Chapter 8: Winslow

James' boots hammered against cobblestone as he tore through the administrative district, lungs burning, vision tunneling. The warehouse's interior still blazed behind his eyes with crates stacked floor to ceiling, his signature on every manifest, supplies that never moved. Three days. She'd been dead three days while he signed papers.

The boundary gates loomed ahead, wrought iron separating the council quarters from the human district. He'd passed through them every day for weeks, barely glancing at what lay beyond. Now he crashed through, and the district opened before him like a wound.

The silence hit him first. He'd left this place alive with voices, sounds of children playing, neighbors calling greetings, the bustle of daily survival. Now wind moved through empty streets, shutters banging on abandoned houses.

James's sprint faltered to a jog, then a walk. His breath came ragged, but not from exertion.

Gardens choked with weeds, vegetables rotting on withered vines. Doors hanging open on dark interiors, windows vacant and reflecting nothing but dying afternoon light. He counted occupied houses as he passed. Seven. Maybe eight. The district had housed over fifty families when he'd joined the council.

Fifty families. Average two or three people per household. A hundred souls, give or take, reduced to maybe thirty. Twenty? The numbers were distant and abstract, like the manifests he'd been approving, population tallies that fell more slowly each week. Progress, he'd thought. Resources stretching further.

This was what stretching further looked like.

The street curved toward the district's eastern edge where his house sat. He walked without thinking, legs carrying him forward as the adrenaline drained away.

He saw Mary's garden first, once full of carrots ripe for harvest. The plot she'd tended every morning, coaxing life from difficult soil through sheer stubborn care. Brown stalks jutted from cracked earth, leaves curled and dead. Weeds had spread like infection through rows that should have been green and feeding people.

Had been feeding people. Until there were no people left to feed.

"Or are you building something with Winslow while I tend a garden for ghosts?"

The house door stood ajar, unlocked and unguarded because there was no one left to care about boundaries or property or the small dignities of closed doors.

James pushed inside.

Dust hung in slanted afternoon light. The air smelled of old lavender and dried rosemary, Mary's scent, aged and abandoned. The room looked untouched, everything in its place except the life that should animate it.

A notebook sat centered on the table, just across from the doorway. James crossed to it slowly and opened the cover.

Mary's handwriting. Neat at first, deteriorating across pages.

James volunteered again for supplies. I'm so proud of how hard he works. The district needs people like him.

He flipped forward. Weeks passing in paragraphs.

Started coughing today. Just a small thing. James says medicines are coming soon. The council is working on distribution. Perhaps some juiced fruit would be a nice remedy.

Harlan passed last night. I brought what carrots I could spare to the family. James is at another meeting. Important work, he says, as he ever does. He'll fix this.

The entries grew shorter. Handwriting shakier.

People keep asking about the supplies. I told them James wouldn't let us down. He's doing everything he can.

I know I'm growing sick, but I know James is doing his best. He's always been such a hard worker. I'm afraid I might not be able to cheer him on any longer. I only wish we had more time.

The next sentence ended mid-word, ink trailing off in a weak line.

James's eyes tracked from the unfinished text to the table's edge. Quills scattered across the surface, fallen from weakening fingers. An ink jar lay shattered on the floor below, black liquid dried in spreading starburst patterns.

She'd died trying to write about him. Trying to finish one more defense of the husband who'd killed her.

Voices drifted through the open door, low and solemn. James looked up. Through dust-hazed glass he saw figures gathering, moving with unified purpose toward the district's edge.

He followed at a distance. The path wound between empty houses, past more dead gardens, toward the section where new wooden markers dotted fresh earth. The cemetery had expanded. Three times larger than when he'd left.

The group stopped at a simple grave, recently dug. The casket was already being lowered, ropes creaking as it descended. Someone held a shovel, waiting. Others stood in a loose semicircle, heads bowed.

On the marker, carved in fresh wood: Mary.

The survivors noticed him and turned, tracking his movement with tired recognition. No anger. No judgment. Just acknowledgment that the councilman had finally arrived.

