Fire

Heya guys,

I'm going to post a little thing I wrote while I was on holiday. It uses the characters from my book 'The Myth Project' (well the main character) and is based on that storyline.

The main character Rachel has the power of telekinesis, which means she can move things with her mind. She has made many enemies during her time of working with the Myth Project and in this extract, she meets a new one

I know it is long, but I hope you like it.

Love beasle95 x :)

I looked up, my hair falling across my face.
He was watching me again; I could feel it. Flicking my hair out of my eyes, I looked up at the man.
He was holding up a newspaper – The Times – supposedly reading some of the latest sport headlines. But I could see his eyes peering over the top of the pages, zoning onto me. I cleared my throat and threw a pointed glance in his direction. The man coughed too and shook his papers, holding them up a bit so I could no longer see his face.
Turning my back on him, I grabbed some more books and headed over to shelf ‘R’. Quickly finding the right placement for the book, I groaned inwardly at the surnames of the next three authors of the books in my hands. ‘Fleming’, ‘Dickens’ and ‘Ackerman’. All in the same area. All within a few feet of the man.
Over by the M’s to Z’s I was safely out of sight. But the earlier letters were right near him and I was feeling more than uncomfortable by his presence.
I had filed a book under Dickens before and two under Fleming as well, so I could put the books straight on the shelves and walk away again. But the place for the book by ‘Alice Ackerman’ was taking me ages to find. My eyes scanned the shelves again and again, trying to find the exact place to put the book. My fingers twitched as I got more and more agitated. My side burned under the man’s gaze until I thought I might explode with tension. I was so scared that I could feel my control over my powers slipping. The recent months had proved to me that keeping control wasn’t easy at all.
I saw two leaflets flutter slightly, but they were sitting right by an open window, so I hoped that no-one would take any notice of their movement.
Breathing out a sigh, I at last found the location for the book and placed it on the shelf. It took so much will and self control to calmly stroll across the room to the trolley which was out of sight instead of sprinting there like Usain Bolt.
When at last I got behind the shelf out of sight, my shoulders sagged and I exhaled heavily. David walked up beside me, his face kind and smiling, holding a pile of books.
“You alright Rachel?” he asked sympathetically. “You don’t look very happy.”
I shook my head. “I’m not – that crazy man over there keeps staring at me and it’s freaking me out!” I ran my hand through my hair. “I just don’t want to be rude by saying anything, but it really is making me feel uncomfortable.”
David frowned and peered around the bookshelves. “Grey hair and stubble, black t-shirt with the newspaper?” he asked, turning back and I nodded. “I’ll go and have a word with him then.” David said and I threw him a grateful smile.
“Thanks.”
I hid behind the bookshelf and watched through the gaps between the books. David approached the man by walking casually across the room. The man stared over the top of his newspaper to where I was hiding. I flinched back, feeling his gaze burn my face.
“Hello sir,” I heard David say quietly to the man. Turning back around, I peered through the books again so I could see them both.
“Alrigh’?” The man replied, flashing two blackened teeth at the front of his mouth. I grimaced, imagining the smell from them – they must be rotten.
“You are making some of our employees feel uncomfortable with your...staring.” David stumbled over the last word but kept his tone polite. “Would you mind...not staring or I will have to ask you to leave the building.
The man frowned – his eyebrows knitting together and his face crinkled. “I ‘aven’t been starin’” he stated angrily.
“Mr...?” David asked and the man shook his head.
“I ain’t tellin’ you ma name mista!” The man growled and got to his feet. David held his hands up.
“Well then that’s fine sir. I just wanted t make that issue clear.” The man glared and sat back down again.
“Good. Glad there ain’t any more problems.” He rustled his paper indignantly and started reading again. David walked back over to me.
“Sorry Rachel.” He frowned. “I’d just stay away from him from now on. You get all sorts of people coming in here.” I nodded and thanked him again gratefully. David smiled and walked off to continue stacking books.
I was very selective about the books that I chose to stack for the rest of the hour. Anything before M in the alphabet didn’t come into my hands so I wouldn’t have to go near the man again. I could still feel his gaze on me for a while, but after 40 minutes, I looked over to the chair where he had been sitting and saw that he was gone.

