~ đź–¤
---
---
They stopped pretending they could go back after the blood.
After the hospital took Jax away.
After Maya's hands stopped shaking.
After Elias kissed her like he wasn't sure they'd survive the next night.
They didn't talk about the knife.
Or the gun.
Or the fact that they had become the very chaos Mira left behind.
Instead, they did what broken people do best.
They burned.
---
Maya woke up in Elias's bed with the sheets tangled around her legs, her skin warm from his body heat, her soul aching in silence.
Elias lay beside her, eyes open, watching her like she was something he couldn't believe was still there.
> "Why are you staring?" she asked.
> "Because I keep expecting you to leave."
> "I'm not."
> "Not even if they arrest me?"
> "They won't."
> "You don't know that."
She touched his jaw, gently.
> "Then I'll be waiting."
---
School was a ghost town for them now.
Whispers chased them down halls, but no one dared come too close. Not after what happened. Not after the article leaked photos of Jax bleeding out in Elias's arms.
> Violent Love Triangle Turns Deadly: Two Students Hospitalized, One Under Investigation.
Maya didn't read the full piece.
She didn't need to.
The headline alone felt like a brand across her chest.
---
Serena called. Maya didn't answer.
Her parents tried to come by. She locked the door.
The only person she saw now was Elias.
And with him, there were no masks left.
No walls.
No pretending this was a high school romance gone wrong.
This was war.
And they were both casualties.
---
One night, Elias took her to the cliffs behind his family's old estate — the place no one went anymore after the last suicide there three years ago.
Maya shivered as the wind clawed at her dress.
> "Why here?" she asked.
> "Because I want you to see what I am," Elias said, eyes fixed on the drop below. "This is what I've been walking toward every day since Mira died."
She reached for his hand.
> "You don't have to fall."
> "Don't I?"
> "Not alone."
---
He turned to her, eyes wild.
> "You still don't get it. I was already broken before you. Mira just shattered what was left."
> "Then let me pick up the pieces."
> "You don't fix what wants to stay ruined."
> "Maybe I don't want to fix you. Maybe I just want to burn with you."
That made him pause.
He stared at her like he didn't recognize the girl who once flinched every time he came near.
> "Then burn with me, Maya," he whispered. "But don't expect to survive."
---
And so she kissed him.
Hard. Deep. Desperate.
Because they were both too far gone now.
---
They skipped classes.
Avoided people.
Lived in the shadows of their own making.
Their love became a drug — high, reckless, unforgiving.
He kissed her like he was trying to erase the world.
She let him touch her like he was carving her into something new.
And every time she looked in the mirror, she saw a girl who was no longer afraid of him.
Only afraid of what she'd become because of him.
---
One evening, she found Elias in his room, sitting in front of the mirror.
He had Mira's necklace in his hand.
> "You kept it?" she asked.
> "To remind me what I ruined."
> "You didn't kill her."
> "Didn't I?"
> "She chose the car. She chose the lie."
> "And I chose to keep loving you."
She swallowed.
> "Do you regret it?"
> "Every day."
> "Then why stay?"
> "Because every time I try to leave, you become the only place I want to stay."
---
He stood, walked to her, and pressed the necklace into her hand.
> "It belongs to you now."
> "No."
> "Yes."
> "I don't want her memory haunting me."
> "Then wear it as a warning."
> "To who?"
> "To the world. That you were loved so hard, it turned someone into a monster."
---
Later that night, Maya sat on the balcony, the necklace cold around her throat, staring at the moon.
She thought of Jax.
Of Serena.
Of Mira's twisted games.
Of how she was no longer the girl who once smiled with soft eyes and a notebook full of quiet dreams.
She was something else now.
Something born from grief.
Forged in obsession.
And tethered to a boy who would never stop choosing her — even if it meant losing himself.
---
> "I loved Mira too," she whispered into the dark.
"But you were always the one I died for."
---
The next morning, a knock came at the door.
A uniformed officer stood on the porch.
> "Mr. Elias Cross?"
> "Yes."
> "You're needed for further questioning."
> "Now?"
> "Now."
---
Maya stood behind him, bare feet on cold tile.
Elias didn't look back.
But before he walked out the door, he said one thing:
> "Don't forget how we burned, Maya."
> "I won't."
> "Even if I never come back."
> "I'll still wear the fire."
---
đź–¤