Chapter 75

Chapter 75
Nathan hadn’t expected anyone that night. He’d barely slept, his mind turning the photograph over and over until it seemed etched into the inside of his eyelids. Every time he blinked, he saw his father’s hand on that boy’s shoulder, Caleb’s uncertain posture, Sheriff Grady’s watchful stance. It poisoned his rest and gnawed at his resolve. By dawn he had paced the cabin so many times that the boards seemed to echo his heartbeat.

Marlene had gone into town for supplies, insisting that they couldn’t stay locked in forever. Nathan stayed behind, unwilling to risk carrying the evidence through Hollow Creek again. When the knock came, it was sharp, deliberate—three measured raps against the cabin door. Nathan froze, pulse leaping. No one just knocked out here.

He reached for the revolver he’d been keeping near the table. The knock came again, slower this time, almost patient. Whoever it was, they weren’t afraid.

Nathan moved to the door and opened it just wide enough to see. Rain still clung to the pines, the morning air gray and heavy. On the porch stood Mayor Leland Archer.

Nathan’s stomach dropped. Archer wasn’t wearing his polished smile or his politician’s armor. He looked older than usual, his silver hair slicked back, his tailored coat hanging heavy with damp. But it was his eyes that caught Nathan—dark, steady, unflinching, like a man who hadn’t come for negotiation but for a verdict.

“May I come in?” Archer asked. His tone was polite, but it carried a weight that made it more command than question.

Nathan didn’t answer. He just opened the door wider, the revolver still visible in his hand. Archer’s gaze flicked to it briefly, then back to Nathan’s face, unfazed. He stepped inside.

The mayor moved through the cabin slowly, studying the room as though it belonged to him. Nathan shut the door and stayed by it, watching every step.

“You’ve been busy,” Archer said finally, pausing by the table where scraps of old photographs and papers still lingered from the night before. He didn’t touch them, but his eyes lingered long enough to suggest he knew exactly what they were. “Digging in places best left buried.”

Nathan tightened his grip on the revolver. “You came all the way out here just to repeat Council propaganda?”

Archer turned, his expression calm. “No. I came here to warn you.”

That made Nathan laugh bitterly. “Warn me? After what I’ve seen? After what you’ve done? You’re not here to help me. You’re here to scare me off.”

Archer shook his head. “You misunderstand. I’m not speaking as your mayor. Not even as a Council member. I’m speaking as a man who knows what happens to those who stand where you’re standing. You’ve started walking a road that doesn’t end where you think it will. If you love that woman who runs around with you, if you care for that boy who’s been dragged into this mess, you’ll stop now. You’ll leave Hollow Creek tonight.”

The words were spoken without malice, without bluster. And that made them worse. Nathan felt his skin crawl. “Why don’t you just say it? You’re threatening me.”

“I don’t threaten,” Archer said softly. He moved closer, his hands folded neatly before him. “I tell truths. And here is the truth: fire is coming. It always comes. You’ve seen enough to know that. It has no mercy for outsiders, no patience for doubters. It takes who it must, and the rest of us… we learn to live with the ashes.”

Nathan stared at him, throat dry. There was something in Archer’s tone that went beyond politics, beyond manipulation. It was reverent, almost religious. He wasn’t warning Nathan as a rival. He was prophesying.

“You talk like this isn’t your doing,” Nathan said, voice rough. “Like it’s some unstoppable force. But you and your Council—you light the match. You hide behind your robes and your masks, but you’re the ones who kill these kids. Not some god. You.”

Archer’s expression didn’t change. He tilted his head slightly, studying Nathan the way one might study a child insisting the sun revolved around the earth. “You think too small. You think this is about masks and matches, about men in robes. Do you really believe your brother died because of me? Because of Grady? No, Nathan. He died because he touched a fire that was never meant to be controlled.”

Nathan’s chest tightened. “My brother died because he tried to stop you.”

“Your brother died because he thought he could choose,” Archer replied. His voice was firm, almost sorrowful. “But the fire chooses. It always has. You think you can arm yourself, dig up your old ghosts, march into our halls with photographs and ledgers, and that will be enough. But when the time comes, you will face the same choice Caleb faced. To burn, or to bow.”

The room seemed colder suddenly, despite the damp heat from the storm. Nathan felt his pulse thudding against the grip of the revolver. “If you think I’m going to bow, you don’t know me.”

Archer’s lips curved faintly—not into a smile, but into something heavier, resigned. “I do know you. Better than you think. Blood remembers. You carry your father’s shadow, just as your brother did. And blood has a way of finding its way back to the flame.”

He stepped back then, adjusting his coat. His eyes lingered one last time on Nathan’s bag, where the photograph and other evidence was hidden. For a moment, Nathan thought he might reach for it. Instead, he straightened his shoulders and moved to the door.

“Leave, Nathan,” Archer said, his hand resting on the knob. “Leave before the fire takes you too. I’m giving you the only mercy you’ll get.”

Nathan wanted to pull the trigger. The thought blazed through him like lightning. One squeeze, and this man—the poison at the town’s heart—would be gone. But Archer looked at him with such calm certainty that Nathan’s hand wouldn’t move. It was as if killing him wouldn’t change anything. As if Archer was right: the fire would still come.

The mayor opened the door and stepped out into the gray morning. The rain had slowed, but mist curled over the wet earth. He turned back briefly, his eyes dark as embers. “Some inheritances can’t be outrun,” he said, and then he was gone, his figure swallowed by the trees.

Nathan stood frozen, the revolver heavy in his hand, breath coming in harsh gasps. His body was trembling, but not from fear. From rage. From the unbearable weight of what he’d just heard. The mayor hadn’t threatened him with prison or politics. He had threatened him with prophecy. With inevitability.

When Marlene returned later, she found Nathan still at the table, the revolver lying before him, the photograph spread out again like a wound. He didn’t look up at her right away.

“What happened?” she asked, setting the groceries down.

He finally lifted his eyes, and she saw something new in them—something colder. “The mayor paid me a visit.”

Marlene’s face went pale. “What did he say?”

Nathan’s jaw clenched. “He told me to leave before the fire takes me too. Like it’s already decided. Like I’m next.”

She stared at him, horrified. “And what did you say?”

Nathan picked up the photograph, holding it in the dim light. His father, his brother, Grady—all frozen in that moment of complicity. He thought of Archer’s words, of the calm certainty in his voice.

“I said nothing,” Nathan admitted. His voice was low, but steady. “But he’s wrong about me. I’m not my father. I’m not Caleb. I’m not going to burn. I’m going to make them.”