26. The Key to Everything
Chapter twenty-six
The Key to Everything
Moni
I watched TT as she stood on the trunk and gazed down at all the daggers. “Maybe, we should go eat an—”
“Moni, just give me a minute.” TT’s voice held clear irritation. “I’m thinking.”
I glanced up at Lei, unsure whether to insist. But he smiled at TT, completely absorbed by her determination.
Okay. Fuck it. Everything is okay. I’m just worried about her too much.
Additionally, I couldn’t tell if TT liked Lei yet, but it was clear that Lei was totally taken with her. There was a warmth in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before, something soft and protective.
I was also finding that I loved their reactions.
Fine. Let’s see where this goes. Guess we’ll just live on this helipad.
Dima crouched down to examine the daggers now spread across the helipad. He tapped one with his pen and then another. “Yeah. I have to agree with Chen and Lei. I don’t think these daggers are weapons. It wouldn’t make sense.”
Lei nodded. “Their shapes aren’t efficient for real protection or fighting. And the thin wood. . .it wouldn’t make sense to use something like that in combat.”
TT, still perched on the top of the trunk, looked at Dima and then at the daggers. “The Bandit had guns. He. . .I mean. . .”
TT beamed. “ She made her own bullets because her father was a blacksmith and taught her when she was a kid.”
I could see the gears turning in Dima’s head as he processed what she said. “So, why are they wooden?”
TT bit her lip, thinking. She always did this during a hard math problem, nibbling on her lip as if that could further pry out the truth that way. “Or. . .”
I watched as she leaned forward, her eyes scanning the daggers as if searching for some hidden meaning.
"Oh my God, Moni.” She didn’t get down from the trunk.
"What?”
“I think I got it, but. . .I don’t want to say it out loud.”
"Maybe. . .you should get down from the trunk.”
She didn’t budge her gaze still fixed on the daggers. “I’m fine up here, Moni. I can see them all that way”
Lei stepped in, placing a hand on my arm.
TT’s new protector.
I let out a long breath and against all logic. . .I smiled.
TT whispered, “At the end of her journal the Bandit’s Gospel , she says. . .”
TT closed her eyes for a few seconds and then opened them. “She said, ‘in the end I hid it all and went to my children and gave them each a piece so that no one would be able to find it by themselves. They would need each other to get it and that meant unity . Which was the biggest treasure of all.’”
Everyone looked at TT.
Dima wrote in the book and muttered, “Gave them each a piece.”
TT widened her eyes. “That’s it. I think it’s got to be.”
I shivered, nervous with all that was going on. “What has to be it?”
"She said piece in the Bandit’s Gospel.” TT jumped off the trunk and began grabbing daggers, two at a time and placing them next to each other. “And she told Lei a key . Or did she says keys ?”
Lei appeared just as confused as me. “She always said it’s the key.”
TT grinned. “Like the daggers are the key?”
Lei nodded.
Dima glanced up from the notebook. “Oh. Now I understand.”
I held out my hands. “I don’t get it.”
Lei looked at TT, then at the daggers and finally back at me. “Me either.”
TT’s fingers traced the edge of one dagger and then looked around at the other daggers. “She said. . .I hid it all and went to my children and gave them each a piece so that no one would be able to find it by themselves so. . .each dagger is a piece. It has to be.”
But, what the fuck did that mean?
I could see it in her eyes—the spark of realization, the thrill of discovery. She was on the verge of something big, something none of us could anticipate.
TT looked at one dagger in her hand, dropped the others and traced that one dagger’s edge again and again and even again as if she were doing her best to memorize the curves and edge.
“Alright.” She darted her gaze toward the other scattered daggers. "The Bandit had one key and she broke it up.”
I blinked. “What?”
"That’s it.” Dima nodded. “Dear God. I think you’re right.”
Rose glanced at me. “I’m just as confused as you, Moni.”
Next suddenly, TT let out a high-pitched shriek that startled everyone.
My heart jumped and I instinctively stepped forward, my protective instincts flaring up. “TT, what is it?”
But TT didn’t answer.
“Here it is.” She rushed to another dagger lying a few feet away and snatched it up. “They’re not daggers. The Bandit just wanted them to look like daggers so no one outside of her people would know. Outsiders would think it was a stupid piece of wood. A kid’s toy maybe. Or like you all said, relics. But not something of value.”
I held out my hands. “O-kay.”
Then. TT held both daggers in front of her and moved her hands with a sense of urgency that made my pulse quicken.
“You see.” She held the two daggers side by side, her breath coming in quick, excited bursts as she studied them. Then, slowly, she began to fit the daggers together, like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
"Oh shit.” I stiffened.
The two daggers easily clicked into place, the strange lines and grooves on each blade aligning perfectly with the other.
Everyone around her froze.
She really did figure it out.
“The key is a big puzzle.” TT carefully placed the two bound pieces down, picked up another dagger and began searching for its fitted piece. “And the puzzle is the map to the Bandit’s treasure. The one her and her rebels collected from going into the surrounding towns and stealing.”
Dima beamed at TT as if she was his child. “And the Bandit wanted everyone to have a piece of the map so that they would have to come together to solve it. Instead of one person just taking all the treasure for themselves.”
TT nodded and just like that she found the new dagger’s matching piece. And just like the other pair, these two new daggers easily clicked together.
Holy fuck.
Chen placed his hand on his forehead. “You mean to tell me that. . .all this time. . .we’ve been holding onto puzzle pieces to a treasure map. No wonder the Bandit was always so damn urgent about Lei digging one up.”
