Nina Cavanaugh had always been good at suppressing things. A sharp-tongued insult, a moment of frustration, even grief—she tucked it all neatly away, filing it in the deepest recesses of her mind. But the fire, that was something else entirely.
It started on a bitterly cold evening when Nina was thirteen. The wind howled through the broken shutters of her family’s dilapidated farmhouse. She and her older brother, Marcus, huddled close to the woodstove as their father raged in the other room. His drunken tirades had grown worse since their mother had passed, and tonight was no different.
When the shouting turned to smashing glass, Marcus stood, his jaw clenched. "Stay here," he said firmly, and marched into the other room.
The sounds of their argument grew louder, angrier. And then, a scream. Not of pain or fear, but something primal.
Nina didn’t remember crossing the room or stepping between her father and Marcus. She didn’t even remember the moment the flames erupted. All she knew was the sudden heat, the flickering orange glow that danced across her father’s horrified face, and the acrid smell of scorched wood.
When it was over, her father was gone—ashes scattered across the charred floorboards. Marcus had pulled her outside, his face pale and his voice shaking. “What did you do?”
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For years after, Nina tried to forget. She and Marcus moved to a new town, started fresh. He told people their father had died in a fire, a tragic accident. But the truth sat heavy between them. Marcus avoided her gaze, and she avoided mirrors, afraid of what she might see in her own eyes.
The fire didn’t return for a long time. Nina thought she had buried it, like every other unwanted feeling. But the burning inside her was patient, waiting for the right moment to rise again.
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At twenty-one, Nina was living alone in a cramped apartment in the city, working double shifts at a diner to make ends meet. Life was uneventful, predictable. Until one night, when a group of drunken men stumbled in just before closing.
They heckled her as she cleared their table, their comments growing more lewd with each passing moment. Nina ignored them, her hands trembling as she collected their empty glasses.
One of them grabbed her wrist.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he slurred. “Stay a while.”
Nina yanked her arm free, her heart pounding. She could feel it stirring, the heat building in her chest, crawling up her throat. She tried to shove it down, but it was too late.
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The man let out a startled yelp, pulling his hand back as if he’d touched a hot stove. Blisters formed on his palm, and the other men stumbled back, their faces pale with fear.
Nina ran.
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The fire didn’t just scare others—it scared her. She didn’t understand it, couldn’t control it. It wasn’t just flames; it was rage, pain, and fear all twisted together into something destructive.
Desperate for answers, she began to research. Late nights in the library turned up myths and legends—stories of people cursed or blessed with abilities they couldn’t explain. Most were dismissed as fiction, but one account caught her attention: a woman in the 1800s who was said to have "the devil's fire" within her. She had burned down an entire village in a single night before vanishing into the wilderness.
The description was eerily familiar.
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Nina’s search eventually led her to a man named Gabriel Holt, a reclusive historian who specialized in the supernatural. When she arrived at his isolated cabin in the woods, he didn’t seem surprised to see her.
“You’ve got it, don’t you?” he said, his voice calm but knowing.
She nodded.
Gabriel explained that the fire was an ancient power, passed down through certain bloodlines. It wasn’t evil, he assured her, but it was dangerous—especially if left unchecked.
“You need to learn control,” he said. “Or it will consume you.”
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For weeks, Nina trained with Gabriel. He taught her how to harness the fire, to channel it without letting it take over. It was exhausting work, both physically and emotionally. Every time she summoned the flames, it brought back memories of her father, of the diner, of every moment she’d lost control.
But slowly, she began to improve. She learned to light a candle without setting the whole room ablaze, to feel the heat without being overwhelmed by it.
Gabriel warned her, though, that control didn’t mean immunity. “The fire feeds on emotion,” he said. “If you let yourself lose control—if you give in to anger or fear—it will take over.”
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The true test came sooner than Nina expected.
One night, while walking home from Gabriel’s cabin, she heard a commotion up ahead. A car was pulled over on the side of the road, its headlights illuminating a man and a woman arguing. As she got closer, she realized the man was holding the woman by the arm, his grip too tight.
“Let go of me!” the woman shouted, struggling against him.
“Mind your own business,” the man snapped when he saw Nina approaching.
But Nina couldn’t walk away. The heat was already building, her anger igniting the fire within her.
“Let her go,” she said, her voice steady but low.
The man laughed, but it was cut short as the air around Nina shimmered with heat. The flames were there, just beneath the surface, ready to strike.
“Okay, okay!” he said, raising his hands and backing away.
The woman ran, and the man followed a moment later. Nina stood there, shaking, the fire still burning inside her. But this time, she controlled it.
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In the weeks that followed, Nina felt something she hadn’t in years: hope. She couldn’t erase the past, but she could control her future. The fire wasn’t a curse—it was part of her. And for the first time, she wasn’t afraid of it.
She returned to Gabriel’s cabin, ready to continue her training. There was still so much to learn, but Nina was determined. She wasn’t just a victim of her power; she was its master.
And she would burn, not to destroy, but to protect.