Burned By Him Reborn A Star

The first thing Evelyn registered was the smell. Acrid, chemical, choking. It was the scent of her own life burning down.

She gasped, her lungs seizing against the intrusion of oxygen. A plastic mask was pressed tight against her face, the rubber seal digging into her cheekbones. Her eyes flew open, but the world was a blur of flashing red lights and the sterile, metallic ceiling of an ambulance.

"Ma'am? Can you hear me?"

The voice was loud, too close. A face swam into view-an EMT, young, with sweat beading on his forehead. He was checking Evelyn's pupils with a penlight that felt like a needle stabbing into her brain.

"Ma'am, try to stay calm. You've inhaled a lot of smoke. We're taking you to Mount Sinai."

Evelyn tried to speak, to ask the question that was screaming in her chest, but her throat was raw, stripped of its lining. All that came out was a dry, hacking cough that tasted like ash.

"Name?" the EMT asked, his pen hovering over a clipboard. "We need a name and an emergency contact."

Evelyn lifted a trembling hand. Her skin looked gray under the harsh lights, smeared with soot. She pointed to the side table where her phone lay. Ideally, it should have been melted, destroyed like everything else in the penthouse. But there it was, the screen spiderwebbed with cracks, yet still glowing with a faint, mocking light.

The EMT picked it up. "Is this your husband? Julian?"

Evelyn nodded once. The movement sent a spike of pain down her neck.

He hit the call button. Evelyn watched his face. She counted the seconds in the rhythm of her own erratic heartbeat. One. Two. Three.

The EMT pulled the phone away from his ear, frowning. "Voicemail."

He tried again. "This is Emergency Services calling for Evelyn Vance," he said into the recorder, his voice urgent. "Please call back immediately."

Evelyn closed her eyes. She knew he wouldn't answer unknown numbers, and he rarely checked voicemails unless they were flagged by his assistant.

"Look at the TV," the driver shouted from the front.

Evelyn turned her head. Mounted on the wall of the ambulance was a small monitor, tuned to the local news. The banner at the bottom was bright red: BREAKING NEWS: FIRE AT VANCE TOWER PENTHOUSE.

The camera panned over the smoke billowing from the top of the building-her home, her prison-before cutting to a live feed from Hollywood Boulevard.

Evelyn's heart stopped. The monitor beeped erratically, a high-pitched warning that made the EMT look at her with concern.

On the screen, thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, was Julian.

He wasn't frantic. He wasn't checking his phone. He was shielding a woman from the paparazzi, his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders, his face twisted in a snarl at a cameraman who got too close.

Serena Holloway.

She looked fragile, her eyes wide and teary, clutching the lapels of Julian's jacket. The headline changed: Julian Vance Comforts Serena Holloway After Panic Attack at Premiere.

Evelyn stared at his hand. That large, capable hand that she had held during their wedding vows, the hand that had signed their prenup with a flourish, was now stroking Serena's hair, tucking her face into his chest to hide her from the flashbulbs.

He was protecting her from lights.

While Evelyn was burning in his house.

A tear leaked from the corner of her eye, cutting a clean track through the soot on her cheek. It was hot, acidic.

"We need to sedate her," the EMT said urgently. "Heart rate is one-eighty. She's going into shock."

Evelyn felt the prick of a needle in her unburned arm. The cold rush of the sedative moved up her veins, freezing the fire in her lungs. As the darkness crept in from the edges of her vision, the image of Julian holding Serena burned itself onto the back of her eyelids.

Three years, she thought, the words floating in the black void. I gave you three years of silence. Three years of being the perfect, invisible wife. And you let me burn.

When Evelyn woke up, the silence was louder than the sirens.

She was in a private room. The walls were a pale, offensive beige. Outside the window, the New York skyline was bleeding into a gray dawn. She was alone.

No flowers. No husband pacing the floor. Just the rhythmic drip-drip-drip of the IV bag.

A nurse bustled in, checking a chart. She paused when she saw Evelyn's eyes were open. There was a flicker of pity in her gaze-that specific, condescending pity reserved for women whose husbands are publicly humiliating them.

"Mrs. Vance," she said softly. "You're awake. We treated the burns on your neck, arm, and leg. They're second-degree, but they should heal with minimal scarring if you're careful."

"My husband?" Evelyn's voice was a whisper, sounding like dragging sandpaper over concrete.