She ca to through fire.
Literally.
The barn was burning—crackling wood, smoke pouring like a ghost into the sky.
And through the flas stumbled a woman with ash in her hair and blood on her lips.
I should've run.
Should've lifted my rifle.
Should've stayed hidden.
But her eyes…
They weren't vacant.
They were alive.
I dragged her out from the blaze, my skin scalding as we collapsed together in the tall grass.
She coughed smoke and whispered, "I thought I was dead."
I didn't reply.
I just checked her for bites.
None.
Only burns.
Fresh, angry ones tracing her arms, her thighs, her neck.
I wrapped her in a blanket, and for a mont, I felt warmth that had nothing to do with the fire.
Her na was Rayna.
She said the farmhouse had been safe—until the family turned.
She burned them inside to stop the spread.
Didn't flinch when she said it.
"I gave rcy in the only way I could."
That night, I gave her my bedroll.
She slept beside without fear.
I didn't sleep at all.
The next day, I caught her staring at the scar on my shoulder.
"You've been burned too," she said, gently tracing it.
Her touch seared more than the fire had.
We grew close in hours, the way people do when death circles them like wolves.
We scavenged.
We told stories.
We laughed—quiet, bitter laughs, but real.
And then, we kissed.
It felt like madness.
It felt like life.
Her lips were cracked.
Her skin still hot from the fire's aftermath.
But her heart… her heart beat like a war drum.
Later that night, I woke to her writhing beside .
Not in pleasure.
In pain.
Her breath was ragged.
Her eyes were bloodshot.
And a rash, dark and webbed, crawled up her chest.
I grabbed my flashlight and checked again—still no bite.
No scratch.
But sothing was wrong.
"Did the fire get into your lungs?" I asked.
She shook her head slowly.
"I breathed sothing," she whispered. "In the basent. Before I set it all ablaze."
"What was it?"
"I don't know. Spores, maybe. Chemicals. It felt like… it wanted inside ."
She reached for .
And I froze.
Because the heat of her skin…
It wasn't natural.
It pulsed.
It humd.
It felt like fever fused with sothing unholy.
Still, I let her touch .
Because love doesn't always co when it's clean.
Sotis, it finds you covered in soot and sickness.
By morning, the rash had spread to her neck.
Her voice was a whisper of smoke.
But she still kissed goodbye.
And that kiss burned deeper than fire ever could.
I buried her beneath blackened earth.
And as I stood there, hands shaking, skin flushed—
I couldn't tell if it was grief…
or infection.
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