Twenty people, maybe, all that remained of fifty families.

James dropped his gaze as he moved through them. He couldn't meet their eyes, couldn't bear the weight of what wasn't there. No accusation, no rage. Just exhaustion worn into faces too gaunt to hold anything else. They leaned on each other, breathing wet and labored. Sores marked their skin in spreading patches. Clothes hung loose on bodies that had shed too much flesh too quickly.

The path opened for him, not in welcome, simply the automatic parting of people too tired to stand in anyone's way.

James reached the grave's edge and sank to his knees. His hand found the mound of dirt waiting beside the hole, fingers sinking into loose earth. The notebook remained clutched against his chest.

Mary's casket sat at the bottom, simple wood already settled into place.

No one spoke.

Wind moved through the cemetery, rustling dead grass around new markers. Somewhere distant, a bird called. Someone behind James breathed with a wet rattle that wouldn't stop.

Then a woman's voice, flat: "Defended you to the end, she did. Said you'd save us once the council finished their... planning."

James's throat worked. His lips parted. Nothing came out. The damage was done.

A hand settled on his shoulder, unsteady and too light. James looked up to find Garrett standing beside him, swaying. The older man's face was hollowed out, freckles standing stark against waxen skin.

"We believed her," Garrett said quietly. "Some of us did, at least."

Past tense.

Garrett's hand lifted away, and he moved to pick up the shovel waiting near the dirt pile. The first scoop fell into the grave with a sharp crack against wood. Then another. The sound echoed across empty plots.

Garrett passed the shovel to the woman who'd spoken. She added her portion, then handed it to the next person. The survivors took their turns, each adding earth in silence, no words, no ceremony, just the necessary work of burial completed because it had to be.

James knelt motionless at the grave's edge. The sound changed from sharp crack to muffled thuds as earth accumulated, then soft settling as the grave filled. Mary disappearing beneath layers of soil.

His eye twitched once.

The survivors finished their turns and left, supporting each other back toward the houses where they'd wait to die. They drifted away in twos and threes with no dramatic exits, no final words, just acceptance settling over them like dirt over Mary's casket.

The cure wasn't coming. They knew that now.

Garrett was the last to leave. He paused at the path's edge and looked back at James, still kneeling in the dirt.

"She loved you," Garrett said. "Never stopped."

Love. Belief. Present tense. Past tense.

Garrett turned and walked away, one unsteady step after another, following the others back into the dying district.

James remained at the filled grave. The mound of earth rose before him, fresh and dark. Mary's name carved into the marker above it. The notebook pressed against his chest, her last incomplete sentence still visible inside.

The sun was setting, shadows stretching long across the cemetery. Three days too late.

Silence settled complete and absolute, just James and earth and the absence of everything he'd failed to save.

James walked back through Providence as night settled over the settlement. The administrative district's lamps still burned, casting warm light across organized streets that felt obscene in their orderliness. He walked toward the warehouse without conscious decision, drawn by some need to see it again, to confirm the evidence of what he'd discovered.

The door stood slightly ajar. Light spilled out onto the cobblestones.

Inside, Winslow moved between crates with a book and quill in hand, checking manifests against inventory. He wore the same practical trench coat, white feathers catching lamplight as he turned to note something on his ledger. Not hiding. Not hurried. Simply attending to the business of managing supplies that would never reach their intended destination.

He looked up as James entered. No surprise in his expression. Just acknowledgment, as though he'd been expecting this visit for some time.

"James," Winslow said, setting down the manifest. "I wondered when you'd come."

"Why aren't these in the human district?"

Winslow regarded him with patient attention. "Resources go where they create the most value. Surely you understand that by now."

"Humans are dying..." James's voice cracked.

"Humans are dying. Yes." Winslow returned to his ledger, making another notation. "That's unfortunate, but necessary."

The response landed cold and clinical. James's hands clenched at his sides. "The plague hit humans harder by chance?" His eyes narrowed.

