The pages weren't just words—they were a cipher.
Kira spread out Damon's last draft on Jalen's apartment floor, each page meticulously placed like puzzle pieces. Jalen's apartment was dim, lit only by a desk lamp and the distant neon glow from the city below.
"You're telling me he encoded an entire trail of evidence in metaphors?" Jalen asked, eyes flicking across paragraphs filled with strange phrasings and inconsistent punctuation.
Kira nodded. "He was paranoid, careful. He didn't trust digital storage. Said the truth should be hidden in plain sight, disguised as fiction."
They started reading aloud, line by line.
One phrase appeared three times:
*"The raven never returns to the orchard."*
"Could be a password?" Jalen guessed.
Kira was already typing it into Damon's old email drafts—nothing.
"No," she said, flipping the journal. "Look here. This line is underlined in red ink. And there's a page number: 117."
Jalen grabbed *Inkspire*, the published version. Page 117 was missing. Torn out, cleanly.
"Let's check the red journal," Kira said.
Inside the red leather-bound book, Damon had glued a thin, almost transparent page. It was covered in ink sketches—crows, trees, falling apples—and what looked like GPS coordinates scrawled faintly in the margins.
Jalen read them out. "That's… the outskirts. Near the old printing factory by the docks."
"Why would Damon send us there?" Kira asked.
Jalen stared at the sketch of a crow perched on a broken printing press. "Because that's where *Inkspire* was first printed. The *original* version."
The next night, they made their way to the docks. Fog hung low, and the abandoned print factory stood like a ghost in the dark.
Inside, it was colder. Dust covered the machines. Jalen's flashlight scanned across broken presses and fallen signage.
Then he saw it: a locked cabinet with Damon's initials carved into the side.
Kira pulled out a rusted crowbar from her bag. "Always come prepared," she grinned.
With a crack and a groan, the lock snapped. Inside were dozens of bound manuscripts. Some were burned at the edges, others wrapped in plastic.
But one sat on top: a full, unedited version of *Inkspire*—Damon's last gift.
Jalen opened it.
On the first page was a handwritten note:
*"If you're reading this, they didn't silence me. Keep going. Expose them all."*
Kira whispered, "This changes everything."
Jalen nodded. "Then we change *everything*."