Chapter 68 Standing in the Fire
Chapter 68 Standing in the Fire
POV: Zara
I screamed before I even decided to.
"MOM!"
She was up the stairs in three seconds flat, her face going white the instant she saw my phone screen, the photo of myself in the mirror glowing up at both of us like proof that none of this was in my head. She grabbed the phone out of my hand and checked every window on the second floor in under a minute, her bathrobe flying behind her, calling my name and Dad's old emergency contact and the police department all in the same breath.
Two officers came out within twenty minutes. They walked the perimeter of the house with flashlights, checked the angle from every window, and found a flattened patch of grass by the oak tree that lined up close enough with my bedroom to make my skin crawl. No prints. No camera. Whoever took that photo was already long gone by the time anyone came looking.
"We'll patrol the area tonight," one of them told my mom, not me, like I was too fragile to be spoken to directly. "Given the documentation you already filed this morning, this elevates things considerably."
Mom wanted me to stay home. She said it twice, firm, scared, her hand gripping my arm like she could keep me safe just by holding on tight enough. I almost let her win that argument. Some terrified, exhausted part of me wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and pull the blankets over my head until this whole summer became someone else's nightmare instead of mine.
But Naomi had said okay. Eli was going to be there, waiting, not knowing yet what had happened in my bedroom an hour ago. And whoever was sending these messages wanted exactly one thing more than anything else: for me to disappear, to shrink, to go back to being the invisible girl who never made anyone uncomfortable by existing too loudly.
I wasn't going to give them that.
"I have to go," I told my mom, my voice steadier than I felt. "If I don't, they win. Tonight, tomorrow, every day after, they win, because they'll know all it takes is one scary photo to make me disappear."
She didn't like it. But she hugged me hard enough to bruise, made me promise to text her every twenty minutes, and let me go.
The bonfire field was already packed by the time I got there, music thumping low under a hundred overlapping conversations, the fire itself roaring tall enough to throw orange light clear across half the field. I stood at the edge for a second, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat, the dress suddenly feeling like the loudest thing I'd ever worn in my life.
I made myself walk in anyway.
Heads turned. I felt it before I even fully processed it: that specific kind of attention I hadn't had aimed at me in two years, eyes catching, conversations pausing half a beat, a ripple of recognition moving through pockets of the crowd the way a stone sends rings across still water. Some people just looked surprised. A couple of girls from my English class actually smiled, small and genuine, like they were glad to see me show up at all.
Jade's group clocked me hardest.
They were clustered near the cooler table, Jade in the center the way she always was, and the second her eyes landed on me, something sharp and ugly flickered across her face before she could smooth it back into boredom. She leaned in and whispered something to the girl beside her, who turned to look too, and within seconds half the cluster had their eyes on me, whispering behind cups and crossed arms.
I didn't look away first.
That alone felt like something. Two months ago I would have found the nearest shadow and folded myself into it. Tonight I held Jade's stare for three full seconds before she broke it, looking down at her phone instead, like it suddenly needed her attention more than I did.
I kept walking until I found a spot near the fire, close enough that the heat pressed warm against my skin, far enough from any one cluster that I wasn't intruding on anyone's circle. I just stood there, in the light, in the dress, in plain sight of everyone who'd spent a week deciding who I was based on eleven seconds of video.
My phone buzzed in my hand.
Eli. On my way. Five minutes.
I let out a breath I'd been holding since the parking lot, some of the tension easing out of my shoulders. Five minutes. I could survive five minutes standing in this fire alone.
A new buzz interrupted before I could even put the phone away.
Naomi. I'm here. By the trees on the east side. Come find me before Eli gets here. I need to tell you who it is before you see them tonight.
My stomach dropped. I turned toward the tree line on the east side of the field, scanning the dark shapes gathered there, trying to find her silhouette among the others.
That's when I saw him.
Standing just past Naomi, half-hidden in the shadow of the trees, watching me across the entire length of the bonfire with an expression I couldn't read from this far away.
Someone I knew. Someone I'd trusted completely, exactly the way Naomi warned me.
My phone buzzed one final time, the screen lighting up in my shaking hand.
He's already seen you. Don't react. Just walk toward me slowly, like nothing's wrong.