Zeke's POV
“Wake up!”
A voice—urgent, panicked—rang in my head, but I was too groggy to react. My body was heavy, weighed down by the remnants of sleep and the dull ache from the night before.
Then I smelled it.
Smoke.
Thick. Suffocating. Wrong.
My eyes shot open. The attic was hazy, black tendrils curling in through the cracks in the wooden door. My chest tightened as the acrid stench filled my lungs. Fire.
I shot up, my heart hammering against my ribs. This wasn’t just a small fire. This was destruction. This was death.
Coughing, I stumbled toward the door, yanking it open. The hallway beyond was already thick with smoke, flames licking at the wallpaper, devouring everything in their path. Heat blasted against my skin, making my eyes water.
“Mom? Dad?” My voice was hoarse, barely audible over the roar of the fire.
No answer.
Panic clawed at me.
I took the stairs two at a time, my bare feet slamming against the heated wood. The moment I reached the grand hallway, my stomach dropped.
Bodies.
Scattered across the marble floors.
Guards. Staff. People I had known since childhood.
Their eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, their throats slit, their chests riddled with bullets. The fire hadn’t killed them. Someone else had.
I stumbled back, bile rising in my throat.
This wasn’t an accident.
This was a massacre.
“Dad?! Mom?! Cara?!” My voice cracked as I ran, desperate, lungs burning.
No answer. Only the relentless crackling of the flames.
I turned toward my father’s office. The doors were ajar, and inside—voices. Heavy boots scraping against the floor. A low murmur of conversation, calm amidst the chaos.
I pressed myself against the wall, peering inside.
And then—I saw them.
My parents.
Kneeling.
Their hands tied behind their backs, faces bruised, clothes soaked in sweat and blood.
A man stood before them. Masked. Dressed in black from head to toe, a gun resting casually in his grip.
My father was begging.
“Please—she’s just a child.” His voice was shaking, raw with desperation.
The masked man tilted his head, considering him. Then, without hesitation, he raised the gun and pulled the trigger.
The sound split through the room like a lightning strike.
My mother collapsed, blood splattering across the floor.
I slapped a hand over my mouth, biting back the scream rising in my throat.
“No—no, no, no,” I whispered, my vision blurring.
My father choked on a sob, his entire body trembling as he turned to the killer. “Please,” he rasped. “Not Cara. Not my daughter.”
I stiffened.
Cara.
I barely had time to process it before the masked man lifted the gun again—this time, aiming it at my sister.
I moved without thinking.
I lunged forward, ready to scream, to throw myself at them, to do something—
But then, hands grabbed me from behind.
I thrashed wildly. No, no, no! I had to stop this—I had to—
“Let go of me!” I shouted, but a hand clamped over my mouth, muffling my screams.
“If you love them,” a voice whispered urgently in my ear, “you need to run. Now.”
The voice was soft but firm. A girl’s voice.
I froze.
I couldn’t see her face—just dark strands of hair, her grip iron-strong. She wasn’t hurting me, but she wasn’t letting me go, either.
I twisted, trying to look at her, but she was already pulling me backward, forcing me away from the massacre, away from the fire.
“No!” I fought harder, my chest heaving. “I have to save them!”
“You can’t!” she hissed.
A gunshot rang out.
Then another.
A scream—small, fragile, familiar—echoed through the flames.
My heart shattered.
“No—Cara!”
I lurched forward, but the girl yanked me back, shoving me down the corridor. “There’s nothing you can do!” she snapped, her voice cracking. “If you stay here, you’ll die too!”
I didn’t care.
I wanted to burn with them. To let the flames take me, just like they took my family.
But she wouldn’t let me.
She was relentless, dragging me through the suffocating heat, weaving through the smoke-filled corridors with ease. I barely felt my feet moving. My mind was back in that office, stuck in the horror of what I had just seen.
The next thing I knew, we were outside.
The cool night air hit my face, shocking me back into reality. The lake shimmered in the moonlight, its surface still and untouched—so cruelly peaceful compared to the destruction behind me.
Behind us, the Donahue manor burned.
The flames reached high into the sky, black smoke curling against the stars. The place I had called home for twenty years was gone.
And so was my family.
I sank to my knees at the edge of the lake, my body shaking.
The girl knelt beside me. “You have to stay alive.” Her voice was softer now, almost pleading. “You’re the only one who can bring justice to what happened tonight.”
I turned to look at her, but before I could say anything—before I could even ask for her name—she was already moving.
Stepping back into the shadows. Walking away.
“Wait—who are you?” My voice came out hoarse, desperate. She didn’t answer. She disappeared into the smoke, swallowed by the night.
I never saw her again.