---- Chapter 12 Brandon Carlson POV: The world blurred. | was in my car, driving through the blinding rain, the city lights smearing across the windshield like wet paint. No. The word was a silent scream in my mind. She couldn't be dead. This was another one of her tricks. Another one of her games. She was clever, manipulative. She was faking it. She had to be. Memories | had long suppressed flooded my mind. Her laughter as we ran through a summer rainstorm. The way she would bite her lip when she was concentrating on a sketch. The fierce, stubborn set of her jaw when she argued with me. A feeling | couldn't name, a terrifying, hollow ache, clawed at my chest. | screeched to a halt in front of the psychiatric hospital. The west wing was a smoking, blackened skeleton. The air was thick with the smell of ash and despair. | grabbed the hospital director by the collar of his shirt. "Where is she?" | demanded, my voice a raw, ragged sound. ---- "Mr. Carlson, please," he whimpered. "She's gone. The fire... there was nothing left." My body went rigid. Nothing left. Not even a body to bury. | shoved him away, my mind refusing to accept it. "Liar!" | roared, my voice breaking. "The fire started in her wing," the director explained, his voice shaking. "The wiring in that part of the building was old. We were scheduled for an upgrade next month. We couldn't move her in time." My fault. It was my fault. | had put her there. In a dilapidated wing of a hospital, a place | wouldn't have kenneled a dog. | had signed her death warrant. | had wanted to punish her. | had hated her for what she did to my grandfather. But | never wanted her dead. | plunged into the still-smoldering ruins, ignoring the shouts of the firemen. The heat was intense, the smoke thick and choking. | didn't care. | dug through the debris with my bare hands, tearing at charred wood and twisted metal. "Farah!" | screamed her name into the smoky abyss, my voice raw with a desperation | had never felt before. My hands were burned, blistered, but | didn't feel the pain. | just kept digging, my movements frantic, mechanical. Then, the world went black. ---- | woke up in a pristine white hospital room, the sterile scent a cruel echo of the place | had last seen her alive. My hands were heavily bandaged. Caryl and Danial were standing by my bed. "Brother, you're awake!" Caryl cried, rushing to my side. "Farah," | rasped, my throat raw. "Did they find her?" Danial' s face was grim. He shook his head. "She's gone, Brandon." The words were a final, brutal confirmation. The hollow ache in my chest exploded into a pain so sharp, so visceral, it took my breath away. A strangled cry tore from my lips, and | coughed, a spray of blood splattering across the white sheets. The pain was unbearable. It felt like my heart was being ripped from my chest.