CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - MIMI

Mimi drifted through the city streets like a shadow, barefoot and silent. Her red dress brushed against her pale legs, the hem singed in places from her own fires. The air smelled like ash and seawater, the acrid tang of Brockton Bay’s decay settling in her lungs. It was almost peaceful, in its own way.

Jack had delivered the finalised rules of the game that morning, giving each member of the Nine a time limit to administer their tests. He hadn't said otherwise or called for her tonight. Not that he needed to. She felt his influence as surely as the fire coursing through her veins. A constant reminder. A tether.

She hated it. She loved it.

The fires whispered to her, curling in the corners of her mind, urging her onward. Find something to burn. She wanted to. God, she wanted to. But that was too easy. Too loud. Jack didn’t like it when she was loud unless he told her to be. Tonight, she needed something quieter. Something different.

And that’s when she felt it—the pull.

It wasn’t her fire this time. It was something else, something deeper, almost magnetic. She tilted her head, letting the sensation guide her. Her steps were unhurried but deliberate, her bare feet leaving faint trails of soot behind her.

Eventually, she reached the edge of the abandoned shopping district, standing still—her fires dimming—-as she watched the world reshape itself around her. Glass turned to water, the asphalt beneath her feet softened into moss, and the flickering street-lights stretched into towering columns of crystal.

She knew this place. Not the distorted streets of the shaker power, but the feeling. The calm, the stillness, the strange weight of another presence that wasn’t afraid of her fire.

“Elle,” Mimi murmured, her lips curling into a faint smile.

The pull she’d been feeling hadn’t been random, after all. She’d hoped, deep down, that it was leading her here. She didn’t know why. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to.

“You found me,” a voice said, calm and detached.

Labyrinth stepped out from behind one of the crystalline columns, her hoodie and jeans at odds with the surreal landscape. Her expression was as distant as ever, her green eyes half-lidded, but Burnscar could see the sharpness behind them.

“You’ve changed,” she said, her voice soft.

The cracked asphalt beneath her feet rippled like water, spreading outward in waves. The buildings shifted, their edges blurring and warping until they no longer resembled anything man-made. A streetlamp stretched into the sky, its metal pole curling like a flower stem.

Labyrinth tilted her head, her lips curving into something that might have been a smile or just a trick of the light. “You haven’t.”

The words stung more than they should have, but Burnscar kept her grin in place. She couldn’t let Elle see the cracks. Not yet.

“I missed you,” Burnscar said, taking a step closer. Her flames sparked faintly at her heels, but she willed them down. Elle never liked the fire. “It’s been… what? Two years?”

“Three,” Labyrinth corrected, her tone flat. She didn’t step back, but she didn’t move closer, either.

Burnscar’s grin faltered. “Right. Three.”

The silence stretched between them, heavy and awkward. For a moment, Burnscar was back in the asylum, sitting across from Elle in the common room. Those had been good days—days when the fire didn’t burn quite so hot, and she could almost pretend she was normal.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Labyrinth said finally, her voice quiet but firm.

Burnscar blinked, caught off guard. “What? Why not?”

“Because you’re not the same person you were back then.” Labyrinth’s gaze sharpened, her eyes narrowing slightly. “And neither am I.”

“That’s not fair,” Burnscar said, her voice rising. The flames flared around her, licking at the edges of her dress. “You don’t know what I’ve been through. What I’ve had to do.”

“I don’t care,” Labyrinth said bluntly, and the ground beneath Burnscar’s feet shifted again, turning into slick, uneven marble. “You chose this path. You chose them.”

Burnscar clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms. “You think I wanted this? You think I had a choice?!”

Labyrinth didn’t respond. Instead, the world around them twisted further, the crystalline columns melting into jagged, obsidian spires. The air grew heavy, suffocating, as if the city itself was pressing down on Burnscar.

“I came here for you,” she said, her voice trembling with a mix of anger and desperation. “Because you’re the only person who ever saw me as more than a monster. You’re the only one who gets it.”

Labyrinth’s expression didn’t change, but there was a flicker of something in her eyes—pity, maybe. Or regret.

“You’re not the person I used to know,” she said softly. “And I don’t think you ever will be again.”

The words hit like a punch to the gut, and for a moment, Burnscar couldn’t breathe. Her flames guttered, flickering weakly as the weight of Elle’s words settled over her.

“You don’t mean that,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I do.”

Burnscar stared at her, her vision blurring with unshed tears. For the first time in years, the fire inside her felt small. Weak. Almost extinguished.

“I’m sorry,” Labyrinth muttered..

Before Burnscar could respond, the ground beneath her feet crumbled, and the world twisted violently. She stumbled, her flames flaring instinctively as she tried to steady herself, but it was too late. The distorted reality swallowed her whole, and when the world righted itself again, she was standing alone in the middle of an empty street.

The pull was gone.

Burnscar stood there for a long time, her chest heaving, the fire slowly fading around her. She didn’t move. She didn’t cry. She just stood, staring at the spot where Elle had been, the ache in her chest growing with each passing second.

Finally, she turned and walked away, her bare feet leaving faint scorch marks on the pavement. The fire trailed behind her, hungry and restless, but she didn’t pay it any mind.

Elle was right.

She wasn’t the same person anymore. And she never would be.