Chapter 15 · What's Behind Lock Two

"Don't touch that door."

Rafe's got my wrist before I'm three steps into the hallway. Mrs. Chen's still standing in her doorway, smiling. So's Mr. Okafor. So's the woman from 4C who never makes eye contact.

They're all just standing there. Watching.

"Let go." I twist free. "We're not staying here while they box us in."

"The marks aren't keeping us in." His voice drops. "They're keeping something else out."

I stop. "Out?"

He's staring at the wolf mark on Mrs. Chen's doorframe. The lines are carved deep, like someone pressed a blade in and didn't stop until it bled. "Old wards. Pre-Bureau. The kind you use when you don't trust official channels."

"So someone in this building knew."

"Everyone in this building knew." He looks at me, and his eyes are doing that thing where the color bleeds wrong. "Your brother didn't just leave you the safe, Nia. He left you the whole block."

The air tastes like copper. I can feel my pulse in my teeth.

"Then we go back," I say. "We open Lock Two."

Rafe doesn't argue.

That scares me more than the smiling neighbors.

We take the stairs down.