Born to burn

3. BURN FIRE BURN. ___________________________

PHOENIX POV

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I don’t remember falling asleep. How could I? He beat me good this time, and not only that, but I suppressed the other memory immediately. All I remember is the cold, the stink of bile and blood clinging to my throat like a second skin, and then the silence, stretched thin and taut as a noose. The darkness consumed me after, and as it spread, something woke up with me. It begins as a flicker. Tiny. Gentle. A thin, glowing vein sliding along the kitchen floor, like a thread pulled loose from reality, bright,molten, curious. I’m not in my body now. Not really. I’m floating, watching, somewhere in the house. Everything is tinted red-gold and thick with smoke that hasn’t arrived yet. The flame slithers beneath the cracked linoleum, splitting the seams like it’s tracing the blueprints of every fight, every scream, every bottle thrown and every fist. It moves with purpose, but not haste, more like it’s tasting the air, like it knows exactly where it’s going. It finds the baseboards, the wallpaper, the trash left rotting beside the fridge, and it breathes and erases. The fire flares. It’s alive now, roaring to life with a sound that isn’t just heat but hunger. It devours the table legs, curls up into the curtains like hands seeking a throat. Glass shatters, wood snaps, and the sound is beautiful. It makes me feel calm, content, almost happy, so I don’t run, I watch with amazement. The fire spreads like memory, like revenge, like blood spilt in reverse, soaking upward, filling the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. The old mould under the sink turns to black smoke. The holes in the drywall blister and glow. The whole house is glowing from the inside out and it’s beautiful. The living room couch’s ugly plaid, stained with beer and secrets, bursts into flame like it’s been waiting to die. The hallway pulses with heat and my bedroom door buckles. The paint blisters and peels. I see it now, splinters of fire creeping under the frame, clawing in like fingers made of hell. Suddenly, through it all, something laughs. Not a sound, a feeling. Like the fire is glad to be here. Like it remembers everything this house has done to me as the shadows of it dance, not with fear but celebration. Good, they seem to say. Let it all burn, I think to myself. Let it all burn. The ceiling sags, glowing with orange veins. The floorboards moan like the house is trying to scream but forgot how. Smoke pours through the vents like breath from the lungs of something long dead. I see it all. The faded, strange photos on the wall catch, one by one, faces curling in heat, ink boiling off glossy paper, the ghosts of this family peeling away to ash. It should feel like a nightmare, but it doesn’t. It feels right. Warm. Safe. Honest. Like the house is finally telling the truth. And just before the flames reach through the door of my room, licking at the edges of the mattress where my secrets sleep, I hear it again, that silent voice.

„You never needed saving.” I lurch awake to screaming, not mine, but I know that voice. It’s Michelle, my stepmother shrieking like the walls themselves are tearing her lungs out. I blink hard. Light sears the corners of my vision and then I feel it. Heat. Real. Tangible. Alive.

„What the f***k?” I mumble as I drag myself upright, still half-numb. The bathroom is full of smoke, pulsing through the door. I crawl through it into my room. I see it behind the door. Fire. Not a f.ucking dream. It’s real, here and now. The room is full of smoke, choking every corner, flames licking up the door like hell itself came to collect. I don’t have time to think, I just move. I stumble. The air is thick, blinding. I can’t see the walls, but I don’t care. I have only one thing on my mind as I drop to my knees, shove the mattress aside with everything I’ve got left, and claw for the envelope slit. My fingers close around the stacks. I grab all of them, every last dollar, the photo of my real mother, smudged and warped, edges curled from years of being touched when no one was looking. I stuff it into my bag, grab the first clothes I can find, a hoodie, jeans, anything not soaked in blood, and bolt for the window as the flames peek through the door. My vision swims, my throat is raw, and the smoke burns like poison every time I suck in air. Just when I claw my way up onto the roof, the heat behind me explodes, glass shattering, wood splitting, flames pouring out the door and crawling to the window like they’ve been waiting for their cue. The sky is black above me, orange below, and smoke everywhere. I crouch low, hands trembling, every inch of me screaming with pain as I crawl across the shingles. Below, in the front yard, I see them. My stepfather, shirtless, wild-eyed, blood still streaked across his cheek. Screaming. Pointing. Her too. Hair tangled. Face red. Shrieking at the firefighters who haven’t even gotten out of the truck yet.

„She did this.” She screams at them.

„It’s her. That little psycho lit the house on fire. She tried to kill us. She was in there.” She’s hysterically yelling like she saw me strike the match, but I didn’t… or did I? Did I? No. No, that’s not possible. I dreamt it. I dreamt of the fire, but this is ridiculous. What am I even thinking? People don’t light fires when they sleep, s.tupid. Anyway, I can’t wait to find out. I slip down the far side of the roof, boots barely catching on the drainpipe as I drop hard into the backyard with a painful groan.

