Lena Mercer tightened her grip on her camera as she stepped over the police tape. The air was thick with smoke and something else—something metallic, almost like blood. The house in front of her was a hollowed-out shell, its charred remains still smoldering in the early morning light.
Another fire. Another disappearance.
Her instincts screamed that this was no ordinary case. The burned house belonged to Daniel Whitmore, a man who had vanished without a trace days before the fire consumed his home. The same pattern had repeated three times in the past six months: missing person, house burned, no bodies found.
She had followed the trail of destruction across the city, each lead bringing her closer to something that didn't quite make sense. The police had their theories—accidents, arson, desperate attempts at insurance fraud—but Lena knew better. There was a pattern here, a story buried beneath the ashes. And she was determined to find it.
A gust of wind sent a wave of ash swirling around her boots. The scent of burnt wood was overpowering, but underneath it was something fouler, something that made her stomach twist. Burning flesh.
She had covered enough crime scenes to recognize the stench. And that meant—
"Mercer." A voice pulled her out of her thoughts. Detective Cole stood near the wreckage, arms crossed, his usual exasperation evident. "You shouldn't be here."
She smirked, tapping her press badge. "It's a free country, Cole."
"This isn't just some story, Lena. People are disappearing."
"Exactly why I'm here." She adjusted her camera, snapping a shot of the blackened ruins. "Any leads?"
Cole hesitated, then sighed. "Nothing concrete. But…" He glanced around as if making sure no one else was listening. "We found something inside. Something that shouldn't have survived the fire."
Lena's pulse quickened. "What is it?"
Instead of answering, Cole nodded toward the wreckage. "See for yourself."
She followed him through the ruins, careful where she stepped. The ground was still hot, and the scent of burnt wood stung her nostrils. The remains of furniture were barely recognizable, twisted metal and collapsed beams forming a chaotic skeleton of the house that once stood.
In the center of what used to be the living room stood a single object untouched by the flames.
A name, burned into the floorboards, the wood around it blackened but the letters clear:
Adrian Blackwood.
Lena stared at the name, her breath catching. She knew it. Had seen it before.
A whisper from her past.
Memories surfaced—a newspaper article from years ago, a name that had slipped into obscurity, a man who had vanished just like this. He had been accused of something dark, something sinister, and then… nothing. He had disappeared as if swallowed by the very shadows he was suspected of lurking in.
The fires. The disappearances. And now his name carved into the remains of a house burned to the ground.
A chill ran down her spine despite the lingering heat of the wreckage. Adrian Blackwood wasn't just a name.
He was a warning.
And suddenly, the fire didn't seem so cold anymore.
---
Lena spent the next hour combing through the ruins, her camera clicking with each disturbing discovery. The fire had devoured nearly everything, but certain things stood out. A picture frame, melted at the edges, yet the photograph inside remained oddly intact. A set of stairs that had collapsed into the foundation, yet one step remained completely unscathed.
Superstitious nonsense, some might say. But Lena had learned to trust her instincts. And right now, they screamed that this was no ordinary arson case.
She knelt by the name etched into the wood, running her fingers over the grooves. It wasn't carved—it was burned in, yet the letters were precise, deliberate. Not a frantic scrawl from a dying man, but a signature left behind with intent.
"Cole," she called out, her voice barely above a whisper. "There's something seriously wrong with this."
The detective rubbed his temples. "Tell me something I don't know."
"You don't understand," she pressed. "This isn't just some coincidence. Adrian Blackwood—he's been linked to other disappearances, ones just like this."
Cole stiffened. "What do you mean?"
Lena glanced around, making sure no other officers were close enough to listen. "Years ago, when I was just starting out, I came across his name in another case. A woman named Eleanor Bryce—she went missing, and just before she vanished, she had been in contact with him."
Cole frowned. "And?"
"And her house burned down three days later. Just like this one."
Silence stretched between them. Then, Cole exhaled sharply. "Christ."
Lena stood, brushing soot off her jeans. "I need to find him."
"You need to stay the hell away from him," Cole corrected. "If this guy is connected to all of this, he's dangerous."
"Exactly," she said. "And I want to know why."
She didn't wait for him to argue. The story had already pulled her in, deeper than she'd expected. But that was always the way of things, wasn't it?
A moth to the flame.