Chapter 4 - The Greenhouse Secret"Ethan! Wake up! Now!" I hissed, grabbing my brother by the shoulders and pulling him out of bed.
"Ava... what's happening?" he mumbled, disoriented.
"He found us. We have to go through the back window."
CLANG.
The lock on the front door shattered as the crowbar smashed through the metal frame.
"Ava! Ethan! Don't make this harder than it needs to be!" Marcus’s voice boomed through the thin wood as he slammed his shoulder against the door. "I just want to talk! We're family!"
I dragged Ethan toward the small bathroom window, kicking out the rusted screen. "Go! Climb out, Ethan! Run to the gas station down the road and hide!"
"I'm not leaving you!" Ethan sobbed.
"Go! I'll be right behind you!"
I shoved him through the frame just as the motel room door splintered open. Marcus burst into the room, his eyes wide, wild, and bloodshot. The calm, refined uncle was completely gone; in his place was a desperate animal backed into a corner.
"You should have stayed in line, Ava," Marcus growled, stepping over the broken wood toward me. "I took care of you! I fed you! I gave you a roof when the whole world called you the daughter of a murderer!"
"You killed my father!" I screamed, picking up a heavy glass desk lamp and swinging it with all my might.
The base of the lamp clipped him across the temple. Marcus stumbled back, cursing violently as blood pooled from his eyebrow. I didn't wait to see if he was down. I scrambled out the bathroom window, slicing my palm on the sharp aluminum edge, and hit the wet asphalt outside.
I ran. Rain began to pour in heavy, blinding sheets as I sprinted down the dark alleyway. I saw Ethan standing near the edge of the gas station lot, crying and drenched.
"Come on!" I yelled, pulling him into the shadows.
We couldn't call the police—not when Prosecutor Vance was pulling the strings upstairs. We needed undeniable proof. We needed whatever my father had buried beneath the floorboards of the old greenhouse in Mill Creek.
We hijacked an abandoned bicycle parked near the gas station dumpster and pedaled through the storm for two agonizing hours toward the outskirts of town. Mill Creek was an old, forgotten logging district where our grandmother had lived before she passed.
By 4:00 AM, covered in mud and shivering violently, we reached the decaying wooden cabin. Nature had almost entirely reclaimed the property, with thick ivy choking the porch and tall weeds obscuring the structure. Behind the main house stood the rusted frame of an old glass greenhouse, its panels mostly shattered.
"Are you sure about this, Ava?" Ethan whimpered, holding his arms to stop the cold shivering.
"Mom said Dad left his real work here," I said, pushing open the squeaky rusted door of the greenhouse.
The air inside smelled of damp rot and dead leaves. I pulled out my phone, using the faint battery light to illuminate the ground. In the far corner, underneath a rusted potting table, was a patch of wooden flooring that looked slightly raised.
I fell to my knees, digging my bleeding nails into the wet wood, pulling up the floorboard with a loud CRACK.
Beneath the floor lay a rusted metal army ammo box.
My hands trembled so hard I could barely open the latches. Inside was a dark leather journal, a micro-SD card, and a police badge.
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I picked up the badge. The name printed on the silver shield wasn't my father's.
It belonged to Detective Rayner.