After and amusing lunch where David and Ross had been doing impressions of Catherine Tate characters, I looked at my timetable and saw that I was scheduled to do shelf checks for an hour that afternoon. It wasn’t one of my favourite parts of the job, but I had to do everything I could.
I started off in the main section of the library, searching for books on musical history, biographies, baby names and children’s novels. I was very selective and quite tedious.
After 20 minutes of my endless searching, Gemma approached me. “Hi Rachel, have you seen David anywhere? He’s supposed to be helping me upstairs and I haven’t seen him since lunch time.”
I frowned. “What was he supposed to be doing now?” I asked.
Gemma answered almost instantly. “Shelf checks, like you.”
I nodded. “Well he might be in the basement. Some of the older books are down there right?” Gemma nodded and smiled.
“He’s probably down there. Could you please do me a massive favour and check if he is down there? I’ve got a ton of work to do upstairs and I shouldn’t waste any more time.”
“Sure,” I nodded and put my pen and clipboard on the counter.
Walking across the library, I headed for the staff door and typed in the code, shielding the buttons with my body. Even though there wasn’t anything particularly important in this section, I still felt nervous about anyone seeing. Then they would have access to everything out back.
Door unlocked and opened, I walked through, making sure the door shut behind me. Typing in the code for the next door, I strode quickly down the stairs to the basement, passing the staff kitchen and meeting room on my way.
The basement was really dark as I walked into it. It was full of hundreds of records over the last century or so. Documents, newspapers and priceless books that were full of wear and memories. To some people, this stuff was just overdue rubbish but there was so much information and value despite the age of it all.
I grimaced at the cobwebs which hung from the ceiling, mixing with the shadows to create spooky patterns in the dim light. One of the bulbs flickered ominously and I shivered. It was cold down here. The place reminded me of running through the tunnel-like corridors in Keller’s headquarters – desperately trying so search for a way out.
“David?” I called and my voice echoed, resounding of the walls. “David are you down here?” I called again, my voice catching in my throat. I coughed and then swallowed. But I got no answer. I guess that I’d have to keep looking.
I wandered through the shelves, packed to bursting with old papers. I brushed my fingers gently over them, feeling the ancient paper skim my fingertips.
“David? Hello – are you down here?” I called again and again, but I still got no answer. I was deep in the basement now and there wasn’t much light at all.
Suddenly I heard a crash from somewhere off to my right. I froze, terrified and my eyes widened. My heart was beating so loudly, I was sure that it would be a beacon to my whereabouts.
“David – is that you?” My voice sounded hoarse and I cleared my throat again. All the stupid dust was clogging up my lungs. I started walking again, each step noisily echoing off the walls. I tried to walk more quietly, but I was too scared now.
David could be anywhere down here – it was probably just some rats or something. I hoped the ‘or something’ wasn’t an option, or at least, better than rats.
I looped back around and started walking back towards the entrance. A sound of muffled shuffling and grunting suddenly reached my ears and I stopped again, listening. My eyes roamed around the dark room, picking out the details from the shadows of the shelves.
“David?” I whispered, too scared to shout. I heard a muffled shuffling again and warily stepped forwards towards the place where I thought the sound was coming from.
I wandered through the shelves, searching. My heard was pounding inside my chest and the sound filled my ears, making it difficult to hear anything else.
As I turned the next corner, I gasped. David was on the floor, his hands and feet bound and a gag in his mouth. I rushed over to his side and immediately started undoing the knot in the cloth in his mouth. After a minute, I managed to pull it free.
“What happened to you?” I gasped, undoing his hands.
“That stupid man who was staring at you earlier tied me up. He told me he had a job to finish and that I was getting in his way. He knocked me out and tied me up. I’ve only just woken up to be honest – I heard you calling.” I shook my head in disbelief and pulled back David’s hair off of his forehead. Sure enough, there was a large welt there. The skin had split and there was blood crusted around the edges.
“Is the man still here?” I asked, working the knot in the rope lose again.
David shrugged. “I’m not sure. I heard a crash a few minutes ago, but I thought it was you.” I froze, my hands hovering over David’s.
“It wasn’t me. I thought it was you.” Realisation dawned on both of us and my blood turned cold, goosebumps shooting across my skin.
“Let’s get you out of here quickly.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say and furiously continued unpicking the tight knots. My fingers ached and were rubbed red raw from the tough rope.
David sniffed and then frowned. “Can you smell that?” he asked, his eyebrows knotting together.
“What?” I replied absentmindedly. I was busy concentrating on the rope.
“That...burning...” David said slowly and my eyes shot up to meet his. I sniffed and sure enough I could smell the mild, but distinctive smell of smoke.
I worked even more quickly and with more desperation to unknot David’s hands and at last managed to do it. We started working on his feet together when suddenly there was a whoosh from behind me. We both jumped and I whirled around to stare at the bookshelves.
About three rows away from where we were sitting, a large tongue of flame shot towards the ceiling and crackled.
