After My Fiancé Let Me Burn, I Took Everything Back

I stood in the corridor outside the Rosewood Ballroom, staring at the gardenias on the side table. White petals. Perfect edges. My mother used to tuck them behind my ear every Sunday morning. Now she was in the ground, and I was here in a champagne dress, pretending I could smile through my own engagement party.

Three weeks. That's how long it had been since the funeral. Since I'd watched them lower my parents into the earth at Woodlawn Cemetery while Atlas held my hand and promised we'd get through this together.

I pressed my palm against the cool marble wall. The ballroom behind me was full of people I barely knew anymore. Distant cousins. Business partners. Society faces who'd sent flowers and sympathy cards with my parents' names misspelled. I'd slipped out to find Atlas. I needed him. Needed to see his face and remember why I was still standing.

Then I heard his voice.

It came from a half-closed door down the hall. Low. Intimate. I moved toward it without thinking, my heels silent on the carpet.

"—won't need her much longer." Atlas. That was Atlas.

I stopped three feet from the door.

"You're sure?" A woman's voice. Soft. Familiar. "The estate transfer—"

"It's handled." Atlas again. "Edgar and Sylvia were conveniently cooperative in that regard. Everything's in motion."

My breath caught. Edgar and Sylvia. My parents. He said their names like items on a checklist.

"And Celine?" The woman's voice dropped lower. I knew that voice. I knew it. "What about her?"

"She'll sign whatever I put in front of her. She always does." A pause. Then a sound that made my stomach turn. A kiss. Slow. Deliberate. "You were right, Reign. This was always going to be ours."

Reign.

The girl I'd sponsored through college. The girl I'd saved.

I stood there, frozen, while my brain tried to catch up with my ears. The gardenias on the table blurred. My vision tunneled. I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

Reign laughed. Soft and sweet, the way she always laughed when I bought her coffee or helped her with rent. "I love you," she whispered.

"I know," Atlas said.

That's when the fire alarm went off.

The sound was so loud it felt like it split my skull. Red lights flashed in the corridor. People screamed in the ballroom behind me. I turned, disoriented, and saw smoke pouring under the door at the far end of the hall.

Atlas burst out of the room, Reign right behind him. He saw me. Our eyes met for half a second. His face went white.

"Celine—"

I ran.

I don't know why. Instinct, maybe. Or shock. I ran toward the ballroom, but the smoke was already too thick. It clawed at my throat. My eyes burned. I could hear people shouting, glass breaking, the roar of something massive and hungry.

I turned down another corridor. Wrong choice. The ceiling groaned. A beam fell in front of me, and I stumbled back, tripped, hit the floor hard. My dress tangled around my legs. I tried to stand. Couldn't. The beam had pinned the fabric. I yanked at it, but the tulle just tore without giving.

That's when I saw him.

Atlas, twenty feet away, silhouetted against the smoke. Reign was beside him, clutching his arm, her face streaked with tears. She collapsed against him, sobbing something I couldn't hear over the alarms.

I screamed his name.

He looked at me. I know he did. I saw his eyes. I saw him see me.

Then he bent down, scooped Reign into his arms, and ran.

I screamed again. My voice cracked. The smoke filled my lungs. I clawed at the beam, at the floor, at anything. The heat was unbearable. I could feel it on my collarbone, my shoulder, searing through the thin fabric.

He didn't come back.

I don't remember much after that. Hands grabbing me. A man's voice, low and urgent, telling me to hold on. The ceiling splitting open above me. Being dragged backward, my dress ripping free, cool air hitting my face as we burst through a side exit into the night.

I remember lying on the pavement. I remember the burn on my collarbone screaming. I remember looking up and seeing Legend Coleman's face, soot-streaked and grim, his hands still gripping my arms.

"You're okay," he said. "You're okay."

But I wasn't.

In the hospital, they told me I was lucky. Second-degree burns. Smoke inhalation. Nothing permanent. They gave me pills and bandages and a room with a view of the East River.

Legend sat in the chair by the window. He didn't ask questions. Didn't offer empty comfort. He just stayed.

On the third day, I finally spoke.

"I can't stay here."

He looked at me. Quiet. Steady. "Where do you want to go?"

"Anywhere," I whispered. "Anywhere but here."

He nodded. "Okay."

Two weeks later, we were on a plane to London. I left New York behind. Left the ashes. Left Atlas and Reign and everything I thought I knew.

I thought I'd never come back.

I was wrong.