Chapter 19
HENRY
Fire had a sound.
Not just the crackle.
Not just the roar.
Something deeper—alive in a way it shouldn’t have been, consuming everything it touched and asking for more.
It filled the space around me, pressed into my ears, into my lungs, into the back of my throat until breathing felt like swallowing it whole.
Smoke curled thick and black along the ceiling, bleeding downward, turning the air heavy.
Hot.
Too fucking hot.
The walls groaned under it—splitting wood and shattering glass.
I didn’t move.
Not at first.
I stood there in it, heat licking up my arms, my face, my throat—close enough to feel it but not close enough to burn.
My pulse was steady—probably too steady. Maybe my body hadn’t caught up to what I’d done yet. Or maybe it had.
It just didn’t give a shit.
The flames climbed higher, crawling up the walls, feeding on everything they could reach. Papers curled in on themselves, blackening, dissolving into ash before they ever hit the floor.
A beam overhead cracked, sharp and violent, splintering as the fire ate through it. Sparks rained down, scattering across the floor in brief, bright bursts.
Through the crackle and the violent churn of it, something else pushed through, threading into the noise until it stood apart from it.
A human sound.
A scream, gutted and raw, dragged up from somewhere deep enough that it broke on the way out. It twisted through the heat, caught in the smoke, stretched thin by pain until it barely sounded like a voice anymore.
It should have done something to me.
Shock or hesitation, maybe, but all I felt was satisfaction.
It burned through me, hotter than the flames that fanned me, sharper than the heat licking at my skin.
A rightness that settled deep in my chest and stayed there.
Let them choke on it.
Let them understand, even for a second, what it meant to be trapped, to be stripped down to nothing but fear and pain and the slow realization that no one was coming to save them.
The exit sat at the end of the corridor, half-obscured now, the air warping between us as the temperature climbed. Smoke thickened, pressing lower, dragging heat down with it, curling into every space it could reach.
I turned toward the door, reaching for the handle. Pain shot up my arm so fast it stole the breath from my lungs.
For a moment, it threatened to break through—to drag me out of it, out of the control I’d been holding so carefully in place.
I refused to let it.
Forcing my hand forward again, faster this time, I pushed through it, ignoring the burn as the handle gave under my grip.
The door opened.
Cooler air pushed in, cutting through the smoke just enough to make breathing possible again.
I stepped through.
Behind me, the fire surged, swallowing the space whole, the screams dissolving into it, into the roar, into something that would leave nothing behind.
Good.
Let it take everything.
There was nothing worth saving.
The heat, the smoke, the sound of it all collapsed in on itself, leaving behind the quiet of my home office, the steady weight of the present settling back into place.
I exhaled slowly, my gaze dropping to my hand.
Faint scars ran across my palm and fingers, thin and pale now, barely noticeable unless you knew where to look.
The memory of it flickered—the way the pain had crawled up my arm, the way it hadn’t stopped for days after, trapped in white walls and antiseptic air while skin tried to knit itself back together.
It didn’t hurt anymore—hadn’t for a long time, and it’d been worth every goddamn second.
My chin lifted.
Archie hadn’t moved.
Thank fuck.
He stood exactly where I’d left him, eyes fixed on me, but not quite on me—tracking something deeper, something internal, like he was replaying every word I’d just said and trying to make it fit somewhere it didn’t belong.
His mouth parted. “Why?”
“Wh—what?”
His curiosity wasn’t what I’d expected.
I’d braced for it—the recoil, the distance, the moment he’d step back and see me for what I was. I’d expected him to reach for his phone, to put space between us, to call me what anyone else would.
A murderer.
Instead, he tilted his head, scrunched his nose, and asked me why.
I exhaled slowly, something tight in my chest easing in a way I hadn’t prepared for.
I should’ve known better.
My rabbit didn’t run—he leaned in.
Cupping my face, he pulled me in just enough that I felt the shift of his weight, the rise onto the balls of his feet as he closed the space between us.
He pressed his lips to the corner of my mouth like he was choosing it—choosing me—even now.
“Tell me,” he said, breath warm against my skin. “Henry, tell me what those men did to you.”
His thumb brushed once along my cheek.
“Tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done.” His eyes lifted to mine—clear and unflinching. “And watch me love you anyway.”
