Chapter Six: Baptized by Fire
The first scream comes from the west wing.
It’s high, cracked, and wild—Isabella’s voice, splintering through the marble halls like glass breaking underwater.
Then the fire alarms begin to wail.
Red lights flash. Smoke curls along the ceiling, thick and oily, carrying the unmistakable stench of gasoline and something sweeter—old wood, old secrets, finally burning.
I know before I see her.
Isabella stands at the top of the staircase, hair loose, eyes bright with a kind of joy that terrifies me more than any gun ever has. Flames lick up the curtains behind her like obedient pets.
“If I don’t get love,” she screams, laughing as tears carve tracks down her face, “then we all go to hell together!”
Killian swears and grabs my wrist.
“Scarlett—move. Now.”
The heat hits us in waves as we run. Smoke claws into my lungs, my heart slamming against my ribs. The manor—the gilded cage, the mirrored nightmare—turns into a furnace before my eyes.
We reach the archive wing just as part of the ceiling collapses behind us.
Dr. Alistair’s library.
Floor-to-ceiling metal cabinets. Fire-resistant. Sealed. Untouched by the chaos, like the truth waiting patiently to be found.
My hands shake as I yank open drawers, coughing, eyes burning.
Files. Photos. Video tapes. Audio logs.
And then I see it.
My name.
Not handwritten. Typed. Clinical.
Subject Four: Scarlett Vance.
I drop to my knees.
Killian shouts my name, but the world narrows to paper and ink and horror.
My parents’ faces stare back at me from an old photograph. Younger. Afraid. Standing beside Alistair with forced smiles.
Assistants. Not victims. Until they tried to save me.
“They didn’t abandon you,” Killian says hoarsely, reading over my shoulder. “They disappeared protecting you.”
The room groans. Fire pounds at the doors.
I grab a recorder, slam play.
A child’s voice fills the room.
Killian’s.
Small. Shaking.
“I won’t do it again. Please. I don’t want to hurt her.”
My blood freezes.
“You’ll do it,” Alistair’s voice answers calmly. “Or she will.”
A sob follows. A thud. Silence.
Then Killian again—older. Harder.
“I’ll find her. One day. I swear. And I’ll never let anyone touch her again.”
The recording clicks off.
I look at him, my chest splitting open.
“You…” My voice breaks. “You were forced to—”
“I never did,” he says quickly. “I took the pain. Every time. I lied so they’d punish me instead.”
The floor shakes violently.
“Scarlett!” Liam’s voice roars from the hallway. “You’ve got two minutes before this place comes down!”
Isabella’s laughter echoes again—closer now.
She appears in the doorway, face smeared with soot, eyes blazing.
“You see?” she shouts at me. “Everyone chose you. Even him.”
She strikes a match.
Killian lunges.
The fire explodes.
He shoves me back toward Liam, coughing, shouting, “Get her out!”
Then—against every instinct—he turns back.
“Killian, no!” I scream.
He reaches Isabella just as a beam collapses. He grabs her wrist.
“Come with us,” he pleads. “You don’t have to die like this.”
She smiles.
Soft. Broken. Relieved.
“Yes,” she whispers. “I do.”
She lets go.
The fire swallows her whole.
I scream until my throat bleeds.
They drag me outside as the manor caves in on itself, flames roaring into the night sky like a funeral pyre.
Fire trucks scream in. Water hisses against heat. The world smells like ash and endings.
Killian stumbles out moments later, soot-blackened, alive.
I run to him.
We collapse together in the wet grass, shaking, holding on like the ground itself might disappear.
“It’s over,” he breathes, forehead pressed to mine. “We’re still standing.”
Sirens fade. Dawn threatens the horizon.
Later—hours or lifetimes later—Liam kneels beside me, his expression unreadable.
“They found your parents,” he says quietly. “Alive. The church hid them.”
My breath catches.
“And Isabella,” he adds. “She survived. Barely. Father Michael pulled her out.”
I close my eyes.
Fire didn’t end us.
It stripped us bare.
As smoke rises from the ruins behind us, Killian squeezes my hand.
“From ashes,” he murmurs, “we choose what we become.”
For the first time, I believe him.