13. Fractured Trust #2
The smell of smoke clings to everything: my hair, my skin, the inside of my lungs with each painful breath.
I stand beside Silas at the edge of what used to be the rose garden, surveying the damage with eyes that feel scoured by heat and ash.
We’ve won, technically. The main house stands, smoke-stained but intact.
But “victory” looks a lot like devastation from where I’m standing, my body so exhausted I might actually melt into the scorched earth beneath my feet.
My fingers unconsciously find Silas’s sleeve, seeking an anchor in this wasteland of blackened grass and skeletal trees. “We did it,” I whisper, voice scraped raw. The smallest flicker of triumph ignites in my chest, only to be instantly extinguished by the distant rumble of approaching engines.
Silas goes rigid, his head snapping toward the noise like some wild animal catching a scent.
Where the hell he finds the energy to stay this on edge, I’ll never know.
My brain’s basically mush at this point, lungs full of smoke, every muscle screaming, and I’m pretty sure if someone asked me to spell my own name right now, I’d just cry.
“Vehicles. At least three. Coming fast.” His hand covers mine for the briefest moment, a fleeting pressure that somehow communicates both reassurance and warning, before he steps away. “I need to disappear.”
“Wait—” But he’s already backing toward the shadowed side of the house, his movements fluid despite hours of physical exertion. “What am I supposed to tell them?”
“Whatever keeps you safe.” His eyes hold mine for one suspended moment. “I’ll be watching.”
And then he’s gone, melting into the shadows like he always does.
Still freaks me out, even after all this.
Engines rumble louder, headlights cutting through the smoky haze over the driveway.
I force my spine straight, though it screams at me to curl up somewhere dark.
God, I must look like absolute hell—clothes sopping and black with soot, hair a rat’s nest, face a mess of sweat and ash and dirt.
Three vehicles come roaring up the driveway, a fancy black sedan with two county SUVs on its tail.
The sedan’s window catches the light just right, and I glimpse behind the wheel.
Oh fuck me. Maeve. Of course, it’s Maeve.
Because this nightmare wouldn’t be complete without my cousin showing up in her thousand-dollar suit to explain how I’ve screwed everything up again.
God, I can already hear her: “Elara, darling, normal people call the fire department instead of playing hero.” Like she’s ever dealt with anything messier than a paper cut.
The vehicles screech to a halt, and Maeve erupts from the driver’s seat before the engine fully dies, moving with the focused intensity that made her such a terrifying litigator. Behind her, uniformed officers emerge from the SUVs, hands hovering near holstered weapons.
“Elara!” Maeve’s voice cracks like a whip across the scorched lawn.
She’s spotless in a charcoal pantsuit, not a hair out of place, the absolute reversal of my current state.
Her quick stride falters as she gets close enough to really see me, horror washing across her features. “My God, what’s happened to you?”
“Fire,” I croak, gesturing vaguely at the obvious destruction around us. “Someone—Garrow’s men—they set fires around the property. I’ve been putting them out.”
Maeve reaches me in three quick strides, hands gripping my shoulders with surprising strength.
Her eyes scan my face with clinical intensity, cataloguing each smudge and scrape.
“You’re in shock,” she declares, as if diagnosing a condition I hadn’t reported.
“How long have you been out here? Where were you when it started?”
I jerk away from her grip. “I’m not in fucking shock,” I snap, voice raspy from smoke. “Just dead on my feet after busting my ass all night. And by the way, why are you here? Silas and I have been fighting the fires since—”
“Silas?” Maeve’s fingers tighten, her perfectly shaped eyebrows drawing together. “Who is Silas?”
Shit. I blink, suddenly aware of my mistake. “He’s… he helps with the property. Maintenance. He was here when the fires started.”
“There was no one here when I called last night,” she says, voice hardening with suspicion. “Marta Ellery contacted me about disturbances at the estate. She saw official vehicles and heard you were in trouble. I called repeatedly. No answer.”
I wave my blackened hand at the hellscape around us. “Sorry I missed your calls. I was a little preoccupied with the whole ‘everything’s on fire’ situation. Next time the property’s burning down, I’ll be sure to prioritize your voicemails.”
“Search the property,” Maeve orders over her shoulder to the waiting officers. “Every room, every outbuilding. Look for signs of forced entry, evidence of accelerants, and anyone who shouldn’t be here.”
