CHAPTER 7:. BURIED SECRETS

Scene 1: The Crypt

The St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 stretched before Maya like a stone maze, its above-the-ground tombs casted long shadows in the late afternoon light. Eliza Vega walked beside her, moving with the confidence of someone who knew every inch of this historic ground.

"Your mother's research always led back here," Eliza said, her voice low and measured. "But not to any single tomb, to something beneath them all."

Maya traced her fingers along the weathered limestone of an old family crypt. The heat of her touch left a faint, barely perceptible warmth on the stone—a trick she was still learning to control.

"You knew my parents before they adopted me," Maya stated. It wasn't a question.

Eliza stopped, turning to face her. "I knew them long before that period. Before they even understood what they'd discovered."

A raven perched on a nearby tomb, watching them with an intensity that felt almost human. Maya remembered her mother's journal entries about patterns, about connections that went beyond simple coincidence.

"The Phoenix Protocol," Maya prompted. "It's more than just Ember's experiments, isn't it?"

"It's older than Ember," Eliza replied. "Much older. What they called a 'protocol' is something that's been part of human history for thousands of years. It was hidden and waiting."

The raven took flight as Jackson emerged from between the tombs, his hand resting near a concealed weapon. "We don't have much time," he warned. "Ember's tracking units are getting closer."

Eliza pulled out a worn brass key from her pocket. "Then it's time you learned the truth about your inheritance."

Scene 2: Beneath the Stones

The entrance was impossible to see unless you knew exactly where to look. A loose stone in the base of an ancient tomb, carefully disguised among hundreds of similar markers. Eliza's key turned with a sound that felt more like a whisper than a mechanical click.

"The first rule of fire," she said, quoting Maya's mother, "is that it always finds a way."

The stone panel slid away, revealing a narrow staircase descending into darkness. Maya's ability to sense heat told her something was waiting below—not just temperature, but something older. Something alive.

Jackson checked his equipment. "I'll go first."

"No," Maya said firmly. "This is my path."

The stairs wound deep beneath the cemetery, lined with stones that seemed to pulse with an inner warmth. Maya's hand trailed along the wall, and for a moment, she could almost hear whispers—pieces of conversations long past, echoes of fires that burned centuries ago.

"What is this place?" she asked.

Eliza's response was cryptic. "The first sanctuary, where those like you learned to understand their true nature."

The stairs opened into a circular chamber. Carved into the walls were symbols Maya had seen in her mother's journal, complex geometric patterns that seemed to alter and move when she wasn't looking directly at them.

At the center of the room stood a pedestal. And on that pedestal, a single object that made everyone stop.

A book, bounded in what looked like ancient leather, its pages seemingly untouched by time.

Scene 3: The Manuscript

"The original manuscript," Eliza breathed. "Not a copy, not a translation. The actual text Caroline and David spent their lives trying to protect."

Maya approached the pedestal. The book seemed to radiate a heat that had nothing to do with physical temperature. When she reached out, her fingers tingled—not with her own fire, but with something older.

Jackson's voice was tense. "We need to move. Ember's less than an hour behind us."

But Maya was transfixed. The book's cover bore no title, just an intricate design that looked like a flame consuming—or perhaps emerging from—a human silhouette.

"This is what caused their death," Maya realized. "Not just the research but this specific document."

Eliza agreed. "Some knowledge is too dangerous to be widely known. Some truths can burn entire civilizations if they're not carefully managed."

Maya's hand hovered over the book. Something inside her recognized it—not with memory, but with something deeper. Genetic and inherited.

"Don't touch it," Eliza warned. "Not yet."

But Maya had never been good at following instructions.

Scene 4: Contact

Her fingers brushed the leather cover. The world erupted in flame.

Not the flames Maya could create—these were memories and visions. Hundreds of them, flowing through her like water, each one a story of fire and transformation.

She saw civilizations rising and falling. People who could command flames not as a weapon, but as a language, as communication and as life itself.

She saw her parents, not just the memories she knew, but moments she'd never witnessed. Their research, their discovery and their fear of what Ember would do if they found the truth.

And underlying it all, a fundamental revelation that made her breath caught.

Pyrokinesis wasn't a mutation. It wasn't an ability to be controlled or weaponized.

It was humanity's original state. And Ember had been trying to recreate something they'd fundamentally misunderstood.

Scene 5: Pursuit

The chamber shook, there were distant explosions. Ember had found them.

"We need to move," Jackson shouted, already securing the manuscript in a protective case.

Eliza was preparing something—a detonation charge to seal the chamber.

But Maya stood perfectly still, transformed by what she'd seen.

"They don't understand," she said quietly. "Fire isn't a weapon. It's a communication. A way of understanding."

Outside, tactical teams were approaching. Helicopters cut through the New Orleans sky.

Maya looked at Eliza and Jackson. "Time to have a conversation they won't forget."

Her hands began to glow.