Chapter 5 - The Fire Inside Me
Z
The fire had always lived in pieces.
A flash of orange against the dark.
The sharp crack of glass breaking.
Heat crawling up the walls.
My mother’s voice screaming from somewhere downstairs.
Then nothing.
For years, I had told myself that was all I remembered.
A house fire.
A gas leak.
An accident.
The official report had said faulty wiring in the basement utility room.
Richard had survived with minor burns.
My mother had told everyone I was lucky to get out alive.
And I had believed her because I needed to.
Because the alternative was too terrible.
But when Richard said the word fire, something inside me unlocked.
Not fully.
Not all at once.
Just enough.
I remembered holding a red plastic gas can.
I remembered my hands smelling like gasoline.
I remembered standing in the basement hallway outside the steel door.
I remembered hearing someone crying behind it.
Not Mia.
Someone else.
A girl whose face I could not see.
A girl who whispered through the crack beneath the door.
“Please don’t leave me.”
I dropped to the floor of the hidden room.
Hale crouched beside me.
“Ava. Talk to me.”
“I started it,” I said.
Navarro’s voice became sharp. “Started what?”
“The fire.”
No one spoke.
I pressed my hands against my temples.
“I was sixteen. Richard had locked someone in here. I heard her. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. He came downstairs and grabbed me.”
My breath hitched.
“He said she was dangerous. He said she was sick. He said she would hurt me if I let her out.”
Hale’s expression tightened. “Did you see the girl?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I only heard her. I heard her crying. She kept asking for her mother.”
The memory deepened.
Richard’s hand around my wrist.
My mother standing at the top of the stairs.
Watching.
Not helping.
Richard dragging me away.
The door slamming shut.
And then, later that night, my mother entering my room with red eyes and a shaking voice.
She told me Richard was asleep.
She told me it was our only chance.
She placed the gas can in my hands.
I remembered her saying, “If we make him afraid, maybe he’ll let us go.”
I remembered believing her.
I remembered following her downstairs.
“Your mother helped you,” Hale said.
“Yes.”
“Did she tell you what to do?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
I couldn’t stop shaking.
“She told me to pour gasoline near the furnace. She said there was a broken line. She said it would look like an accident.”
Navarro looked toward the doorway, where forensic officers were photographing the walls.
“Did you light it?”
I swallowed.
“No.”
The word came out small.
Then I looked up.
“I thought I did. But I didn’t.”
Hale leaned closer. “What happened?”
“I poured the gasoline. I was scared. I dropped the can. Then Richard came downstairs.”
The memory slammed into me with such force that I cried out.
Richard’s face.
His smile.
The match in his hand.
He had been holding a match.
He had known.
He had been waiting.
“He started it,” I whispered. “He started the fire.”
“Why?” Hale asked.
“To destroy the room.”
The hidden room.
The evidence.
The girl who had been inside.
Maybe the girl had already been gone by then.
Maybe Richard had moved her.
Maybe he had used the fire to erase everything.
But then why had he let me believe I was responsible?
Because guilt was another prison.
Because a frightened girl with a secret would never go to the police.
Because Richard understood something my mother never did.
If he could make me blame myself, he would never have to lock the door.
I would lock it from the inside.
Hale stood and turned to Navarro. “We need every fire report, every witness statement, every emergency call connected to the Mercer residence.”
“Already requested,” Navarro said.
A technician entered the room holding the recovered laptop.
“Commander, we accessed a local video cache.”
“Show me.”
The screen flickered.
A date appeared in the lower corner.
October 18th.
Fifteen years ago.
The night of the fire.
The footage came from a hidden camera inside the basement hallway.
The angle was tilted.
The image was poor.
But it was enough.
I saw myself.
Sixteen years old.
Thin.
Terrified.
Holding the red gas can.
My mother stood behind me.
For one second, I felt relief.
Proof.
Proof that I had not imagined it.
Then the footage showed something I did not remember.
My mother took the gas can from me.
She poured gasoline across the floor herself.
Richard appeared at the end of the hallway.
He was not asleep.
He was not surprised.
He was smiling.
My mother froze.
Richard held up the match.
Then he said something the camera barely captured.
“You both belong to me.”
My mother stepped in front of me.
It was the first time I had ever seen her protect me.
The first time.
Richard threw the match.
The screen exploded into orange light.
The video ended.
I couldn’t speak.
My mother had tried to save me.
Too late.
But she had tried.
A complicated truth was still a truth.
She had betrayed me.
She had protected him.
She had let terrible things happen.
And on that night, she had stood between me and the fire.
It did not erase what she had done.
But it changed the shape of it.
Hale’s phone rang again.
This time, the caller ID showed a location tag.
A warehouse district near the old riverfront.
Richard had made a mistake.
Or wanted us to think he had.
Navarro gave orders immediately. “Tactical units move in. No lights, no sirens until perimeter is secured.”
“Ava isn’t going,” Hale said.
“I am,” I replied.
“No.”
“He wants me there.”
“That is exactly why you are not going.”
My anger rose so fast it made me dizzy. “A girl is being held because of me.”
“She is being held because of Richard.”
“He said I did something.”
“Richard wants to destabilize you.”
“He knows something.”
Navarro stepped between us. “Both of you stop.”
I looked at her.
She looked exhausted.
Haunted.
But steady.
“We will not let Richard control this operation,” she said. “And we will not leave Mia behind.”
“What about me?” I asked.
“You stay with the protective detail.”
“No.”
“That is not a request.”
I laughed once, bitterly. “Everyone keeps telling me where to stand. Where to go. What I can handle.”
“Ava—”
“You had a photograph of Richard covered in blood. You handed it over and let it disappear.”
Her face flinched.
“I know.”
“My mother knew he hurt me and stayed.”
“I know.”
“Agent Hale hid evidence from me.”
“I know.”
I stepped closer.
“But I am the one Richard keeps calling. I am the one he is trying to break. And if you want to understand why, then you need me.”
Navarro held my gaze.
The hidden room was silent around us.
Finally, she said, “You come with us. But you follow every command. The moment I say move, you move. The moment I say get down, you get down.”
I nodded.
An hour later, rain had turned into a hard, freezing mist over the riverfront.
The warehouse sat between abandoned factories, its windows boarded over, its roof sagging beneath years of neglect.
Police units surrounded the block.
Hale stood beside an armored vehicle, studying the plans.
“Thermal imaging shows two heat signatures,” he said. “One near the east side. One moving.”
“Mia and Richard?” I asked.
“Possibly.”
Navarro’s radio crackled.
“Commander, we have visual on a third person.”
Everyone went still.
“Where?”
“Second floor window.”
A figure stood behind the dirty glass.
A woman.
My mother.
She was alive.
And she was holding a gun.
Then the warehouse lights came on all at once.
Richard’s voice thundered through hidden speakers.
“Welcome home, Ava.”
The front doors opened.
And in the middle of the warehouse floor, under a single hanging light, Mia Harris sat tied to a chair.
Behind her stood Richard.
With one hand on Mia’s shoulder.
May you like
And the other holding a remote trigger.
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