Rose took it all in. “So. . .she drew a map on a huge piece of wood and then cut out different shaped daggers?”
TT giggled. “Yeah. She was so smart. She liked codes and logic games so this makes sense.”
Lei muttered in disbelief, “That’s why they all look so odd and insane.”
Dima’s eyes widened, his notebook momentarily forgotten as he stared at the daggers in TT’s hands. “We’ve got to put the puzzle together.”
TT placed the new pair of stuck pieces together and didn’t stop to bask in our reactions. She was too absorbed in her task, her mind racing ahead of us all. She just kept zipping around and connecting daggers here and there. “I don’t think that we have all the pieces to do the full puzzle.”
Dima looked to Lei. “Then, we’ll have to go back to the West and get the missing ones. After tomorrow’s battle of course.”
TT clicked more daggers together, but Lei and Dima were still staring at each other having a silent conversation.
Fuck. Tomorrow’s battle. Lei vs. Leo.
My heart ached.
TT whispered to herself again, “I hid it all. . .gave them each a piece. . .no one would be able to find it by themselves…”
Another dagger clicked into place and then suddenly, TT bent down and was able to put two pairs together and the shape grew more complex, more complete.
Rose put her view on me. “But what is the Bandit’s treasure. Do we know?”
TT crawled over daggers, searching for more that would fit. “No one knows. They just know it’s stolen stuff from some of the White people that came down to Crownsville to kill them, but. . .”
Rose watched her. “Yeah?”
“Some say lots of the stuff was things that proved those people were Nazis. Gold and jewels stolen from Jewish people that they had killed during the war and maybe even documents or reports that they didn’t want getting out.”
Rose nodded. “Which would make sense why those people would unite together, make up some fake rape crime, blame one of the Crownsville citizens, gather everyone else, and go down to kill them. They didn’t know that the Bandit was a woman. And they didn’t know what the Bandit and the rebels looked like.”
TT looked up from the puzzle daggers. “All they knew was that the Bandit was from Crownsville.”
A chill ran down my spine.
But what did it all mean?
My mind raced with possibilities, each one more unsettling than the last.
The Bandit had gone to great lengths to hide this map, scattering its pieces so that no one could find it alone.
When did she do that?
Before the Week of Blood?
Or after?
It must have been long before.
Then after her death, her ghost for some odd reason had entrusted Lei with the key.
Why?
What role did he play in this decades-old mystery?
I glanced at Dima, who was practically buzzing with excitement as he scribbled in his notebook. There was no doubt in my mind that he’d throw himself into this mystery headfirst just like TT, eager to unravel the secrets hidden in those wooden blades.
Chen, too, seemed drawn in, his usual calm demeanor replaced with an intensity I rarely saw in him. He kneeled down and stared at the daggers. “I’ll help solve the puzzle with you, TT.”
“Thanks.” She smiled and connected two more.
Chen grabbed a dagger and studied the edge. “Hmm.”
Rose looked excited too. Surely, her journalistic instincts were undoubtedly kicking in. She’d want to know everything, to uncover the story behind the Bandit and the treasure.
They’d all help TT, that much was clear—Lei, Dima, Chen, and Rose.
Together, they’d piece together the clues, follow the map, and—what?
What would they find at the end of it all?
I shivered as a cold wave of fear washed over me.
The Bandit’s treasure wasn’t just some long-lost fortune—it was tied to a dark and bloody history, one that had left deep scars on Crownsville and Paradise City, especially in the South and West. The people who had committed those atrocities were long gone, but their descendants weren’t.
And many were still racist fucks that would do anything to keep their family secrets buried.
Would revealing those secrets be worth the treasure?
Would it even be safe to find out?
A knot of anxiety twisted in my gut as I thought about Dream Lake.
The mere mention of that place made my skin crawl.
It was notorious—a place where countless people had met their end under mysterious circumstances. Locals whispered that it was haunted, that vengeful spirits of the past roamed its depths, luring the unwary to their doom.
Lei had confirmed that those locals were right.
And if the map pointed to Dream Lake—if the treasure were hidden somewhere within its cursed waters—then my little sister would be heading straight into the heart of danger. In fact, she would dive right in with not a worry in her mind.
Fuck. I’m not letting that happen.
And why did the Bandit want Lei to have this map’s pieces?
That question nagged at me, digging deeper with each passing second. The ghost could have entrusted it to anyone—Chanel even—yet she’d chosen him.
Why?
Was it because of his connection to the East, to the Jones Estate that bordered Dream Lake?
Or was there something else, something more personal?
The more I thought about it, the more it all creeped me out. We were dealing with something far bigger than just a hunt for treasure. This was about history, legacy, and the power that came with unearthing the past.
It was about secrets that had been buried for a reason—and the dangers of bringing them back to light.
I looked at my little sister, TT, so full of life and energy, so eager to dive headfirst into this murky, haunting mystery. But I couldn’t ignore the dark clouds gathering on the horizon. She was smart, yes, but she was still just an eleven -year-old kid.
What if this led her into something she couldn’t handle?
Lei must have sensed my unease because he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Everything will be fine.”
I met his gaze, searching for reassurance, but all I found was the same uncertainty reflected back at me.
He seemed to be proud of TT too, but he didn’t have the answers either.
None of us did.
Then, Dima closed his notebook and whistled. “This is going to be an interesting month.”
That’s an understatement.