But the microscope sits on my desk, samples waiting. The algae data still needs analysis. The drowning victims deserve answers. And somewhere on this island, Mikhail is watching, planning, using people as fuel for rituals I don't understand.
Running won't stop any of it.
The microscope calls me back to familiar ground. Science. Data. Evidence that doesn't care about impossible transformations or ancient vendettas or the way Finn's touch made every nerve ending ignite.
I catalog the algae samples methodically, forcing my brain to focus on bioluminescence patterns instead of the memory of his hand in my hair. The samples glow under the lens, pulsing in rhythms that match nothing in any database I've accessed.The cellular structure is wrong. The light emission is wrong. Everything about these organisms defies classification.
Just like everything else on this island.
The window slides open without sound.
I don't turn. Don't scream. Some part of me already knows what's coming, has been waiting for this moment since Finn warned me about Mikhail and ancient obsessions.
Heat shimmers the air. A shape moves through the opening, fire condensing into human form, elegant and deadly, moving faster than my brain can process the impossibility.
Hands grab me with strength that leaves bruises forming on my upper arms. I try to scream, but something strikes the base of my skull with professional precision.
The world fractures. Sound distorts, stretching like rubber before snapping into silence. My vision tunnels, darkness creeping in from the edges until there's nothing but a pinpoint of light—the microscope lens still glowing, algae samples still pulsing with bioluminescence I'll never finish cataloging.
Then that light disappears too.
Darkness swallows me whole, pulling me down into depths where thought dissolves and time loses meaning. I'm aware of movement, of heat surrounding me, of wind and salt spray that shouldn't exist if I'm unconscious. Flying. I'm flying again, carried through pre-dawn darkness by something made of fire.
The awareness comes and goes in fragments. Stone scraping against my back. Rope burning my wrists. Cold seeping into my bones. Then nothing again, just the vast black emptiness of forced unconsciousness.
Pain wakes me.
The awareness comes gradually. First, the knowledge that something hurts, a distant throb I can't quite locate. Then the realization that I'm cold, bone-deep cold that has nothing to do with Scottish weather and everything to do with dampstone leaching heat from my body. Sound filters through next. Water drips somewhere in the darkness. Wind howls past stone. Flames hiss and pop, burning without wood to feed them.
I force my eyes open against the pounding in my skull. Everything swims for a moment before resolving into stone walls that curve around me in patterns carved by millennia of tidal erosion. The geological formations are textbook examples of sea caves, the kind formed when ocean meets volcanic rock over thousands of years.
The air tastes like salt and smoke, thick enough to coat my tongue with every breath I drag into my lungs.
I test my body systematically, the way I was trained during field safety courses. Fingers respond to mental commands, flexing against rough rope that binds my wrists. Toes wiggle inside my boots. My legs are free. That's deliberate. Whoever tied me left my ankles unbound because they're confident I can't escape.
My head throbs where something struck me from behind. The pain centers at the base of my skull, the kind of precise blow that drops someone without killing them. The strike was professional, calculated.
The memory surfaces through fog. The window sliding open. Heat shimmer distorting the air. Fire condensing into human form, moving faster than my brain could process.
I flew. Or rather, something that looked like a man made of fire flew while carrying me like I weighed nothing.
The scientific part of my brain tries to catalogue the impossibility. I think about the energy required to maintain human consciousness while transformed into living flame. I consider the thermodynamics of flight without visible propulsion. I process the fact that I'm alive and relatively unburned despite being held by something that should have incinerated me on contact.
I shove the analysis aside. Understanding can wait. Survival comes first.
I change my position carefully, testing how much movement the ropes allow. My shoulders protest, stiff from however long I've been unconscious. The rope is rough against my wrists, some kind of natural fiber rather than synthetic. When I try to twist free, the bindings tighten. Whoever tied these knows what they're doing.
The cave entrance is a short distance away, open to sky and churning ocean beyond. Storm light filters through, grey and cold, illuminating moisture-slick stone. I can hear waves crashing far below, the echo suggesting a significant drop. Fifty feet? More? Enough that jumping would be suicide.
Flames dance in a circle carved into the rock floor between me and the entrance. There's no visible fuel source. Just fire burning in patterns that seem deliberately placed, casting shadows that writhe across the walls like living things.
"You're awake. Good." The voice comes from near the cave entrance where storm light filters through stone. "I was beginning to worry I'd struck you too hard."
The man who steps into the firelight moves with predator grace. Every step is precise, balanced, flowing from one position to the next without the small adjustments humans make to maintain equilibrium. Sharp features catch the flame light in ways that emphasize bone structure too perfect to be natural. Eyes that burn with inner fire, literal flames dancing in irises that should be brown or blue or green but instead glow like coals.
He's dressed in dark clothes that show no sign of the flight that brought us here. There's no wind damage, no salt spray, nothing to indicate he just carried a struggling woman through a storm while made of fire.
I catalogue details the way I would studying a dangerous animal in the field. He's positioned himself between me andthe only exit. His hands are empty but relaxed, confident he doesn't need weapons. The way he tilts his head suggests he's reading my expression, gauging my fear response, adjusting his approach based on what he sees.
