Page 52 of The Scars of War
“Too late.” He shifts again, this time to face me fully. His leg moves beneath me, and I straddle his lap without thinking, thighs on either side of his hips, knees bent against the ruined floor. He holds me there, hands resting low on my back, not guiding but inviting. “You don’t get to choose what you are,” he says, voice low. “Only what you do with it.”
“And what if I make the wrong choice?”
“Then you’ll burn,” I just stare at him. “But I’ll burn with you.”
The words land between us like the echo of something inevitable. And I hate how badly I want to believe them. How part of me already does. He lifts a hand and brushes a single finger over my mouth. “You scare me,” I say.
He leans in, close enough that I feel his breath in the hollow between my collarbones. “Good.”
I laugh, a small, ugly sound, and then I’m crying again. Quiet, brutal tears that slip down my face without my permission. I bury my face in his neck and breathe him in, smoke and leather and the faint metallic tang of blood.
His arms tighten. He doesn’t tell me it’s okay. Doesn’t tell me to be strong. He just holds me like I’m not broken glass, like I’m allowed to come apart, like this moment…is what the bond was truly for.
I close my eyes. And I let myself fall into him, heart open, skin buzzing, body heavy with power, and grief, and need.
I don’t mean to speak. The words just come. Low. Barely audible. The shape of them worn and smooth from being carried in silence for too long. “I’ve done this before.”
Riven is still.. His hand stays flat on my back, the other tracing lazy, grounding circles at the base of my spine. His silence doesn’t feel like waiting, it feels like permission.
I curl my fingers tighter into the fabric of his shirt. The words taste like ash. “I was fourteen,” I say. “It was spring. I remember because my mom had just planted marigolds outside the kitchen window, and she made me help. Said it would teach me patience.” A breath catches in my throat. I let it. “My little brother was playing with this plastic lightsaber, trying to fight the dog. He was making those sound effects with his mouth, and the dog kept barking every time he swung it. It was loud. Normal. Stupid, warm, and good.”
My eyes sting. I blink and keep going. “I remember standing by the fridge. The door was open. I was just staring at the light inside, completely zoned out. I think I was mad about something, maybe a fight with my mom. I don’t even remember why. Just that I felt this pressure. This buzz in the air. Like everything had gone tight.”
Riven’s hand moves up, fingers threading into the sweaty mess of my hair, the touch light but anchoring. I lean into it.
“I told myself I was imagining it. That I was being dramatic. The lights started to flicker. The room got…hot. Too hot for spring. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Like the air was choking me from the inside.” I swallow hard. “So I stepped out onto the back porch. Just to get some air. Just to cool off. And then…” My voice breaks. I close my eyes. “I heard the scream.” Riven stiffens beneath me but doesn’t interrupt.
“I turned around, and the kitchen window was glowing. Orange. Red. The curtains were already on fire. I…I ran back inside, but the smoke hit me like a wall. Thick and black and heavy, like it didn’t want me to come any closer.” I press my fist against my mouth, trying to muffle the sob that wants out.
“I called their names. Over and over. It was like I was underwater. Everything felt wrong. The air buzzed in my ears, and I couldn’t find them. I couldn’t even get past the living room. The heat peeled the skin off my hands just trying to open the hallway door.”
Riven’s grip tightens, arms around my middle now, his chest pressed to my back like he’s trying to hold my body together from the outside in.
“I remember falling,” I whisper. “Someone dragged me out. One of the neighbors, I think. He had a wet rag over his mouth. He kept saying my name. All I could do was scream. Because I could still hear them inside.” My voice collapses into silence. The weight of it hangs thick in the room.
“They never made it out,” I say. “There was…nothing left. The coroner found pieces of my mom’s wedding ring in the hallway. That’s how they identified her.”
I don’t realize I’m shaking until Riven moves again, shifting so that I’m fully straddling his lap, knees against the floor, my body caged between his and the cold wall behind him. His hand comes up to cup the back of my neck, thumb moving in slow circles over the tender spot just behind my ear.
His voice is low. Rough. “You think you caused it.” I don’t answer. “You think it started with you,” he says again. “That the power inside you broke loose and killed everyone you loved.”
My throat aches. “Isn’t that what just happened here?”
“No,” he says. “That wasn’t fire. That was raw instinct. That was you finally waking up.”
I pull back far enough to look him in the eye. “And what if I’m wrong? What if I did cause it back then?”
“Then someone else used your power against you.” His gaze doesn’t waver. It drills into me, sharp and unyielding. “You were a child,” he says. “Unbound. Unaware. And someone knew that.”
I stare at him, and something unspoken passes between us. Not comfort. Not forgiveness.
A truth.
We slowly stand and move to the booth where I sit slumped, shoulders curled forward like I’m trying to protect something that’s already been taken. My fingers are splayed across the sticky surface of the table, but I can’t feel it. Not really. Everything feels distant. Like my body’s here, but the rest of me is still somewhere inside the whiteout, drifting through the ash, through the wreckage, through what used to be me.
Across from me, Riven doesn’t speak.
He leans back in the shadows, one arm resting along the torn vinyl of the booth. His legs are spread, loose and relaxed like he didn’t just watch me detonate. Like he hasn’t spent the last hour holding my gasoline-soaked soul in his hands. His gaze doesn’t move from mine. He watches me like he always does, measured, careful, like he’s reading the language of my undoing in real time.
