Hellfire Saga

by Third Cousins

  I stepped onto my window ledge and I jumped. The cool air started to whip around my face as I plunged towards the ground. I could feel the harsh droplets of rain slapping against me, as I picked up speed and then I crashed into the mattress and the shock went straight up my spine. I stood still, in shock. The pain was incredible, but I managed to push it to the back of my mind. Then the sound of fire engines split the air.

  CHAPTER 4

  Daniel

  I’d heard her screams, but I hadn’t gone down to wake her. She’d been insistent on me leaving her to sleep for the night and I didn’t want to seem like I was suffocating her with my presence. We’d grown so close in the years that had passed since I’d come to the home that I didn’t want to do anything to risk what we had.

  It wasn’t until the screaming had stopped, though, that I’d realized that I’d made a huge mistake. I should have known that her dreams were more than just nightmares. I should have known that with her troubled mind so uneasy, something would happen.

  I smelt the smoke first. I could feel it filling the air and tickling the back of my throat. I opened my door and found great clouds of it rising up from the stairs. The source wasn’t on the floor below though, I could tell because the heat hadn’t risen up to me yet.

  I went back into my bedroom and grabbed a blanket to wrap around my face, before I headed down the stairs and towards Lucy’s room. I had to make sure that she was okay. I had to make sure that she hadn’t come to any harm. I knocked on her door, but she didn’t answer. I pushed it open roughly and found her window open and her room empty of both herself and her mattress.

  I walked over to the window and looked out. She’d jumped out of the window. I climbed up onto the ledge and jumped out onto the mattress, which had caught Lucy before me. There was already a crowd of kids standing outside the home, but I could tell without counting that it wasn’t everybody. I scanned the crowd for Lucy’s face and found her standing alone by one of the trees.

  I walked over to her quickly. I could see in her expression that she was afraid. I could tell from the small shake of her body that she knew deep down that she had caused this. I threw my arms around her and pulled her to my chest. “Are you okay?” I asked her because I didn’t care that she’d done it. I didn’t care about the people who might be hurt. The only thing I cared about was that Lucy was okay.

  “I don’t know,” she stuttered. “I was having my nightmare and then I woke up and there was all this smoke.” She fell off into her own thoughts.

  “Do you have any idea what did it?” I asked, as I glanced over at the home. It was burning brightly as the flames were finding and taking possession of anything that could be made to burn. I could see firemen trying to get in past the blaze, but it was roaring like no natural fire ever could.

  “I don’t know,” she said, but her eyes wouldn’t meet mine when she said it. “I think maybe--” but she was cut off when a police officer walked over to us.

  “Excuse me,” the officer said firmly, as he took in the two of us standing beneath the tree. “I’m going to need to ask you a few questions.” He looked directly at Lucy.

  “What do you need to ask?” She said quietly. The officer was as big as she was small.

  “I think it’s best that we take you down the station,” the officer said, glancing over at me.

  “Can I come with her?” I asked quickly because I didn’t want to let her out of my sight.

  “I’m sorry, we can only have a responsible adult with her,” the officer said. Then he reached forward to take Lucy’s arm.

  I watched, as she jerked her arm back quickly from the officer. “I can walk on my own,” she said.

  “Sure, thing, Miss,” the officer said with a smirk riding across his lips.

  “When will she be back?” I asked before he had a chance to walk away.

  “Well, that just depends on how she answers the questions we have for her, doesn’t it?” He eyed me with a level of suspicion that I wasn’t comfortable with.

  I nodded and let the officer escort Lucy away. I knew there was nothing I could do for Lucy now other than wait. I knew that I’d messed up, but it was too late to fix the situation. All I could do was hope for the best. All I could do was hope that somehow she would be released and brought back to me.

  I’d spent too long away to still have the contacts that I used to have. Finding her this first time had been difficult enough, so I knew that if she was sent away again, I lose her for good. I knew that everything I’d been working for and building towards depended on Lucy keeping her cool under pressure. I just wasn’t convinced that she was prepared for that.

  The care home staff tried to get all of us kids organized, but I slipped out into the night. Without Lucy there was no point in me staying there. I wasn’t a kid and I was getting pretty sick of being treated like one. I just wanted to be alone. I just wanted a chance to think about all the things I could have done to prevent the night from going the way it had.

  It would have been so easy to stop her if only I’d known she was doing it. It would have been so easy to prevent if I’d have gone down to check on her instead of keeping my distance. I felt bad. I felt awful. It might have been Lucy who started the fire, but it was my fault that she had.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lucy

  The police officer didn’t speak to me at all during the ride to the station. I could feel his eyes sliding back to me occasionally when he looked into the mirror, but I ignored his gaze. I wasn’t sure why I was in the back of his car. He hadn’t taken any of the other kids from the home. What did that mean? Did that mean I was a suspect? Did that mean that they thought I’d set the fire?

