Chapter 84: Something Like Fire
The silence after dawn had weight.
Not emptiness. Not comfort.
Just the kind of stillness that comes when two people say too much without using words.
Aria sat where she'd been hours ago, knees drawn close, watching Selene move across the dim room like she was untouched by sleep. The morning was gray, thin light pushing through soot - clouded glass, casting blurred shadows across the floor. Outside, the world creaked under ash and fog. Inside, breath moved too carefully, like it could spill something fragile.
Selene crouched near the rust - welded stove, coaxing heat from it with the cold precision she always carried — grace sharpened by caution. Her hands moved fluidly, metal and fire bending to her rhythm. The boiling water whispered.
Aria still hadn't spoken. Not since the kiss.
Not since she pressed her lips to Selene's cheek like it meant nothing — but both of them knew it meant too much.
Selene glanced over, unreadable. "You hungry?"
Aria nodded, but her body didn't follow. Her hands didn't move. Her lips parted, then closed again.
Selene handed her a dented metal cup, steam rising in delicate curls.
Their fingers brushed for a moment. Heat met chill. Aria didn't flinch.
They drank in silence. Not awkward — but not easy either. Like a ceasefire after a night that had almost crossed into something unspoken.
"You didn't sleep," Aria murmured finally, her voice low.
"I don't need as much."
Aria looked at her, really looked, in the bleached morning light. The glint of dried blood under Selene's jaw. The way her shoulders didn't slump, even now. Ice in her pulse, steel in her spine. Beautiful, terrifying, distant.
Yet she'd stayed.
Yet she hadn't pulled away.
Aria opened her mouth to say something else — maybe about last night, maybe not — but the sound that came next stole her words.
A heavy crash.
Then a drag.
Metal against stone. Close.
Selene froze. Eyes narrowed, the mug slipping silently from her hand onto the floor.
"Get back," she ordered, already moving — machete in hand, body taut with instinct.
Aria didn't obey. Not this time.
"I can fight."
Selene turned to her, briefly. There was something in her eyes — sharp and raw. Not anger. Not doubt. Fear.
It vanished as quickly as it came. She nodded once.
They moved like shadow and breath — quick, silent, practiced. One heartbeat behind danger.
The noise grew louder. A shuffling drag. Groans. Wet, wrong sounds.
Aria felt it before she saw it. That cold dread slipping down her spine.
The rotters came in hard —cone, two, three — stumbling from the stairwell like meat wrapped in rage. Skin slack, eyes gray, hunger carved into their rotting mouths.
Selene didn't speak. She didn't need to.
She became the blade in her hand.
The machete sang — once, twice. Blood hit the wall in hot, dark arcs.
Aria watched the largest rotter crumple, half its skull gone.
Then she moved. She remembered Selene's voice: Don't hesitate. Don't flinch. Finish it.
She drove her blade into the next one's throat. It gurgled, then fell.
But the third moved fast — too fast.
It lunged.
Fingers tangled in Aria's shirt.
Teeth flashing too close.
She stumbled, heart spiking into panic.
And then —
Selene was there.
Like a shadow unchained. Like winter made flesh.
She slammed into the rotter, driving it to the floor, knee crushing bone. One brutal strike — and the machete buried into its skull with a wet snap.
Silence.
Heavy, bloody silence.
Aria dropped to her knees, gasping.
Selene caught her — hands gripping her waist, firm but careful.
"Are you hurt?" she asked, her voice rough.
Aria shook her head. Her breath came ragged, but her skin was unbroken.
Selene's hand stayed on her hip. Her eyes scanned Aria's face, her shirt, her throat — checking. Needing to be sure.
"You scared me," she murmured. Not an accusation. A truth.
"I'm okay," Aria whispered. But her voice trembled.
Selene's hand moved, brushing the blood - stained hem of Aria's shirt. Not in a caress. In a reassurance. Like she needed to feel the life still beneath the skin.
"You don't get to die," Selene said, softly but with venom underneath. "Not before I say so."
Aria laughed, breathless. "You're possessive."
Selene didn't deny it.
Back in the office, the air was stifling again. The blood had cooled, but the tension had not.
Selene cleaned her blade in silence, her fingers exact, movements mechanical. Aria sat nearby, eyes on her, heart still racing.
Then she reached forward, slow and unsure, with a cloth.
Selene didn't stop her.
Aria dabbed at the blood on Selene's arm — careful, almost reverent. Their fingers touched. Neither pulled away.
For a breath, it was more intimate than the kiss.
More dangerous than the fight.
"I meant what I said last night," Selene said quietly, not looking at her. "You're not the same."
Aria didn't respond. She let her hand linger — just a second longer than necessary.
Selene looked at her finally. Really looked.
"I'm still scared," Aria said, almost ashamed.
"You should be."
"I'm not scared of you."
Selene's jaw tensed. A crack in the ice.
"I could ruin you."
"You already have," Aria said, barely above a whisper.
Selene's breath caught — just for a heartbeat. Then she turned away, jaw tight, expression unreadable again.
"I don't do warmth well," she said. "But last night —"
"Wasn't a mistake," Aria finished for her.
Selene didn't argue.
Outside, the wind stirred the ash across broken glass.
Inside, the silence between them smoldered.
Something had begun.
Not trust. Not yet.
But the thing that comes before fire —
The spark.
And Selene — ice - bound, unyielding — was beginning to feel the burn.
They didn't move from the room for hours.
The rotter corpses were hauled down the stairwell and burned in silence. Aria followed Selene without question, her blade still red, her fingers trembling slightly. Selene didn't comment on it.
But she noticed.
She always noticed.
By noon, the ash - flecked light had sharpened into something pale and dry. Dust clung to the corners of the building. The wind shifted through broken places in the walls. The world was crumbling — but inside this one broken room, two women sat close and said nothing.
Because the things worth saying had already been carved into their skin.
When Aria looked at Selene again, she didn't see a savior.
She didn't see the frost-born killer with blood on her knuckles.
She saw someone real.
Flawed.
Fractured.
But warm, in the way fire is warm right before it burns you down.
Selene glanced up. "You're staring."
Aria didn't look away. "I'm allowed to."
Selene raised a brow. "Says who?"
Aria's voice was quiet. Steady. "Me."
That earned her the faintest smile.
Not a smirk. Not an echo of violence.
A real smile — brief, uncertain, but real.
Aria leaned her head back against the wall. Her shoulder brushed Selene's, and this time, Selene didn't tense.
"I used to think I needed safety to survive," Aria said softly. "Now I think I just needed you."
Selene exhaled slowly, the kind of breath that carried a thousand unsaid things.
"I don't know how to be what you need."
"Then just stay."
Selene didn't promise.
She never did.
But she didn't leave.
And maybe, for now, that was enough.