Prologue: Ignite

Lark binds Andrew in a moonlit meadow with fireworks strapped between his thighs, ignoring his muffled pleas. She taunts him about cheating with Savannah, then reveals the true trigger: discovering messages on his phone that expose him as a predator targeting too-young girls.

As she lights the fuse to Katy Perry’s “Firework,” Lark recalls her years at Ashborne Collegiate Institute, where polished facades hid abuse, and where the artistic director, Laurent Verdon, made alluring promises. Regret surfaces—not for Verdon’s death, but that she wasn’t the one to kill him, a burden that instead fell to her best friend, Sloane. From that history, she forged a vow: never again.

Lark retreats into the trees while the fireworks ignite, transforming Andrew’s terror into a grotesque spectacle of light and noise. When the explosions subside, she returns to the smoking clearing, feeling no sorrow—only relief and the power of exposing and destroying a predator.

Hearing Andrew’s faint moan, Lark draws a gun, praises the “performance,” and delivers a final shot to his forehead. The execution seals her personal crusade: predators may spin pretty promises, but she will end them. She walks away feeling invincible.