Winslow paused. His hand stilled on the page. When he looked up again, something different filled his gaze, not guilt or shame, just the careful assessment of someone deciding how much truth to share.

"The plague hit humans harder," Winslow said slowly. "I never said by chance."

Silence filled the warehouse, broken only by the distant crackle of torches and the settling of crates in the cool night air. James stood motionless, trying to reshape his understanding of the past months around this new terrible truth.

"The settlement was overpopulated," Winslow continued. "Too many humans, insufficient resources. We were dying slowly through rationing, starvation, inevitable conflict over what little remained."

"You..." James couldn't finish the sentence.

"I engineered a solution." Winslow said it simply, without drama or defensiveness. "Cleaner than war. Cleaner than forced removal. A plague that would naturally select for the hardy, allow the settlement to reach sustainable population levels without the visible atrocity of mass expulsion or violence. It was perfect."

The words came clear and precise, laying out methodology like he was describing crop rotation. James's vision narrowed to just Winslow's face, his calm expression, the complete absence of remorse.

"Hardy humans are chosen," Winslow continued, gesturing vaguely toward where James stood. "Like yourself. Weak humans die. Inhumans remain largely resistant due to their constitutions. Population balances. Resources stretch to sufficiency, and my society functions."

"Mary wasn't weak."

"Mary was human." Something approaching sympathy crossed Winslow's face, the wrong kind, the kind reserved for those who don't understand inevitable truths. "Biological simplicity. I told you this from the beginning, James. Your constitutions are more vulnerable to environmental stresses. It's not a moral judgment. It's simple fact."

James's mind raced backward through conversations, through Winslow's careful phrasings about human fragility, about biological limitations, about protecting assets. All of it had been there, visible if he'd only looked. If he'd only questioned.

"You made me sign for these." James gestured at the supplies surrounding them, at the manifests bearing his authorization. "I legitimized this."

"Yes."

The single word fell like a hammer. No elaboration. No excuse.

"Why?" James's voice broke completely. "Why did you need me for any of this?"

Winslow stepped closer. "Because humans trusted the council because you were on it. They saw you at the table, saw your signature on the documents, and they believed their interests were represented. You made it work, James. You were always the tool I needed."

The word settled into James's chest.

"And you were good at it," Winslow continued with genuine approval. "Better than I hoped. You adopted the language. You believed in the work you were doing. That authenticity made you invaluable. When you told them supplies were coming, they believed you. You made the entire system function smoothly."

James thought of Mary's notebook, her careful defenses of him to neighbors, her faith that he was helping. All the families who'd waited for medicine that never came because they trusted that James wouldn't let them down.

"Integration requires sacrifice," Winslow said, his tone taking on weight. "Humans always pay the cost because biology demands it. But you, James, you were exceptional. I meant that. You proved humans could contribute meaningfully to mixed settlements when properly positioned and supported."

He paused. "But exceptional humans are still just humans. You have limits. Vulnerabilities. That's not your fault. It's simply what you are."

"I gave you purpose," Winslow continued. "Status. Recognition. More than you'd ever have otherwise. You were respected. Valued. Part of something important. And all I asked was for you to do your job." His slight smile held genuine warmth. "Which you did beautifully."

The pieces assembled with horrible clarity. Every decision. Every signature. Every approval. The district separation that created control. The supply management that prevented human treatment while appearing to facilitate it.

He'd killed Mary.

She'd died believing he was saving her, and he'd been the instrument of her death.

"I trusted you."

"I know," Winslow said gently. "That was the point."

James's eye twitched.

"You gave me the cure." The realization arrived cold and sharp. "When I joined the council. The amber draught."

"To ensure you could do the work I wanted," Winslow confirmed. "Though it was just you, James. Unfortunately, there was no other human like yourself. A failure on my end. So the others received placebos, of course."

The eye twitch came again, harder this time. James's hands trembled. He'd been walking through Providence healthy and strong while Mary coughed herself to death. While the rest of his home wasted away. And he'd been protected. Specifically. Deliberately. So he could continue signing papers that sentenced everyone he was supposed to represent to death.

