Ride For Me, Die For Me.

Chapter 20: The Fire Remembers

Waiya’s POV

There was no sky. No ground. Just a void thick as tar and humming with something ancient.

I floated—no, I drifted—untethered through the dark. My body didn’t feel like mine anymore. My thoughts flickered in and out like a flame in the wind. Time didn’t exist here. Only pressure. Heat. Pain.

And the scar. Always the scar.

It pulsed against me from the inside out, a heartbeat that wasn’t mine, a voice I couldn’t silence. It whispered in a tongue older than memory, slithering through the marrow of my bones.

You don’t belong here.

You’re not strong enough.

Give in.

I tried to move, to scream, to shove it away—but it wrapped around me like smoke, like shadow. My own reflection shimmered across the void, fractured and wavering. A version of me cracked down the middle, flickering between the girl I’d always been and something else—something glowing, burning, untamed.

My limbs felt heavy. I dropped to something solid, hard and earthen beneath my feet. The void shifted, twisted, and I was standing in the Grove.

But it wasn’t the Grove I knew.

The trees were taller, older, covered in markings that shimmered like starlight. The air buzzed like every leaf was holding its breath. The fire in the center blazed brighter than I’d ever seen it, casting long shadows that danced like spirits around the clearing.

And in those shadows—I saw her.

The woman from the vision. The one who wore my face but not my name. She stepped forward, her eyes glowing gold, her body cloaked in smoke and feathers. She wasn’t afraid. She was the storm.

“You called me,” she said.

I shook my head. “I didn’t mean to—”

“But you did. Because you’re dying.”

The words slammed into me. My knees gave out. The fire flared. The scar on my back burned so hard I thought I’d split in two.

“I’m trying,” I gasped. “I’m fighting.”

“You’re hiding,” she said, stepping closer. “You’re still trying to be who you were. Still holding onto fear like it’s your birthright.”

“I don’t know how to let go.”

“Then you’ll die,” she said simply. “And something else will rise in your place.”

I looked down at my hands. They were flickering—here, not here. Real, then smoke. I could feel the scar draining more than my strength. It was taking pieces of me. Every doubt, every denial, feeding it.

I wanted to scream again, but this time, I didn’t.

This time, I stood up.

“I’m not ready,” I whispered, “but I’m here.”

She raised her chin. “Then prove it.”

The fire behind her roared to life. And suddenly, I was pulled into it. Flames surged around me, not burning—but transforming. I saw flashes: My sisters’ laughter. Granny’s hands mixing herbs. My mother’s stare across the fire. Justin holding my hand like it was the only truth that mattered.

And me. As I could be.

The scar roared. The pain came like a wave trying to drown me. But I didn’t run.

I turned into it.

I reached into the fire, into the vision, into the root of who I was. The voice that had whispered doubt cracked—sputtered—and something else emerged.

Power.

Not the kind you take. The kind you are.

The void began to crack and break apart around me. Light bled through every fracture. The Grove shimmered and bent and folded into my chest like it had always lived there.

The woman smiled.

“Remember,” she said, fading into flame. “You are not the end. You are the beginning.”

And then everything burned—but it was the kind of fire that heals. That cleanses.

When the darkness faded, I wasn’t floating anymore.

I was rising. But rising wasn’t easy.

The ground beneath me trembled. The glow from the Grove flickered out like a candle snuffed in a storm. Darkness surged back, swallowing everything in its path. The warmth, the fire, the woman—they vanished.

And then something screamed.

Not with sound, but with rage. With hunger. A cry that split the void open and spilled every fear I’d ever buried across the space like shattered glass.

Suddenly, I wasn’t standing anymore—I was kneeling, then crawling, dragged by the weight of doubt that clung to me like chains.

“You think you’re ready?” the voice snarled—not the woman’s, no. This was colder. Older. It sounded like me, if I’d never known love. If I’d been raised only in pain. “You’ve never been ready. That’s why he left. That’s why your mother looks through you. Why your father died before you could learn a damn thing worth passing on.”

I clutched my head as the visions came—too fast, too real. Justin walking away, face hard. My sisters laughing without me. My momma turning her back. My father’s bloodied hands reaching for me in the dark, only to fade before I could touch them.

The scar pulsed harder. I could feel it stretching, taking more. It was feeding off this. My grief. My guilt. My silence.

“No,” I whispered. “This isn’t me.”

But the void answered with another image—me standing over a body. Blood on my hands. Power burning from my eyes. Alone.

“You saw this,” the voice hissed. “You will become this. You’re too weak to stop it.”

I fell to my side, shaking. That weight on my chest again. That pressure that told me maybe it’d be easier to let go. To disappear into whatever came next. Would it even hurt?

Would anyone really miss me?

The silence in that question shattered me.

I closed my eyes—and for a moment, I wanted to fade.

But that’s when I felt it.

A hand—rough, calloused—slipping into mine.

I couldn’t see him, but I knew it was Justin. The pressure, the quiet steadiness. The way it reminded me I wasn’t alone. That someone had seen me, and stayed anyway.

Then another hand—smaller, softer. Nyla, maybe. Then another—Lily. Then another—Granny. And one more, hesitant but warm. My mother.

They didn’t speak. They didn’t pull me up.

They anchored me.

They reminded me I wasn’t fighting just for myself.

I grit my teeth. My fingers curled into fists. The scar throbbed, furious, as if it knew it was losing control.

The dark shape in front of me, the version of myself twisted by fear, snarled.

“You are the scar,” it hissed. “You are the pain. Without it, you’re nothing.”

“No,” I said, dragging myself to my knees. “I am the girl who survived it.”

The Grove burst into light again—blinding, radiant. Roots cracked through the void, wrapping around my arms, my legs, holding me steady. Not like chains this time. Like lifelines.

The shadow form tried to lunge at me, but I stood fully now, breathing deep, letting the pain burn through me, not control me.

“I see you,” I said to it. “I see what you fed on. But I’m done starving myself for fear.”

I reached behind me and gripped the scar—not my skin, not my wound, but the root of it. My ancestor’s magic. My birthright, twisted. It burned like ice and fire at once—but I didn’t flinch.

The voice howled.

I pulled.

And the scar resisted—like a living thing. Like it had claws. It dug deeper, trying to root itself in me forever. My body shook. My chest seized. But I didn’t let go.

I remembered the woman’s words:

You are not the end. You are the beginning.

“I won’t die here,” I shouted into the dark. “I’m not giving you another inch!”

With one last surge of everything I had left—grief, rage, love, hope—I ripped the scar’s grip from inside me.

The pain was indescribable.

But beneath it—there was silence.

Then light.

Then breath.

Real breath.

The void cracked apart like a mirror hit with a hammer. Light flooded every inch of me. The scar’s last scream echoed once—and then vanished.

And for the first time in what felt like centuries—I felt whole.

My spirit touched down in the Grove again, but it was new now. Not ancient, not unknown. It felt like mine. The trees leaned toward me like they knew my name. The fire burned low, steady, safe.

I looked down at my arms. The tribal markings from the vision were glowing faintly. Not tattoos. Not illusions.

Marks of awakening.

The woman reappeared, but now—she wasn’t just smoke and fire. She was part of me. Her voice was mine.

“You made your choice,” she said softly. “Now hold it.”

And just like that, I was falling again—but this time, not into void or flame.

Into my body.

Into breath.

Into pain—dull, but real.

Into life.