“Go and get an extinguisher! Set the alarm off!” David yelled, taking over from my sore hands. I nodded and scrambled to my feet. Running forward, I dodged past two shelves and around the next corner.
The flames were spreading fast; down here was the perfect place. It was dry and cool normally with a little bit of ventilation from the ceiling so the fire had no trouble setting alight the crisp paper. Three bookshelves were alight already and the flames were licking at a forth. My eyes darted back and forth as I ran from the fire, desperately trying to find an alarm or extinguisher. But I could find nothing.
The air was filling with smoke and I coughed loudly, trying to clear my lungs. My eyes watered and I wished that there was a window or something to get some clean air in here.
I skidded around the next corner and groaned. Where the fire extinguisher had once been, was an empty bracket on the wall. I couldn’t see a point to set off the alarm, but I was sure that it would go off in any second anyway. Rushing as fast as I could, I made my way back to David who was still working furiously on his bonds.
“I can’t find anything,” I choked. “He’s taken the fire extinguisher.”
“Ok, don’t panic,” David said reassuringly. “Can you help me with these ropes again?” I nodded and got to work.
Suddenly David’s eyes widened. “Rachel!” he called out in warning, but it was too late. I twisted around to see what he was warning me about just as a large metal pole was slammed into my shoulder. I gasped and rolled away, springing to my feet.
The man was standing there panting; the pole in one hand. His face was dirty from the ash and he was sweating profusely.
“Who are you?” I demanded, trying not to inhale the smoke.
“My name is not important Rachel,” the man said. “But I work for an old...friend of yours.”
“Who?” I asked, taken aback by the man’s casual use of my name and tried to ignore the uncomfortable feeling this created.
“Russell Keller.” His lips parted in a grimace – a pathetic attempt at a smile and revealed his foul blackened teeth. I shuddered and resisted the urge to look away – he might attack me again and I needed to be ready.
“Why has he sent you?” I asked just as David demanded:
“Who the heck is Keller?” I ignored him.
“What’s he told you to do then? Murder? Torture? Kidnapping? Am I being taken to see him face to face?”
The man didn’t reply, but instead lunged forward and grabbed my arm. Twisting my wrist, I tried to get away but his grip was like iron – it was almost impossible to escape.
Almost.
The man was still holding onto the metal pole that he had used to hit me with earlier. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him lift it up, ready to hit me again.
But to his surprise, the pole suddenly decided that it didn’t want to hit me, but it wanted to be free.
Spinning around, the pole whirled out of the man’s hand so fast I thought I heard it dislocate. I grimaced as he yelled in pain and automatically let go of me to hold his wrist. I twisted away and then spun around on one foot, bringing it up to kick the man in the stomach. His breath was forced out of his lungs and he doubled over, griping his middle and holding his hand into his body to protect it. I followed through with a sharp chop to the back of his neck and he dropped to the ground and lay still.
I rushed over to David who was gaping madly – eyes as wide as saucers and his jaw slack. “What the heck just happened?” he choked, partly through disbelief and partly because of the thickening smoke.
“Doesn’t matter – we need to get out of here!” I yelled over the noise of the fire. It crackled and popped and the flames had reached the ceiling now. And they were spreading fast.
At last I managed to undo David’s feet and the rope fell away.
Grabbing my hand, David pulled himself to his feet and we both started coughing. My eyes were watering so much now, I could hardly see.
“Help me with him,” I choked and a ragged cough cut through my lungs. But with each cough, I was inhaling more smoke so it only made me cough more. David grabbed one of the man’s arms and slung it across his shoulders. I did the same on the other side and together we half carried, half dragged the unconscious man towards the exit.
“I can’t believe you knocked him out!” David kept saying, the words gushing out of his mouth and flowing into each other. “You didn’t even hit him much and he dropped like a ton of bricks!” David shot me a questioning look. “What does he want anyway? And who is this Keller guy you were both talking about?”
I desperately evaded his questions. “I’ll answer them later David – we need to get out of here!” David nodded determinedly – I think he was in shock or something.
The flames had caught the wooden supports on the ceilings which were now glowing a deep red.
“Look out!” I gasped, automatically pulling myself backwards. David, taken by surprise stumbled a few steps forward and fell down. But the man fell backwards on top of me, his dead weight heavy. I gasped and pushed him off myself. A 6 foot long wooden support post had dropped down from the ceiling, smouldering and crackling manically, landing on the ground separation David from the man and I.
“Are you alright Rachel?” David called, desperately trying to bat out the flames on the log.
“I’m ok!” I called back and tried to get to my feet. But to my surprise and horror, a bolt of pain shot up my leg. I cried out and fell back down again, catching myself just in time.
“I think I’ve sprained my ankle!” I called to David, who was looking desperately from side to side.
“I can’t get round to you!” David yelled, fear written all over his face. “The log’s blocked the path completely.” Sure enough, as I looked up, I noticed that at this point in the basement, it had narrowed into a corridor, one bookshelf on each side lining the walls. But where the log had caught fire, it had fallen right across the gap where we were supposed to walk through. Which meant our only way of escape had been blocked. Panic gripped my heart, but I tried to stay calm.