"You're a monster," James said.

Winslow looked genuinely confused. "I'm a leader who made difficult choices. You would have too, given time. You were learning. Another few months and you might have seen it yourself, suggested similar solutions to the problems we faced. That's what leadership requires, James. The ability to make decisions others lack the strength for."

James's hand moved without thought, reaching for the old torch mounted in a wall bracket nearby. The wood was rough under his palm, the oil-soaked cloth at its end heavy with fuel.

Winslow noticed. His expression sharpened, though he didn't move to intervene. "James. Don't be foolish. This changes nothing. The work is done. Burning supplies won't bring anyone back."

James pulled the torch free from its bracket. Found the flint and striker hanging on a cord nearby. His hands moved quickly, striking sparks until one caught, igniting the oil-soaked cloth. Flame spread up the torch head, casting dancing shadows across the warehouse, across Winslow's face, across the mountains of supplies that had never reached the people they were meant to save.

"What are you..." Winslow started forward.

James threw the torch.

It arced through the air, end over end, trailing flame and smoke. It landed among the grain sacks, and fire caught immediately. The oil-soaked cloth touched dry wheat, and the flames spread with hungry speed, leaping from sack to sack, catching on wooden crates, racing up stacked supplies toward the ceiling.

The warehouse burned. Flames climbed wooden walls in sheets of orange and red as night fell over Providence. Smoke billowed upward in thick plumes, spreading across the settlement. The heat warped the air.

Inhumans poured from buildings as the fire spread. Organized at first, forming chains to pass water, coordinating their efforts. They moved with purpose, with the confidence that this could be contained, that this was manageable.

They were wrong.

James emerged from the smoke. His council clothes were scorched, face blackened with soot, eyes reflecting firelight. He grabbed a burning support beam from where the warehouse wall had collapsed, wood still crackling with active flame. His hands blistered immediately. The pain registered somewhere distant. He hefted the beam, testing its weight. Heavy. Unwieldy.

Above, Merrion circled on widespread arms, his wild curls catching the firelight as he directed the response. "North side! Get water to the north side before it jumps to the residences!"

James watched him swoop lower, coordinating efforts. He swung, aiming to catch Merrion with the burning wood.

Pure instinct. The arc of burning wood through smoky air, connecting with Merrion's body as he descended. The impact folded the Avian wrong, sent him spinning sideways with a crack that might have been wood or bone or both. Merrion crashed into a burning structure, curls igniting, and his scream cut short as flames engulfed him.

James was already moving, beam shattered in his ruined hands.

Two inhumans broke from the firefighting line, running toward him. The first reached him with hands outstretched, trying to restrain, trying to stop this. James dropped his shoulder and drove forward, tackling them both into a pile of burning debris. Wood splintered under their combined weight. The first inhuman struggled, trying to push free, and James held them down. Just held them. Let the flames do the work. The struggling weakened, then stopped.

The second inhuman grabbed James from behind, pulling him away. James twisted, swinging the beam in a short brutal arc. It connected with their temple. Again. Again. The beam broke apart on the third strike, fragments scattering, and the inhuman collapsed into the dirt.

James dropped the ruined wood and kept walking, hands worse now, skin blackened and cracked.

"James!" Lucius's voice cut through the roar of flames. "What are you doing!"

The Pyretic charged through the fire itself, flames parting around his form like water around stone. Stronger than James. Faster. He hit James full-force, driving him backward into rubble. Air exploded from James's lungs. Lucius pinned him, amber eyes wide with confusion and anger.

"Have you lost your damn mind?" Lucius's hands pressed James's shoulders into the ash-peppered ground. "Stop this!"

James's hand scrabbled across rubble, fingers closing around something. Metal. A pipe, red-hot from the warehouse explosion. His palm seared instantly, flesh cooking against heated metal. He didn't let go.

Lucius saw the pipe, saw James grip it, and his expression shifted to dismissal. What good was hot metal to a Pyretic?