“No!” The word bursts from me with more force than I intended. “Maeve, stop. You can’t just—this is my property. You can’t order people to search it without my permission.”
Her expression softens in a way that somehow terrifies me more than her suspicion did. It’s the look she used to give me after my parents died, pitying, patronizing, the face of someone handling a child too fragile to hear the truth.
“Oh, Elara.” Her hands move from my shoulders to cup my face, thumbs brushing gently over ash-streaked cheeks. “You don’t have to protect whoever did this. You’re safe now. We’re going to get you help.”
The officers fan out across the grounds, ignoring my protests completely. Panic rises in my throat as I imagine them discovering the hidden passages, the underground chambers where Dr. Rao might still be tending to Rebecca. Or worse, finding Silas himself.
I twist violently against Maeve’s grip, my fingernails catching on the sleeve of her thousand-dollar suit.
“It was Garrow!” The name tears from my throat, leaving it feeling bloodied.
“I’ve told you! Garrow and his men! They poured accelerant around the house and lit it up like the Fourth of fucking July!
What part isn’t registering with you!?” My voice cracks on the last word, spit flying from my lips as I wrench sideways, nearly toppling us both.
“You’re covered in bruises.” Her fingers probe a tender spot on my forearm where I’d struck against a branch while climbing the oak. “Your clothes are torn. You’re disoriented, talking about some man nobody’s seen.”
I lunge forward, nearly colliding with her perfect face. “BECAUSE HE DOESN’T WANT TO BE SEEN!” The words tear out of my throat, desperate and raw. I see Maeve’s eyes widen, and something inside me screams to stop talking, to protect his secrets. But it’s too late, the dam has broken.
“Silas lives here, in the walls of this house. Has for years.” I’m shaking, torn between protecting him and proving my sanity.
“He’s been helping people escape Garrow’s influence.” My voice drops to a whisper, the weight of my betrayal settling like lead in my stomach. “He helped me fight the fires. He’s not some figment of my imagination.”
Something shifts in Maeve’s expression, not understanding, but resolution. She exchanges a look with someone behind me. I try to turn, but her hands hold my face firmly.
“I’m getting you out of here,” she says, her voice gentle but brooking no argument. “Away from this place. It’s not good for you, Elara. Being alone here, isolated, it’s bringing back the episodes you had after your parents died.”
“Episodes?” The word explodes from me like acid, burning my throat raw.
My hands curl into claws, nails biting half-moons into my palms. “I watched my parents’ caskets lowered into the ground and cried myself sick every night for months.
That’s called GRIEF, Maeve, not some clinical fucking episode!
And I AM NOT ALONE HERE!” My words echo across the scorched lawn, desperate and feral.
I hear footsteps behind me, the soft clink of metal. Maeve’s eyes track whoever approaches, her fingers tightening almost imperceptibly on my face.
“We need to have you examined,” she says, her professional voice taking over. “Smoke inhalation can be serious. And these injuries need documentation if we’re going to press charges against whoever’s responsible.”
“The only person you should be charging is Lyle GARROW!” My voice breaks into a feral scream as I twist violently against the hands suddenly clamping down on my biceps from behind.
Blood pounds in my ears as I thrash, kicking backward, feeling my heel connect with someone’s shin.
“GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF ME! This is MY HOUSE! MY PROPERTY!” Spit flies from my lips as I wrench so hard I feel something in my shoulder pop.
“It’s for your own protection,” Maeve says, stepping back as a county officer moves into view, something glinting in his hand. A syringe. My blood turns to ice water.
“No,” I gasp, real terror flooding me as I struggle against the hands holding me. “No, you don’t understand, he was helping me! Silas is protecting the house, protecting me—”
“There’s no one here, Elara,” Maeve says softly, nodding to the officer. “Just you, alone in this burned wreck of a house, talking about imaginary guardians.”
“He’s not imaginary!” I’m screaming again,wrenching against the hands holding me. “Look behind the walls! There are hidden rooms! Silas and his family have been living here for decades, helping people disappear when they need to—when Garrow comes for them—”
A sharp sting in my upper arm cuts the rest of my words short. Almost immediately, the world begins to tilt, blurring around the edges. Sounds are stretching and distorting like I’m hearing them from underwater. My knees buckle, my weight suddenly supported entirely by the officers surrounding me.
“No,” I slur, the word thick and useless on my tongue. “Please…”