And yet, I know with certainty what I have to do.
The pain tears a seam inside me, and an ache clogs my throat. I choke on the bile of bitterness as I sniff hard, shoving the ache down deep.
I was a performer once before. I can be again. At least now, I know the difference.
As the agent walks the perimeter of the tank, I erect my shield. He mutters a swear when he completes his round. “Holy mother of god,” he mutters.
“Please, get these off me,” I manage to say.
Agent Nelson directs his attention to me. “Of course.” He pulls on a pair of latex gloves. While he’s working the cuffs, more agents and police officials enter the clearing.
Within seconds, the clearing is swarmed. Uniforms and Tyvek-suited medical examiners mark the area off with caution tape, transforming it into a crime scene. Plastic sheets stretch over what was—just hours ago—our sacred haven.
“I’m sorry to have to ask this, London.” The agent searches my gaze with a frown. He’s not sorry at all. “But I’m going to need you to undergo medical screening.”
A furious blaze lights up my chest. “You mean a rape kit.”
“Yes.” With a definitiveclick, the cuffs unlock, setting my wrists free. He shakes out an evidence bag and slips them inside. The only hint of remorse is the slight crease at the corners of his eyes. We’re both professionals. This is standard. “I’ll also need your statement shortly afterward.”
I rub my wrists, the scrapes branding my skin a painful reminder of what I’ve lost. Agent Nelson offers to help me stand, but I fend him off with an outstretched hand. “I’m all right,” I assure him.
And I am. The pain that I normally suffer hasn’t returned, vanishing the moment I accepted myself.
Later, I’ll analyze this phenomena. I’ll break it down psychologically. But I can’t think of it now.
“I’m ready,” I announce.
Agent Nelson guides me through the high walls of the maze and toward an ambulance parked a distance away from the blaze. Chaos swamps the once peaceful woods as firefighters fight back the inferno before it spreads.
I face the fire, letting its heat touch my skin. I feel it deep in my marrow, that electric pulse of chaos and disaster. Grayson’s artwork framed within a pale canvas of sky. I watch the flames dance and tease higher, until the agent forces me away.
“Any evidence must be in there,” one of the agents says as he passes, his gaze cast on the smoldering house. “We’ve recovered nothing so far.”
Agent Nelson nods to him. “Keep searching.”
I close my eyes. Just for a second to gather my bearings. I can’t do this. Not without him. Grayson said I was the key—but he was the one to unlock me. Now we’re both damned.
A medical personnel wraps a warm blanket around me, directing me farther away from the scene.
Agent Nelson follows. “Dr. Noble, was he in there?” he asks.
My gaze flicks to the blackened, charred remains of the house. The fire still burns, brilliant orange and red raging, licking the limbs of pines and sending embers into the dusky sky.
Grayson burned it all for me.
He set me free in more ways than one.
And in doing so, he destroyed my path to him. The answers to the man now ash.
Some things are meant to remain shrouded in mystery, I suppose. Where you’re not fed the answer. You have to search for it.
I wrench the answer from the dregs of my soul. “Yes,” I whisper. “He’s in there.”
A gentle shake of the agent’s head reveals his disbelief.
“How did you find me?” I ask him.
He tears his attention away from the fire and refocuses on me. “An anonymous call,” he says simply.