James swung anyway.

The pipe wasn't just heat. It was solid iron, heavy and unyielding, and when it connected with Lucius's skull the sound was wet and final. His eyes went unfocused. James swung again. The pipe caved in bone, and Lucius slumped sideways. Again. Making sure. The pipe rose and fell, rose and fell, until Lucius's face was unrecognizable and James's arms were shaking with exertion.

He collapsed beside the body, gasping. The pipe cooled in his grip, blood mixing with char on the metal. His hands were barely functional now, skin hanging in strips, but his fingers still closed around the weapon. Still held it.

He forced himself up. Stumbled away from Lucius's corpse through smoke that choked and blinded. The council district burned around him, structures collapsing inward with groans of failing wood. He moved on instinct toward the storage shed, somehow still standing among the destruction.

Inside, tools lay scattered across the floor, knocked loose by tremors from collapsing buildings. Hammers. Saws. Agricultural implements. And there, leaning against the back wall, an axe. Something familiar.

James picked it up with ruined hands.

The weight balanced perfectly across his palms despite the pain. The blade sharp, the handle worn smooth from use. This was a tool meant for work, for splitting wood and felling trees, but it felt right in a way the beam and pipe hadn't. Deliberate. Chosen.

James turned back toward the burning district.

Seren stood near the council hall, trying desperately to salvage record books from the flames. The Enderian's long frame moved with frantic energy, those unsettling blue eyes reflecting firelight as he pulled documents from the building's entrance.

Your presence means a lot to the human district. They trust you.

James approached with the axe held low.

Seren noticed him and straightened, books dropping from his arms. "James, thank the gods. Help me save the..."

He saw James's expression and stopped. Saw the axe. Saw the bodies left behind in smoke and flame.

Seren blinked out of existence, the Enderian teleport ability taking him thirty feet to the left in an instant. But James had worked with Seren for weeks. Knew the pattern. Knew Seren always teleported left, always to higher ground when threatened. He was already swinging when Seren materialized on a half-collapsed wall.

The axe caught Seren mid-torso as he appeared, momentum and timing combining into brutal efficiency. Seren's eyes went wide with shock, blue light flickering as his ability tried to activate again, tried to escape. James wrenched the axe free and swung again, driving Seren off the wall. The Enderian hit the ground hard, bones cracking on impact.

James followed him down. Seren tried to crawl, one arm dragging his body across dirt while the other hung useless. "Please," he gasped. "James, please!"

The axe fell.

James straightened, breath coming in ragged gasps. Blood covered the axe blades, dripping onto scorched earth.

More inhumans came. Council members, guardsmen, whoever was close enough to see the carnage. They tried to stop him with words first, then with force when words failed. James met them with the axe, with desperate swings that connected more often than they should have. He wasn't skilled. Wasn't trained for this. But he'd worked alongside these people for months. Knew how they moved. Knew the inhuman woman always dodged right. Knew the guard always led with his shoulder. Knew patterns and tells that they'd revealed through countless hours of cooperation.

He used everything against them.

They cut him. A blade opened his shoulder. Another caught his ribs, slicing through scorched cloth and the skin beneath. A spear thrust took him in the thigh, and his leg nearly buckled. He kept coming. Someone's claws raked across his side, four parallel wounds that bled freely. A desperate stab caught his left arm, the blade grinding against bone.

James swung through it all. The axe rose and fell, rose and fell. Bodies dropped around him, some dying immediately, others crawling away into smoke to die elsewhere. He lost count. Lost awareness of individuals. They became obstacles, threats, things that needed to be removed so he could keep moving.

The council hall collapsed completely, roof caving in with a roar that shook the ground. Fire spread to the residential district, jumping from building to building on the wind. Providence burned, and James stood at the center of it, bleeding from a dozen wounds, hands ruined beyond function, face blackened and expressionless.

The axe never left his grip.

Someone tried to speak to him, words muffled by smoke and the roar of flames. James swung. The axe connected, and the voice stopped.

