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“You want to give up and die now? Fine. If you’re staying, I’m staying. We’ll burn together.”

A beam from the ceiling splinters and crashes to the floor, startling her with an explosion of embers. The heat is blistering. Sweat is pouring down my back.

But I accept it. If my angel says to burn alive in a church, I’ll do it.

She stares at me like she’s holding in a sob. I keep my eyes on her. Let the world burn around us as long as I’m looking at her when I go.

Then she rushes to me.

Her hands grab my face, and she pulls my lips to hers in a hard, furious kiss. I rise and take her in. Her skin is streaked with grime and blood. Cuts mark her body. She’s panting, breathing in too much smoke with a dazed look in her eyes.

“Can you walk?” I ask. My voice doesn’t sound like me. I sound like some desperate version of myself on the brink of breaking.

She nods, but her gaze drifts.

I peel off my leather jacket with my good arm. The sleeve catches, and I hiss through my teeth as pain spikes up the injured one. There’s a bloody hole in the back, but it’ll do to cover her.

I wrap the jacket around her body, shielding her from the flames that want to cook us alive. She clutches it to herself.

Smoke hangs thick overhead, forcing us to hunch low beneath it. Every breath scratches. Both of us are coughing. My eyes burn. Somewhere beyond the nave, flames crackle with a steady appetite, licking over the pews.

The front doors are a wall of fire now. Light flickers through the stained glass, turning the saints into warped, dancing colors.

I grip Zaiya’s wrist. “Down.”

Her gaze snaps to mine, startled. It feels wrong to go lower in a fire. Every instinct screams upward. Escape. Outside.

But staying up here means certain death.

I drag her towards the basement stairs. Flames crawl along the walls nearby, but the stairwell itself isn’t blocked. Heat pulses from it like dragon’s breath.

We move fast. My hand stays on the back of her neck, steering her, guarding her, keeping her close enough that if she stumbles, I can catch her before the smoke does.

We hit the basement, and the air is worse.

Hot. Thick. It tastes like old dust and ash. The fire is louder here. A sharp crack splits the air. Wood pops and groans overhead.

Zaiya flinches. Her fingers clamp around mine. But the concrete walls block the flames for now.

“Keep moving,” I say.

We run.

The hallway stretches on forever. Behind us, something collapses with a heavy, brutal finality, and the vibration travels through the foundation to our feet.

Zaiya trips, and I catch her, hauling her against me without slowing.

She thought she was going to die in this church. And I thought she was already gone. Getting to the door feels like a miracle.

Up the stairs, I reach for the doorknob, but pull back when it singes my palm. Using my shirt as a guard, I try it again. It’s stuck. Swollen with heat.

I yank it harder. Pain lances through my arm, blacking out my vision. But I do it again and again, forcing the swollen wood loose bit by bit.

The door gives. Cool night air slams into us with mercy. We stagger out, and the moment we clear the threshold, I pull her to my chest so hard she makes a small sound of surprise. Her body molds against mine.

To my shock, she lets it happen. She leans into me, a fallen angel accepting shelter from a demon.

Outside, Sacred Spirit Church is a lantern of violence. Flames bloom in the windows. Smoke billows up into a black sky. The cemetery is lit in flickering orange.