“Run David! Set the alarm off and get the fire brigade here now! Get everyone else out of the building!”
“I can’t...” David started, but I yelled.
“GO!” And he ran away.
I slumped on the ground, unsure what to do. I was finding it harder and harder to breathe. The smoke seemed to be thickening by the second.
I thought I should try and move the log out of the way – see if I could create a gap big enough to crawl through. I concentrated really hard on the log, feeling the substance and heat of it in my head. Very slowly, I tried to move it to one side, twisting it so that it ran the length of the corridor rather than the width. My breathing became more and more ragged until I thought I might pass out. And the log had barely moved a few centimetres. I guessed that I would have to wait for the fire brigade to rescue me instead.
I decided that I probably needed to find a more sheltered place to wait and hide under to protect me from the flames. I stared indecisively at the man. The flames on the log were licking at his feet and I knew that they would catch him if he wasn’t moved.
Crawling forward, I gripped his arms and dragged him and myself backwards; away from the flaming log. Unfortunately, for a while at least it meant that we had to travel past the larger fire. I could barely breathe at all now and I couldn’t concentrate long enough to use my mind to lift the man up. So I had to use the old fashioned method of dragging him with my hands. It was really hard work and by the time we were in a more sheltered and safer spot, I was ready to pass out.
The whole room apart from our little area was alight now and I could barely see anything through the thick black smoke.
I vaguely remembered that I should cover my mouth with a piece of damp cloth to stop myself inhaling so much of the smoke. But there was nothing damp in here anymore apart from the sweat the was running off of my skin from the intense heat. I ripped the bottom of my shirt so I had a strip of material and held it over my mouth and then curled into a ball.
I hoped that the fire engines would get here soon – I wasn’t sure how much longer I could take this heat. My skin was blistering and the hair was being singed off of my arms. My ankle was throbbing from where I had fallen earlier. I lay my head down on my arm, my face turned away from the fire.
Suddenly I heard movement from behind me – not the movement of the fire’s destruction, but something else. Something big and heavy. I summoned some of my rapidly declining energy to lift my head.
And gasped with amazement and horror.
The man – the man who had stared at me; the man who had tied David up and set fire to the basement; the man who had been unconscious...was now awake and standing in front of me.
With a gun in his hand. Pointing at me.
“Why are you doing this?” I whispered my voice hoarse from the smoke. The man’s bright yet freezing eyes bored down into mine. They were the coldest things in the whole room.
“Because I was paid to,” he replied. His skin was bright red and blistered badly on one side from the heat of the flames. I hoped my own wasn’t half as bad.
“But...why...” I couldn’t speak anymore. My throat was too full of smoke.
“But I have one question for you Rachel,” the man said and I nodded, indicating that he should continue. “Why did you pull me from the flames, when I’m the one who started it and hurt you?”
I pushed myself up with one arm and sat up. “’Cause,” I choked, pulling the cloth away from my mouth. “...’cause I think...people can change...” I coughed, my whole body convulsing with the movement. “...even...stupid criminals...don’t deserve...to die...like this.” I sucked in a deep breath, but it gave no relief to the burning in my chest. “So...I thought you...should have a...chance to...change...”
The man started at me, shock and disbelief written all over his face. His hand holding the gun shook and he lowered it.
“I can’t kill you now,” he muttered half to himself. “How old are you anyway?”
“Fifteen,” I replied breathlessly and resisted the urge to collapse on the floor.
“But I can’t go to the police,” he whispered. “I can’t.” He stared at the gun in his hand and lifted it up nearer to his face. Realisation dawned on me.
“Don’t do it!” I called desperatly. “That isn’t the solution and you know it.” I pushed my hair off of my sweaty forehead. “You can make a difference in the world. Taking your life out of it won’t help anyone.”
“It does,” the man replied determindly. He wasn’t going to have his mind changed. I had to stop him though – this wasn’t right. This man would have a family, and at least some friends despite his criminal lifestyle.
I grabbed the gun with my mind and pulled it from his fingers. It skittered across the floor and landed by the wall. He gaped back, open mouthed. “Keller told me you had special abilities,” the man said. “But I didn’t realise that you could do that.”
I nodded weakly, my own energy now gone.
“Tell me your name though,” I whispered. “Please.”
The man’s face softened. “Tom Jones.” His eyes were empty as he walked over and knelt beside me – I didn’t know how he could breathe with all the smoke. But as he came closer, I could see that he too was struggling.
“You can do great things Rachel,” he said and patted my head. I flinched away automatically and pressed myself against the wall. He smiled sadly, reached down and then stood up.
“No!” I called out, but ended up choking instead. Tom Jones threw me one last sad smile and walked into the flames.
I closed my eyes, tears pouring out of my eyes from sadness and the smoke as a single shot rang out. My arm gave out and I slumped onto the floor and drifted peacefully to sleep.