The axe rose again, blood flinging from the blades in dark arcs.

Again.

Again.

Again.

The fire reached a point of no return. It jumped streets, climbed walls, devoured structures with indiscriminate hunger. Wind carried embers into the human district, and the dry, neglected buildings caught like kindling. Flames raced through empty homes and occupied ones alike.

Some humans tried to flee. Those with strength enough to run stumbled toward the forest, toward anywhere that wasn't burning. Most couldn't. Too weak. Too sick. They stayed in their homes or collapsed in the streets, and the fire found them there. Smoke took them first, a mercy before the flames arrived. The screams were brief.

James watched it spread from where he stood among the bodies. Part of him knew he should stop it. Should try to save what remained. Part of him wanted it all to burn. Wanted Providence erased so completely that nothing would be left to remember what had happened here.

The heat was immense, turning Providence into a furnace. The temperature climbed beyond what anything living could survive, and in that terrible heat, something else died. The plague. Winslow's engineered disease burned away in temperatures that sterilized everything they touched, reduced to ash like everything else.

Mary's garden burned. The carrot rows she'd tended with such care, the withered plants and weeds and dark soil, consumed. Her house burned, door still hanging open, notebook still inside turning to ash along with everything else she'd touched. The council chambers collapsed in on themselves, records and manifests and all evidence of bureaucratic genocide reduced to cinders. The warehouse that had started it all was gone, supplies finally reaching their destination as smoke. The iron gates between districts melted in the heat, boundaries dissolving into slag.

Providence died.

The fire reached its peak and began to consume itself, running out of fuel, leaving only ember and ruin.

Winslow emerged through the smoke. His trench coat was clean, white feathers pristine, sword already drawn and held with casual confidence. He looked at James, at the destruction surrounding them, at the burning ruins of Providence. His expression held only disappointment.

"I made you exceptional," Winslow said. "This is how you repay me?"

James charged, axe raised high. No technique. No strategy.

Winslow sidestepped the wild swing effortlessly.

The blade flashed. James's right arm opened deep, crimson sheeting down to the axe handle. His grip weakened but held, fingers wrapping tighter despite the pain.

"You killed her!" James swung again, predictable and desperate.

"She died," Winslow said, ducking under the axe. "There's a difference."

He circled James with patient steps, sword held ready but not aggressive.

James lunged forward. Winslow moved inside the swing, blade cutting across James's left shoulder as he passed. The wound restricted James's range immediately, arm refusing to raise fully. His next swing came weaker, compensating for the damage. Blood painted his torso in spreading stains.

"You could have been so much more," Winslow said, almost wistful. "You were learning so well."

James tried an overhead strike, putting everything into it. Too slow. Too obvious. Winslow stepped aside and the axe bit into scorched earth.

The blade found James's thigh while he was overextended. Deep. Crimson streaked down his leg, pooling in his boot. James stumbled, leg faltering, catching himself on the axe handle before he fell completely.

He looked up at Winslow through blood and smoke and hatred. "Coward," James spat. "Just a coward hiding behind words."

Winslow's expression hardened.

His boot caught James square in the face.

The impact snapped James's head back and sent him crashing to the ground. Blood filled his mouth, his nose, streaming down his face in dark rivulets as he gasped for air.

"Perhaps I was wrong about you," Winslow said, standing over him.

James spat blood onto the scorched earth. Pushed himself up on trembling arms. Met Winslow's gaze with everything he had left.

"I'll kill you."

Winslow's blade opened his ribs as he tried to rise. The pain stole James's breath, each gasp sending sharp agony through his chest. He collapsed back to hands and knees, crimson dripping steadily onto the ground beneath him, spreading across ash in dark blossoms.

"All that work," Winslow said quietly. "All that potential. Wasted."

James tried to stand anyway, legs shaking. Got one foot under him. Tried to turn, to follow Winslow's movement.

The blade cut his hamstring.

