Chapter 124
*Jiselle*
I needed to be alone.
No Eva. No Nate. Not even Ethan.
Especially not Ethan.
The guilt sat heavy in my throat, sharp and thick like a swallowed blade. The rogue’s death. The blackouts. The voice whispering through my skin like it owned me. I couldn‘
t look anyone in the eye and pretend I wasn’t cracking.
So I slipped away before dawn.
No one noticed. Or maybe they did and let me go.
I found a quiet stretch of forest a few miles out, where the trees grew tighter together and the light filtered in like fractured glass. The earth was soft here–damp with moss and long–forgotten rain. The kind of place that should’ve felt safe. Like something sacred lived here once and never fully left.
I sat on the edge of a rock hollowed by time and tried to breathe.
In.
Out.
Steady.
I focused on my hands. No sparks. No glow. No sign of the thing inside me that kept whispering in the dark. For a few minutes, it worked. The silence stretched long enough to convince myself maybe it was just exhaustion, or fear, or both. Maybe I’d imagined the voice. Maybe it wasn’t-
My fingers twitched.
I stilled.
And there it was again.
A flicker beneath my ribs. A hum at the edge of thought. A second rhythm pulsing beneath my heartbeat.
She won’t stay quiet forever.
I stood abruptly, pacing a circle into the earth, trying to outrun the static building beneath my skin. My breath shortened. My hands shook. The power wasn’t rising like before. It was waiting. Like a fire licking at dry wood.
My head snapped up when I heard footsteps behind me.
Ethan.
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His scent hit first–pine, sweat, brother.
Then his voice.
“Jiselle.”
I turned slowly, chest tightening.
He looked exhausted. Eyes dark beneath the lashes, mouth tight.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“I followed your trail.” His voice wasn’t angry. Just… strained. “You didn’t even try to cover it.”
I pressed my lips together. “I didn’t think anyone would come.”
“Of course I’d come.” He stepped forward, hesitating. “Why are you out here alone?”
“I needed space.”
“That’s not good enough.”
I stiffened. “It’s all I have.”
He exhaled. “What’s going on with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not true.”
I flinched.
He took another step. “Talk to me. You can’t just vanish every time the flame stirs.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
His expression shifted, softening. “You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
He reached for me.
And I broke.
The power snapped like a whip across my spine, tearing through me in a searing burst of heat. The ground cracked beneath my feet. The air sparked gold and red. I tried to pull it back–gods, I tried–but it slipped from my fingers like sand through a sieve.
“No!” I screamed.
Too late.
The flame lashed outward–wild, instinctual, violent. There was no thought in it. No control. Just heat exploding from every inch of me like a living scream. It cracked through the clearing, a wave of light and fury and unspoken fear. Ethan had only a
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second to react. He tried to shield his face, but the blast sent him flying.
He slammed into a tree with a sickening thud that vibrated through my ribs.
I heard bark split. I heard his body crumple.
Smoke curled from his clothes, thin and bitter. The front of his tunic was burned away, skin beneath raw and pink, the edges already blistering. His body twitched once, then went terrifyingly still.
My breath left me.
“Ethan-” My voice cracked as I stumbled forward. My knees hit the dirt so hard I tasted blood. “No, no–no, please…”
He groaned, barely audible. It was enough to prove he was still alive, but not enough to calm the terror that shattered through my chest like glass.
He moved, slow and clumsy, dragging himself upright with one arm. Pain etched across every line of his face–jaw clenched, breath shallow–but his eyes… his eyes still
searched for me. Still found mine.
And the look he gave me-
Not horror.
Not accusation.
Just… love.
Like I was still his sister.
Still his twin.
Still his.
I couldn’t bear it.
I crawled to him, sobs breaking loose as the fire still coiled off my fingers like snakes, hissing against the ground. I was losing myself, and I knew it, and I couldn’t stop.
“I didn’t mean to,” I choked, voice splintering. “I didn’t mean to, I swear-”
“I know,” he rasped. He tried to lift his hand, fingers trembling. Reaching for me, even then.
That nearly broke me all over again.
But I couldn’t touch him.
I wanted to. Gods, I wanted to.
But if I did, I might finish what the flame had started.
And that truth–that certainty–ripped something raw and vital inside me.
I screamed.
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Not at him.
Not at the world.
At myself.
I curled inward, hands over my face, fire licking up my arms, the heat building and building like a volcano beneath my skin. I could feel her in the depths of it–the presence, the echo, the other.
She slipped through my mind like silk sliding across bruises, her voice threaded into every pulse of my fear.
Let me take this pain. You can sleep.
I shook my head, violently, clawing at the dirt like I could bury the sound.
“No.”
But the whisper didn’t stop.
It never did.
You’re breaking. Let me hold you together.
I gasped, the sobs turning into hiccuped breaths. My whole body shook. The heat was worse now–no longer defensive. It wanted out. It wanted control.
“You’ll destroy them,” I whispered.
No, she said. I’ll protect them. I’ll keep them from you.
I looked up.
Ethan was crawling toward me, dragging himself through the dirt despite the pain. Despite what I’d done. His voice broke into pieces as he called my name, over and over, lips cracked, bleeding.
He still wanted to reach me.
He believed he still could.
But I couldn’t hear him anymore.
All I could hear was her.
Let go. You’re tired. Let me carry it.
And I wanted to.
Gods, I wanted to.
Just for a moment. One sliver of silence. A breath where I wasn’t the monster. Where I wasn’t the bomb waiting to go off. A moment where I didn’t have to hate myself for
what I might do next.
But if I gave in…
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I wouldn’t come back.
And if I did?
I wouldn’t be me.
I stared at Ethan’s face, twisted in pain but still calling out for me. Still reaching.
And I knew if I stayed, I’d kill him next time.
Not the flame.
Me.
So I did the only thing I could think to do.
Iran.
I turned from my brother, from his bloodied hands and burned chest and infinite faith, and I ran like the fire itself had my legs. The trees blurred around me. The wind screamed. My heartbeat raced like it wanted out of my body.
Flames chased me, curling behind me in long streaks along the grass. I left scorch
marks in every step. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t
look back. Couldn’t risk letting them see what I was becoming.
The woods opened.
The sky cracked above me.
And then I was gone.
Swallowed by the dark.
By the power.
By the voice.
By the fire.
Missing.
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