Chapter 4

Four days. Ninety-six hours of watching Mia inhale truffle pasta while my rotting corpse baked under a collapsed frat house.

I followed Liam through the shattered front door of the Alpha Phi house. The roof had caved in completely. Sunlight sliced through the blackened, skeletal rafters, illuminating a thick soup of dust and wet ash. The smell was unbearable—a rancid mix of charred wood, stale keg beer, and roasted meat. My meat.

Liam stood in the center of the wreckage, wearing his pristine Columbia University volunteer firefighter turnout gear. He looked rugged. Heroic. The perfect Ivy League savior surveying his conquered battlefield. I hovered two feet away, sick to my nonexistent stomach.

"Watch that support beam on the left," Liam barked, pointing a gloved hand at a crew of rookies clearing debris near the stairs. "We still have hot spots in the basement. Keep the hoses ready."

Jack, the deputy captain, crunched over the debris and stopped beside Liam. He pulled a pack of Marlboros from his pocket, lit one, and offered the pack. Liam took a cigarette, gripping it between his teeth.

"Still trying to wrap my head around Tuesday night," Jack muttered, exhaling a plume of gray smoke. "Fire moved unnaturally fast. You sure about the timeline? You guys were right by the basement door."

Liam sparked a lighter. He took a drag, his face perfectly impassive. "I told the chief. Mia had a severe panic attack. She couldn't breathe. I had to secure her first."

"And your sister?" Jack raised an eyebrow.

Liam let out a short, dismissive scoff. "Chloe? She was throwing a tantrum. She saw me grab Mia and bolted. She was just acting out, waiting for someone to chase her. You know how it is with her background. Constant need for attention."

I drifted right into his line of sight. A tantrum, Liam? I was screaming your name while the skin peeled off my hands.

"Hey, guys," Liam called out, his voice casual. He looked toward the crew shoveling near the collapsed floorboards. "Anyone catch Chloe at the triage tent that night? Did she go out the back alley?"

The shoveling stopped. The rookies straightened up. They looked at Jack. Jack looked at Liam. A heavy, suffocating silence dropped over the ruined house.

"No, man," Jack said slowly. He frowned, crushing his cigarette under his heavy boot. "Nobody saw her. She wasn't at triage. She didn't check in with the paramedics."

Liam’s hand froze halfway to his mouth. The cigarette burned steadily between his fingers, the ash growing long and fragile.

Tick tock, Golden Boy, I whispered, circling him. Do the math.

I watched the gears grind behind his eyes. He blinked, the smug confidence suddenly faltering. He remembered Madison crying on the phone. He remembered my mother furiously canceling the Amex cards. He remembered the text messages he sent me—three days of vicious threats demanding an apology—all left on read.

Usually, I fired back within thirty minutes. I never stayed quiet.

A muscle feathered in Liam’s jaw. A sudden, violent tremor shook his hand, snapping the ash off his cigarette. He forced a tight, arrogant smile, shoving the panic down.

"Impossible," Liam said loudly. He tossed the cigarette into the muck. "Chloe knows fire safety better than anyone in this house. She probably slipped out the loading dock and crawled into a hotel. She’s fine."

Clink.

A sharp, metallic scrape echoed from the basement crater.

A rookie firefighter stood waist-deep in the ash pit, holding a heavy steel shovel. He stared down at the ground, his face suddenly draining of all color. He dropped the shovel. It clattered against the charred concrete.

"Cap," the rookie stammered. His voice cracked. He took a stumbling step backward. "There's... there's a body down here."

Liam snapped.

"Shut up," Liam snarled, his voice pitching high. He vaulted over a blackened sofa, sliding down the ash embankment into the basement pit. "It’s a dog. The neighbors have a mastiff. It probably got trapped."

"Liam, wait—" Jack started.

"It’s a goddamn dog!" Liam roared. He shoved the rookie hard in the chest, knocking him out of the way. He ripped the shovel off the ground and drove it into the ash.

Dig, Liam, I hissed, floating down into the pit beside him. Dig up your masterpiece.

He shoveled like a madman. Black soot flew into the air, coating his face, his hair, his pristine uniform. He hit something solid. He dropped the shovel and fell to his knees in the toxic sludge, frantically tearing at the debris with his bare, gloved hands.

He cleared the final layer of ash.

Liam stopped breathing. His hands hovered over the dirt, paralyzed.

It wasn't a dog.

It was a nightmare of fused, blackened meat and cracked bone. The corpse was curled into a tight, agonizing fetal position, shoved hard against the frame of the jammed storage door. The skull was thrown back in a silent, eternal scream. The arms were crossed over the chest, fingers clawed and melted directly into the ribcage.

Jack slid down the embankment and crouched beside Liam. The deputy captain pulled a pair of latex gloves from his belt and snapped them on with clinical precision.

"Pelvic bone structure," Jack muttered, leaning close to the remains. He pointed a gloved finger at the hip joints. "Small frame. Pronounced curvature. This isn't a dog, Liam. This is absolutely a female."

Liam let out a sound that wasn't human. A high, strangled wheeze. He scrambled backward on his hands and knees, scrambling away from the corpse until his back slammed hard against a burnt concrete pillar. His eyes were blown wide, pupils swallowed by terror.

Jack ignored him. He leaned closer to the chest cavity. He reached out, grabbing the fused, carbonized hands tightly gripping something against the sternum.

"She was holding something," Jack grunted. He applied pressure. Bone snapped with a sickening crunch.

A heavy, half-melted chunk of metal dropped from the corpse's hands. It hit the ash with a dull thud.

Jack picked it up. He rubbed his thumb raw over the blackened surface, wiping away the soot and cooked blood. The silver gleamed under the sunlight. A shield. Two crossed swords. The Hastings family crest.

Jack flipped it over. The metal was warped, but the deep engraving remained brutally clear.

C.H.

Jack stayed on his knees. He slowly turned his head, holding the silver crest out in his palm. His eyes locked onto Liam, filled with a dawning, horrified realization.

"Liam," Jack said, his voice trembling in the dead quiet of the basement. "Isn't this the family crest you gave Chloe last month?"