targeted.
The words on her screen didn't vanish as she read them. They lingered, soft-glowing, as if taunting her. The move is yours.
Avery set the phone down carefully, her hands shaking. Reed marched beside her now, quiet but tense. He was a man trained to deal with high-stress situations. She wasn't. Not like this. Not when nightmare and reality were thinner by the minute.
"Is there any chance—" Reed began, his voice gentler now, that this has anything to do with your sister?"
Avery scowled at him.
"Meaning, you said Alina was addicted to riddles. Codes. Patterns no one else could see, and then she disappeared. Now, all these years later, someone's playing the same game—with you."
She took a slow breath. "Alina's disappearance was ruled an accident. They said she drowned."
"But you never suspected that, did you?"
"No." The word slipped out before she could stop it. "No, I didn't. I couldn't. Not the way she vanished. No note. No indication. Just, nothing. And then the riddles started coming. Like breadcrumbs."
Reed was leaning in over her, his hands on top of her chair. "Then perhaps this—whatever is going on now—isn't new. Perhaps it started years and years ago. With her."
Avery turned back to her computer. The cipher stood there, impervious and teasing on her screen. "If that's true, then this killer is not random. He's been waiting."
"Waiting," Reed added ominously.
Her hands moved automatically to the keyboard, trying to focus. "The message said pieces are scattered. Maybe that means locations. Physical ones."
Reed nodded. "Let's start piecing it all together. The notes you've received, the symbols. Anything you can remember about Alina's obsession. Every puzzle. Every place you've been directed."
Avery began opening files, computer folders full of her sister's old notebooks, sketches, ramblings. Obsessions.
She opened a document titled "Fragments."
It was a report she had not laid eyes on in years. Between its frayed pages were odd, apparently unrelated mentions: torn and abandoned pages of mystery novels, dusty cipher wheels, photographs of street signs, and cryptic puzzles scribbled out with no apparent answer.
"Alina never left me answers," Avery breathed. "Just more puzzles. But what if she was not trying to hide the truth? What if she was trying to cover it?"
Reed bent across her shoulder. "From whom?"
Avery didn't answer. Not because she didn't want to—but because she suddenly considered the possibility that she might already know.