Touch me and burn

Chapter Twelve: Smoke on the Water

(Amara POV)

The air outside hit like a slap—cool and sharp and far too clean after everything I’d just seen. London at dawn has its own kind of menace. Not loud. Not chaotic. Just... off. The kind of silence that creeps under your skin and whispers that something’s watching, just out of view.

Ciaran didn’t speak. Just moved like he knew exactly where he was going. His coat flared with each step, boots slicing through puddles left from the midnight rain. I kept close behind him, arms wrapped tight around myself like it might hold me together. It didn’t.

We passed a fox nosing through bins, its amber eyes catching mine. It didn’t flinch. Just watched. Bold. Still. Like it knew.

Ciaran stopped at the edge of the street, glanced over his shoulder. “You good?”

I almost laughed. “No.”

He gave me this look—somewhere between noted and deal with it. Then he gestured toward a sleek black car parked half-on, half-off the curb. Not a flashy one. Not an obvious one. The kind of vehicle that could follow you for blocks and you’d never notice.

He opened the passenger door for me.

“I can open my own door, you know,” I said.

He didn’t flinch. “And yet, here we are.”

I slid in. The seat was warm, probably because he never really shut the car off. It smelled like leather, ash, and something faintly floral. Not from him. Whoever had been in here last was wearing perfume. Expensive. Female. Familiar.

I didn’t ask.

He got in and pulled off without another word. The city slid past in silence—storefronts closed, windows shuttered, the odd cab slinking by like a ghost on wheels.

After two blocks, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“What the f**k just happened, Ciaran?”

He exhaled like he’d been waiting for me to crack. “You saw what I saw.”

“No. I saw a hand in a freezer and a man disappear from under my skin. I saw my own reflection lie to me. I saw you show up like some brooding goddamn horror film extra with nothing but attitude and that f*****g voice.”

He smirked, eyes on the road. “You missed me, then.”

I nearly slapped him. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I’m not. I’m a nightmare. I know my lane.”

“Seriously, what do you think that was?”

“A calling card. A test. They’re watching you, Amara. Pushing buttons. Seeing what wakes up.”

“Wakes up?”

He glanced at me, expression unreadable. “You think the dreams are just dreams? You think reincarnation plays out like a storybook? It’s messy. It’s ugly. Pieces of you come back twisted. Wrong.”

“Do you remember?” I asked. “All of it?”

A long pause.

“Enough.”

“Enough to what? To kill me? Again?”

He didn’t respond.

And that silence—that silence—was worse than any answer.

We turned onto a street I didn’t recognize. Somewhere near the Thames, judging by the stink of river rot and salt. Old buildings loomed on either side, the kind that hadn’t been renovated because people were afraid of what they’d find in the walls.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Limehouse. The address from the text.”

“The next victim.”

He nodded, parking halfway down the block in front of a squat brick townhouse with iron grates over the lower windows. The kind of place that didn’t just look abandoned, it felt it. Like the bricks had been holding their breath for decades.

I hesitated.

“You don’t have to come in,” Ciaran said. “But you probably should.”

I got out.

The front door was slightly ajar.

Ciaran pulled gloves from his coat and snapped them on. He didn’t draw a weapon. Just moved like he was the weapon.

Inside, the air was thick. Damp. Musty.

The hallway was narrow, the floorboards old enough to remember war. The smell of copper hit first. Then something sweeter. Rancid. Rotting fruit and something... floral again.

The scent from the car.

He clocked it too.

We moved in silence, each step careful.

The living room had been ransacked—furniture overturned, drawers pulled out, a stack of tarot cards scattered on the floor. One stuck to my shoe when I stepped forward.

I peeled it off.

The Tower.

Of course.

Ciaran knelt by the fireplace. There was chalk on the bricks—worn and half-smudged but still legible. A spiral. Inside it, a flame.

The symbol again.

He didn’t say a word. Just pulled out his phone and snapped a picture.

“You think they’re summoning something?” I asked.

He looked up. “They already have.”

I moved past the threshold and stopped.

There was a girl on the floor.

Naked.

Beautiful.

Dead.

Her throat was slit clean. Almost surgical. And beside her, in perfect lines, someone had arranged black candles and a bowl filled with something thick and red.

Blood, obviously.

But also… petals.

Roses.

I turned to the wall and vomited.

Ciaran didn’t comfort me. Didn’t say a word. Just let me purge whatever was left of last night, and maybe a little more.

When I finally straightened, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, he held something out.

A tissue.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

He nodded once.

I looked at the body again, but forced myself to focus. “She’s not just a victim. She’s a message.”

“Good,” he said. “You’re learning.”

“Learning what?”

“That this isn’t about you. It’s about what’s inside you. What’s waking up. And what they want to take.”

“You keep saying they. Who the f**k are they?”

He looked at me, eyes dark. “The ones who remember. The ones who never forgot.”

My skin went cold. “You mean… like us?”

“No,” he said softly. “Worse.”

The word hung between us like smoke.

Then his phone buzzed.

He checked it. Frowned.

“They’ve moved.”

“Who?”

“The ones watching. There’s another location. Southbank. Something’s happening tonight.”

“You’re not dragging me to another crime scene.”

He tucked the phone away. “No. Not tonight.”

“Then what?”

His mouth curved.

“We’re going to dinner.”

I blinked. “What?”

“You need to eat. You look like death.”

“You dragged me out of a crime scene to play house?”

He stepped closer. “No, Amara. I dragged you into a crime scene so you’d know what you’re dealing with. Now I’m buying you dinner so you don’t collapse halfway through what’s coming next.”

I hated that it made sense.

I hated that part of me wanted to go with him.

But more than anything—I hated the way his voice wrapped around the word dinner like it meant something far more dangerous.

And the worst part?

He was right.

I was already halfway gone.