Relief hit hard enough to make me dizzy, knocking something loose in my chest I hadn’t even realized I’d been bracing for. I’d faced worse than this. I’d done worse than this.
I’d ended lives with steadier hands than I’d ever had in this moment.
And none of that had ever scared me the way this did.
The thought of him walking away.
The thought of losing him.
Pulling him in, I crushed my mouth to his in a kiss that was just desperate enough to pull a whine from my chest.
I needed to feel him there, needed something real under my hands to anchor me before that fear could take hold again.
I swept him up without breaking the kiss, his form fitting against me like he belonged there, carrying him the few steps back into the center of the room before lowering us both to the floor.
I kept him close, one arm tight around him, the other already reaching, pushing through the scattered papers until I found what I was looking for.
A photograph.
I set it down in front of us.
His fingers found it first, trailing along the edge, like he understood it mattered before I even said anything.
“What’s his name?”
The image alone was enough to claw at something in my chest, threatening to bury me under a mountain of grief if I let it
“He—” I stopped and exhaled once through my nose. “His name was Philip.”
My thumb swept across the edge of the photograph and the dark hair that never stayed where it was supposed to, falling just slightly into his eyes, no matter how often he pushed it back. Sharp jaw, softer mouth. The kind of face people trusted too easily.
The Ashford uniform sat perfectly on him, like he belonged there more than any of us ever had.
“He was a foreign exchange student,” I said. “From France. He came to Ashford my senior year. I—”
“—loved him,” Archie finished softly. “You loved him.”
Grief stole the air out of me.
It made no sense.
There was no rhythm to it. No way to get ahead of it. It doesn’t move on just because you do. It just sits there—quiet until it isn’t. And when it comes back, it doesn’t come back softer.
It comes back the same.
I’d spent my career years learning how pain works—how people break and heal.
None of that touched this.
Nothing ever explained this.
Because it never healed.
It’d been over a decade, and it still felt exactly the way it did the first time I realized he was gone.
Archie shifted then, climbing into my lap, both arms sliding around my shoulders, fingers pushing into my hair.
“It doesn’t take away how much I love you,” I said, the words rougher than I intended, pulled from somewhere deeper than the rest.
“I know,” he said, pressing his cheek against mine. “Of course it doesn’t. Henry, you don’t have to explain that to me. You don’t even have to tell me what happened to him. I’m sorry I pushed you.”
“Baby, it’s okay. I’ll tell you.”
“Too bad. I don’t want to know anymore. Ha.”
Fuck.
I smiled, and I would say it was a damn near miracle, but I knew better.
The miracle was sitting on my lap.
“I love you, you brat.” I kissed the side of his head. “Now, hush. Daddy has a story to tell.”
His spine rippled beneath my hand, and he sat back just enough for me to see him gnawing at that bottom lip.
“Tell me,” I implored.
“Did he—Philip, I mean.” He turned his head. “Did he call you Daddy too?”
“No, baby.” I pressed the tip of my nose to his cheek. “That’s just for you. Us.”
He fell back into my chest with a smile. “You can tell your story now.”
My lips twitched at that—just barely, the ghost of something lighter threatening to surface, and then it was gone.
The weight settled back in, filling the space between us until even the air felt thicker.
Archie felt it too.
I could tell by the way his hands tightened in my shirt, fingers curling into the fabric like he was trying to hold me there.
“I was the student assigned to give him a tour on his first day. Didn't look like he needed one though.”
My hand moved absently along Archie’s back.
“Walked in like he already belonged. Like the place had been built around him instead of the other way around. We just… hit it off. No effort. No awkward phase. It was easy from the start.”
Archie’s hand slipped under my shirt and pressed against the skin that covered my heart.
“We spent most of that year together. Classes, weekends, whatever we could get away with. I met his parents over the phone. We sent them pictures. We made plans. He went home first. I had a few weeks left before I graduated. I was going to finish out the semester, pack up, and meet him in France.”
I swallowed.
“Then I got a call from Philip’s parents. He never made it home.”
Archie stiffened.
“There wasn’t a record of him boarding the plane. There wasn’t even a record of him at the damn airport. He just… disappeared.”
“Henry—” Archie started, voice tight.
“I looked for him. I went through everything. Called everyone. Bribed the airport for access to their security cam footage. I couldn’t find anything that made sense.”