The house smelled like smoke and rain.
Not fire nothing that dramatic. Just the sharp, bitter tang of something that had burned a long time ago and never quite faded.
The kind of smell that clung to old lies and expensive furniture.
Sienna didn't rush as we moved down the wide marble staircase.
She didn't hesitate either.
Each step was measured, deliberate like she was relearning how to move through a space that had once felt safe and now felt hollow.
Like a museum built around someone else's childhood.
I stayed half a step behind her.
Not because she needed protection.
Because I needed to be close enough in case she cracked.
She hadn't spoken since we left the upper floor since she'd stood in that pristine living room and watched her past collapse under the weight of truth.
Outside, the storm was still tearing the city apart. Rain lashed against the tall windows, thunder rolling low and heavy, rattling the bones of the house. Somewhere upstairs, the bedrooms, the photos, the carefully curated memories were being swallowed by silence.
Good.
We reached the front door. I opened it, and the cold hit us immediately sharp and real, slicing through the thick, artificial warmth of the house she'd grown up in.
She stopped beneath the covered porch, rain misting the air around us.
And then she finally breathed.
It wasn't a sob. It wasn't a scream.
It was a long, shuddering exhale like her body had been holding its breath since childhood and only just realized it was allowed to let go.
I turned toward her slowly. "Sienna."
She didn't look at me.
"They're gone," she said quietly.
I frowned. "They're very much still..."
"No," she interrupted. "They're gone." Her fingers curled into the fabric of her jacket. "The people I thought were my parents. The life I thought I had. All of it."
She swallowed hard.
"I don't know who I am without that lie."
There it was.
Not the anger.
Not the fire.
The aftermath.
I stepped closer, careful like I was approaching something fragile, despite everything I knew about her strength.
"You're still you," I said gently. "You always were."
She shook her head. "What if I'm not?" Her voice cracked. "What if everything I am was shaped by them?"
I reached for her then not hovering, not hesitating. My hands settled on her arms, grounding, real.
"Then you take it back," I said. "You decide what stays."
She finally looked at me.
God, her eyes.
The storm was still there, but underneath it was exhaustion so deep it scared me. The kind that comes after surviving something you never should have had to.
"I remember my mother's laugh," she whispered. "I remember my father lifting me onto his shoulders. I remember thinking the world was safe."
Her lip trembled. She didn't wipe it away this time.
"I lost that twice."
I pulled her into me before she could fall apart again.
This time, she didn't resist.
She pressed her forehead into my chest, fists clutching my coat like it was the only solid thing left in the world. Her breath came uneven, tears soaking through the fabric.
I held her.
Not like I was afraid she'd break.
Like I knew she already had and was still standing anyway.
"I should've told you sooner," I murmured into her hair. "I thought I was protecting you."
"You were," she said, muffled. "Just… not from the truth."
That hurt.
Good. It should.
We stood there like that while the rain fell around us, the house looming behind us empty now, stripped of its power. The past finally loosening its grip.
After a while, her breathing steadied.
She pulled back slightly, just enough to look up at me. "What happens now?"
I considered the question carefully.
"Now," I said, "we deal with the fallout. The people they worked with. The systems they hid behind. The lies that kept them powerful."
Her eyes sharpened again not with rage, but with clarity.
"And me?"
I smiled faintly. "You get to choose who you become."
She studied me for a long moment.
Then she nodded.
"Okay," she said. "But I'm not doing it alone."
Something tight in my chest finally eased.
"Good," I replied. "Because I'm not letting you."
Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance authorities, consequences, the world finally catching up.
The storm raged on, indifferent.
Sienna stepped away from me and squared her shoulders.
The fire hadn't gone out.
It had settled.
Controlled. Directed. Dangerous.
"Let's go," she said.
And as we walked into the rain together, I realized something with quiet certainty.
The people who destroyed her childhood had created something far worse than their own downfall.
They had created a woman who remembered.
And the world was about to feel it.