His love

The firemen who put out the last of the fire in the apartment didn’t know who Zayn and Kenan were. 

When Zayn and Kenan went past the police tape to enter the apartment, the firemen shooed them out. 

“No civilians allowed beyond the police tape! You have to leave now!” one of the firemen ordered. 

Zayn and Kenan ignored the fireman’s orders and headed straight for the living room. 

When the firemen noticed the pained expressions on Zayn’s and Kenan’s faces, they understood immediately–they were most likely the victim’s family. 

After that, the firemen collectively sighed in sympathy and did not chase Zayn and Kenan out of the 

apartment. 

Now that the fire had been put out, the firemen were no longer needed. As such, they pulled out of the scene and left the victim’s family to handle her postmortem affairs. 

The small living room felt oddly empty after the firemen left. 

Zayn and Kenan stood like statues before the corpse on the floor. The closer they drew toward it, the more uneasy they felt. Exclusive © content by N(ô)ve/l/Drama.Org.

Neither of them dared to lift the fireproof cloth to peek at the body beneath. 

“No, this can’t be Willow. It just can’t,” Kenan muttered derisively, shaking his head. 

“She was fine when I left home today. She even called me just now. I didn’t pick up because my phone. 

was in silent mode. 

“Yes, Willow must be fine. She’s perfectly all right somewhere. This corpse can’t be hers!” 

As the words tumbled out of Kenan’s mouth, he grabbed a corner of the white cloth and lifted it to reveal the corpse underneath. 

The moment Kenan saw the corpse, tears streamed down his cheeks uncontrollably. 

Even Zayn’s eyes turned red and misty as he stared at the corpse before him. 

The body was burned beyond recognition. Where there should have been hair and a face were now nothing more than charred flesh. 

It was like looking at a pile of human–shaped charcoal. 

A dead human. 

There was no sign of life at all/The clothes had been burned away save for a few flimsy pieces of fabric that clung to what was left of the woman’s flesh, which made for a gut–wrenching sight. 

The charred and blackened mess that the fire made of the woman’s skin was akin to a rotisserie chicken that had been left on the spit for too long. 

2/2 

Zayn stared at the corpse with a hollow gaze, refusing to believe that this was the woman whose one talent was to grate on his nerves. 

“This isn’t Willow! This cannot be her!” 

He repeated this line with certain madness as if to convince himself. 

Desperation had him believing that if he kept saying this line religiously, Willow might turn out to be alive somewhere instead of sprawled across the floor as a burned corpse. 

Alas, no matter how much he tried to tell himself otherwise, he knew deep down that the corpse before him was Willow’s. 

She was dead. 

“I’m going to die, Zayn,” Willow had told him over the phone. 

What had he said to her then? Something along the lines of, “Go ahead and die, Willow. May you rest in peace!” 

He had even added sarcastically, “What, did you expect me to pray for your soul?” 

Zayn had been satisfied when he said those hurtful things. But now, looking at the charred corpse before him, he did not feel a trace of satisfaction at all. 

His heart twisted painfully, and it felt like it was bleeding a river. 

Zayn had never been so devastated. 

Chapte 257