James's knee buckled completely. He crashed down hard, face hitting dirt, and the axe clattered away across scorched ground. Out of reach. He stretched for it anyway, fingers grasping at empty air, leaving trails of red across blackened earth.

Winslow sheathed his sword with a smooth, practiced motion. Not angry. Not satisfied. Just done.

"Shame," he said, looking down at James bleeding in the dirt. "You had such promise."

He turned and walked away. Didn't look back. Didn't finish it. Just left James there to bleed out among the ruins, footsteps fading into smoke and crackling flame.

James tried to scream after him. Tried to pour all his rage into one final curse, one last defiant roar. His throat caught on smoke and blood and damage. Only a rasping wheeze emerged, weak and pathetic and unheard.

He collapsed fully, cheek pressed against ash-covered ground. Blood pooled beneath him, spreading dark across scorched earth, mixing with soot until the colors became indistinguishable. Smoke choked each breath. He could still hear Winslow's footsteps. Getting fainter. Fainter. Then gone.

Completely alone.

James lay in the burning ruins of Providence, bleeding out where everything had ended. Mary's name formed on his lips, soundless and lost to the flames.

James lay in hot ash and embers, the fire still burning around him in pockets of stubborn flame. The wounds Winslow had given him bled steadily, mixing with burns that went deeper with each passing moment. Blood loss made him cold despite the heat radiating from scorched earth.

A voice whispered through the pain. Let go. Mary's waiting. Just sleep. It would be easy. Peaceful. An end to everything.

Through the fog of dying, a thought arrived sharp and cold.

Winslow walked away. Winslow thinks I'm dead. Winslow won.

No.

James's right hand moved through ash, fingers closing around a piece of scorched wood. He pushed against it, rolling onto his burned left side. The scream that tore from his throat was raw and animal, but he kept moving. Inch by inch, dragging himself forward through residual heat that deepened his wounds. His hands blistered and charred against hot ground. The left side of his body cooked in the embers he crawled across, but he didn't stop. The settlement edge lay ahead, barely visible through smoke.

A rain barrel stood at the boundary, somehow untouched by flames. James dragged himself to its edge and fell in. Water hissed against burned flesh, steam rising in thick clouds. He held himself under until his lungs demanded air. He surfaced gasping, alive despite everything.

James pulled himself from the barrel and crawled to a collapsed building nearby. Darkness took him there, consciousness fading, but his chest kept rising and falling. Breathing. Surviving.

Days became weeks.

He treated his burns with scavenged cloth torn from abandoned homes, wrapping wounds with methodical care. The left side was worst, skin puckered and scarred beneath layers of bandages. During the first week he barely moved, body focusing everything on simple survival. The second week brought short walks through ruins, testing his strength, relearning movement. By the third week he explored further, range expanding as damaged tissue adapted.

The remaining humans died around him. During the first week, James found them in their homes. Garrett lay in his bed, expression peaceful in final sleep. Others scattered through the district, alone in their deaths. James dragged each body out and burned them properly. The second week brought discoveries of stragglers who'd fled during the fire. They'd thought distance would save them, but the plague had followed. More pyres. More silence.

During one of these searches, James found the double-bladed axe half-buried in ash and debris. He pulled it free and wiped the blades clean against his bandages. The weight balanced in his scarred hands. He swung it once, testing, and his body remembered despite damage.

Mary.

A month in, his strength had returned to his body. Pain became constant companion, then familiar background noise. Bandages became permanent fixtures wrapped around his torso and arms. His face bore scars the cloth couldn't hide, the left side worse than the right. But he was strong despite the damage. Perhaps because of it.

Providence lay completely dead around him. Buildings reduced to ash and skeletal frames. Silence pressed absolute across empty streets. James walked through the ruins daily, each pass hardening him further, transforming him from what he'd been into something else entirely.

The man who'd believed in integration, who'd trusted Winslow, who'd signed papers thinking he was helping. That man had burned with the settlement.

James stood at the smoldering ruins edge with Mary in hand, looking out at the forest beyond. Ready to leave. Ready for what came next.