„F.uck.” I almost forgot about the beating, but I ran. Hopefully, no one saw me. Yeah, no, they’re too busy watching this shithole burn. I don’t wait and take off running. Everything hurts. I can’t breathe. But I run anyway. Down the alley, past the rusted fence, through the undergrowth behind the old church. I don’t stop until the smoke’s behind me and the sirens are a distant memory. My lungs feel like they’re still full of smoke, but the bag is clutched over my shoulders. My cash, my mother’s photo, and my way out. The city yawns in front of me like a beast, wide and full of teeth, but for the first time, I’m not walking toward it empty. I don’t know what that dream was, or what made it real. It was just f.ucking coincidence, right? But the fire started another fire in me, and now there’s nothing left tying me to that house, to that place. Right now, I’ve got nothing left to lose, only what I take. Deep in my thoughts as I catch my breath and fight with the pain, right in front of me police sirens, red and blue flash like goddamn prophecy.

„F.uck…” I am tired, and I don’t think I could run away from them, so as the sirens wail, two cruisers block the alley mouth like they’ve been waiting for me. I look up with surrender, while my heart is still hammering with smoke and adrenaline. Flashlights in my eyes. Two uniforms are already out of the car. One with a hand on his belt like I’m armed, like I’m dangerous, the other one with crunched brows and a flashlight that burns a hole in my head. It was nice to dream for a while about freedom, wasn’t it?

„Hands up.” One of them barks in a stern voice. I listen, and my bag falls over my shoulder. My throat is raw, my lip is cracked, I taste copper every time I breathe, but I don’t flinch. He catches my wrist hard, yanks it behind me. It’s too tight, but he doesn’t care. I hiss through my teeth.

„Phoenix Fay Blackwood?” He asks, already cuffing me like the answer matters. I don’t reply. I only nod.

„We’ve got her. Driving her back now.” The radio crackles. Of course they are. „Come on, troublemaker.” The younger one mutters as he guides me toward the cruiser, fingers digging into my arm like I’m a f.ucking bomb about to go off. I sigh. Not scared. Just done. My f.ucking luck, right? They take me in. Of course they do. But not to jail. At least not yet, anyway. When we get to the station, to the rooms with white walls and fluorescent lights that buzz like flies stuck in a jar. Great. I look like a fire truck ran over me on the way here. Two officers, a social worker, and someone from the fire department sit me down across the table in a room that smells like Lysol, lies, and the ghosts of too many wrong kids dragged through here before me. Fluorescent lights hum like they’re judging me, but I stare straight ahead.

„Phoenix Fay Blackwood?” The social worker says like it’s a name she’s practising for the first time. I don’t answer, not because I’m trying to be difficult, just because I don’t owe them my voice. A fireman leans forward, sweat stains around his collar, and he looks like he’s seen worse, but not much.

„Where were you tonight?” The social worker asks like she’s reading it from some questionnaire.

„Out.” I shrug. She trades glances with the officer beside her, older, grizzled, done with this s**t.

„Out where?” He barks.

„Around.” I whisper, annoyed.

„What time did you leave the house?”

The laughable social worker asks another unimportant question from her paper.

„Late.” Another glance. Another note scribbled. The pen clicks. The air’s too cold.

„Did you light anything? Matches? A lighter?” That almost makes me laugh. I look up at them finally. Eyes swollen. One is probably black. Lips cracked. I lick the blood away before I speak.

„Really? Did I light anything? Do you see me? You think I had time to strike a f.ucking match?” They go quiet. The woman clears her throat. Her tone was gentler. Fake concern, soft enough to cut.

„Phoenix… there were no lighters in your bag. No accelerants. Nothing found on the scene that points directly to you, but we still need to know if you…” She’s suddenly so sweet I might vomit again.

„If I what?” I spit at her as I lean forward, voice low, slicing.

„Had a hallucination so vivid it set the goddamn place on fire?” No one answers, so I breathe out.

„No… I ran when it burned. That’s all I did.” I lean back, exhaling slowly.

„And I’d do it again. Like I always do.” The older cop taps the folder in front of him.

„And what about your face?” I pause, looking at him. Is he f.ucking s.hitting me right now?

„I… fell.” I murmur and look aside.

„That bruise under your eye looks like someone else did it.” Yeah, no s.hit, Sherlock. I say nothing, because they are a bunch of i.mbeciles and I’m done answering their i.diotic questions. So they wait, and I let them. I don’t care, because I don’t have anywhere else to be, and because I’ve learned something from pain. It makes you quiet, but it also makes you stronger than anyone expects. Eventually, they realise they won’t break me. So after that embarrassing interrogation, they silently swabbed my hands. Gloves. Brushes. Chemicals that smell like acetone and disappointment.

„Testing for residue.” One mutters. Yeah, you do that, I think to myself.

„Standard procedure.” I let them. Sit still while they poke and scrape, because I already know what they’ll find. Nothing. And when they do? The silence that follows isn’t relief. It’s frustration. You can feel it in the way the room tightens. No one says sorry and no one says maybe she’s the victim. They just shift. Pathetic cowards. I watch them recalculate. Rebuild their idea of me with less fire and more doubt. The younger cop clicks his pen and finally speaks, not to me, about me, to my stepfather.

„So… we’ve got nothing to hold her on, sir.”