Burn Patterns

The house still reeked of smoke when we stepped in. Not the kind that fades with water and time. This was different. Thick. Bitter. The smell of something human in it.

My boots sank into black sludge where the carpet used to be. The walls were claw-marked with fire, streaks leading upward like the flames had tried to escape. But the worst was waiting in the middle of the room.

He was strapped to a chair, or what was left of one. Arms welded by melted tape, skin shrunk tight as drum hide. His jaw hung open, a scream baked into silence. Teeth white against the ruin.

“Christ,” Evelyn whispered behind me. Her hand rose to her throat, then dropped quick, like she’d caught herself almost praying.

I crouched. Heat still bled off the body, faint but alive enough to sting. His eyes were gone, sockets blackened hollows. The fire ate him carefully. Intentional. Not chaos. Control.

“You see it?” I asked.

She stepped closer, heels careful on the char. Her gaze swept the burn pattern, tracing the walls, the floor, the line of smoke etched onto ceiling beams.

“Accelerant,” she said. “Not gasoline. Cleaner. Stronger.”

I nodded. The flames hadn’t sprawled wild. They’d obeyed. They crawled inward, a predator circling prey.

“Whoever lit him up,” I muttered, “knew fire like scripture.”

Evelyn’s silence was answer enough.

The body’s mouth caught me again. Not just a scream frozen in bone. Something tucked between his teeth. I leaned in. Paper. Or what used to be. Charred edges, black curling into white center. I slid it out with my pen. A fragment of a photograph.

A girl’s face. Half-burned. Only one eye survived, staring up at me through soot.

My gut tightened. It wasn’t fear. Not yet. Recognition, maybe. Something about the line of the cheek, the arch of the brow.

Evelyn leaned close. “Who is she?”

I shook my head. “Not sure.”

But I lied.

We moved on. The hallway coughed up more shadows. Pictures melted into frames. Family gone to ghost-smears. But upstairs—something different.

The bedroom was untouched. No fire. Bed neatly made. A glass of water on the nightstand, half-drunk, dust flecking the rim. Evelyn froze in the doorway.

“Doesn’t fit,” she said.

No. It didn’t. Someone had protected this room. Like it mattered. Like it was holy.

I walked in. Sheets crisp. Closet door ajar. Inside, clothes hung untouched, the faint smell of lavender powder clinging stubborn through the smoke. On the top shelf, a shoebox. I pulled it down. Inside—letters. Dozens. Each one stamped with the same mark. A black sun drawn in thick ink.

I flipped one open. Lines scrawled sharp, angry, like the pen dug to bleed the page. Fire cleanses. Fire remembers.

Evelyn looked over my shoulder. Her eyes narrowed. “Same symbol we saw on the warehouse wall.”

“Yeah.” My voice was gravel. “Looks like it’s following us.”

Before I could dig deeper, a sound cut the air. Not the house settling. Not rats. Footsteps.

Both of us froze.

Downstairs. Slow. Heavy. Someone hadn’t left.

I stuffed the letter back, dropped the box on the bed. Evelyn’s hand brushed her knife. Mine went to the gun at my hip. We moved without a word.

The steps grew louder. Boards creaked under weight. Then silence.

We edged down the hall, every shadow a threat. I hit the stairwell, peered down. The living room stretched below, fire corpse still sitting in judgment. But the door we’d left open—now shut.

Whoever was here wanted us penned in.

Evelyn touched my arm, pointed. By the body. The chair.

Something new.

On the blackened floorboards, words written in ash. Wet ash. Fresh.

She burns next.

My throat tightened.

“She?” Evelyn asked, though she already knew.

The girl in the photo.

I turned. A figure stood at the far corner of the room, half-hidden in the dark. Coat long. Hat pulled low. Could’ve been a man, could’ve been a shadow given legs.

“Police,” I barked. “Show your hands.”

No movement.

Evelyn slid the blade free, steel whispering against leather.

The figure tilted its head. Like amused. Then it moved—fast. Too fast. A blur darting for the back hall.

We bolted down the stairs. My boots slammed wood, breath hot in my throat. Evelyn on my flank, knife ready. But when we hit the kitchen, the door was swinging open on cold night air. He was gone.

Outside, the street was empty. Not a soul. Just smoke still clinging to my jacket.

Evelyn cursed low. She hated being played.

I stepped back inside. My eyes dragged again to the body. To the black sun letters upstairs. To the burned girl’s face.

This wasn’t a message. It was a promise.

Evelyn came to my side. “You knew her, didn’t you? The girl.”

I didn’t answer.

Her eyes hardened. “If you’re keeping something from me—”

“I’m not,” I lied again.

She didn’t buy it, but she let it hang. For now.

The night pressed heavy around the house. I felt it in my teeth, my blood, the weight of the word scrawled in ash like a countdown.

We walked out into the cold. Sirens distant. City breathing like a monster just over the hill. I thought the night was done with us.

It wasn’t.

As we reached the car, Evelyn stopped dead. Her hand went to her blade again.

“What is it?” I asked.

She nodded at the windshield.

Something was tucked under the wiper.

I pulled it free. Another photograph.

Not burned this time. Crisp. Clear.

The girl again. The same one. Only now her eyes were crossed out in thick black ink.

And beneath, in smeared handwriting

Tomorrow night. Or she turns to ash.

The street behind us groaned with movement. A shadow broke from the alley. Tall. Silent.

Watching.

Before I could raise my gun, it stepped forward, coat flaring wide

And I saw the same black sun inked across its chest.