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“ J ust give me something , Florence, please! Anything else we can go off of? Where is the letter from Agatha? At least let me read it, maybe there are answers hidden in it!” The dark one pleads, pacing anxiously back and forth while gesturing wildly with his hands.

“Are you insinuating that I would not have been able to comprehend an answer blatantly written on a page, Mr. Dunn?” Her voice is cold and cutting. The blackness that lay dormant inside her was there, visible just beneath the surface. She bristled, her hands tight fists at her sides.

“Woah, Blossom, that's not what he meant, you know that.”

Blossom.

A heated covetousness raged, thrumming through the walls. The fire in the mantle exploded, white hot flames licking the outer walls of the stone chimney and singeing the ceiling. The branches of the fire extended terrifyingly and would have enveloped the smaller man had he not jumped back in surprise. The coals blistered and smoldered holes into the floors, hissing against the cold wood.

Mine.

The dark one grabbed the blankets from the bed and smothered the embers burning into the floorboards. The flames reached again, further and hotter, hell bent on incinerating anything within its path .

“Fuck! Ko, go get a bucket of water!” he snapped, doing his best to smother the flames by waving the blanket. The corner lit and the blanket began to dissolve away, eaten by the bright orange and yellow flames. He hissed and threw the burning fabric to the floor, turning to her, “Florence! Florence? Snap out of it and get out of here! This whole room could catch!” His fear for her was evident, and delicious.

She stood, held in place by the loving invisible hands that gripped her. Her mind not her own as whispers drowned out his pleas.

They aim to destroy me.

Destroy us.

The fingers that held her reached in further, pulling at the emotions she so tirelessly hid from, the rage that was seething and strong that pulsed through her veins. The sour annoyance of consistently being undermined and unheard no matter how loudly she used her voice. Disgust for her own actions, her neediness and longing, the promiscuity and brazen apathy towards the very thing that had been her salvation all these years.

“Florence!” The other had returned and doused the flames. He held her face between his hands and shook gently, breaking her from her reverie. No matter. The chord had been struck and there, behind her eyes, an internal war was raging.