  I could feel a deep restless itch in my stomach as I thought about what might have started the fire. It was like I knew something. It was like I’d seen something, but my mind was blocking it out. All I knew, though, was that it couldn’t have been me. I had been sleeping in my room. I had been living through the nightmares that plagued me.

  The car pulled up outside of the station and I waited for the officer to unlock my door, so that I could step out into the heavy drizzle that was falling without care from the sky. “Am I under arrest?” I asked the officer as we walked over to the small, droll building that was marked with the police coat of arms.

  “You are if you try to leave,” the officer said gruffly. He strode ahead of me so he could speak to the pudgy woman who was sitting behind the reception desk. “You wait here,” he said to me after he’d finished speaking with her.

  I didn’t say anything, but I didn’t move either. The pudgy woman at the reception desk kept her eyes glued to me through the small sliver of partition glass. I could tell from the way that her beady eyes were judging me that she thought I was guilty of something. She probably didn't care what it might be: she just saw me as guilty.

  I sat uncomfortably under her gaze. I shifted occasionally, but tried to avoid doing anything interesting in the hope that she might lose interest and do something else other than stare at me, but she didn’t. It was like the officer who had left us alone had told her not to take her eyes off of me. But for what? If I ran for the door, there was no way should would be able to get out of her cage in time to stop me. So was it like a trap? Were they tempting me to try to run away?

  Footsteps from the side of me made me turn my attention away from the annoying woman. “Lucy, I’d like you to come with me,” a new officer said to me. He had a friendlier face than the first one. His light blue eyes felt warm to look into and his stubble made him feel more like a man and less like some image of authority.

  I stood up and followed him down a hallway that was lit with florescent tube lighting that seemed to buzz with passing electricity. “Doesn’t that noise annoy you?” I asked, as I waited for him to unlock one of the interview rooms.

  “You know, I hardly even notice it any more,” the officer said with a small smile, before he pushed the door open and stood aside so I could enter first. Ve
ry gallant.

  The room was smaller than I expected. T here weren’t any mirrors on the wall either. There was just a desk, some gray paint thrown at the walls and a couple of chairs. “Do you want to sit down?” The officer asked me, as he pulled the door closed behind him and locked it again.

  “Sure,” I said, as I sat down at the small table that had been scratched badly over its long life hosting interviews with people who wanted to be anywhere but in that room.

  The officer walked over and took the seat on the other side of the table. “So, before we begin, is there anything that you want to tell me?” he asked me with wide eyes that were open for the truth.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, I don’t even know why I’m here,” I said, and shrugged.

  He looked disappointed in me. “I’m sorry that you’ve said that. Now, we’ve got several eyewitness reports that suggest you caused the fire. I mean it’s pretty damning stuff.” He paused, as though he was giving me a chance to admit to what I’d done.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said because I really didn’t. “I don’t know why people are saying that about me. I mean, I was upstairs sleeping.”

  “This really isn’t the time to lie about what happened tonight, Lucy,” the officer said sternly.

  I could feel myself getting angry at his tone. I hadn’t done anything. I’d been asleep in my bed. How could I have possibly have set a fire downstairs? “I’m not lying about anything,” I said firmly.

  “You know, the punishment will be much less severe if you admit to what you’ve done and show remorse.”

  I slammed my hands down on the desk in frustration and noticed how the officer flinched with my movement. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t remember doing anything. How can I admit to something that I have no memory of doing?” I screamed out at him.

  I didn’t mean to explode. I knew that it wouldn’t do me many favors, but I couldn’t help it. He wasn’t listening to me and he needed to hear what I was saying.

  “You don’t remember anything?” he asked me.

  “No, I don’t remember anything at all. I woke up in my room, I opened the door and I saw the smoke. That’s it. That’s all I know,” I said weakly as the anger quickly released itself from me and I deflated.

  “I’m going to need to talk with the other officers.” He stood up from the small table. “You’re going to wait here,” he said, as he caught my eyes.

  “Well, it’s not like I have a choice,” I said a little grumpily, as I fell back down into my seat and watched him walk out of the room. I heard him not forget to lock the door behind him.

  CHAPTER 6

  Daniel

  I’d called the home in the morning to find out whether Lucy had been brought back, but she hadn’t. I knew that could only mean one thing. I knew that it meant they were charging her with causing the fire. I’d watched it all night on the news. No one had been killed, so she wouldn’t be getting tried for murder, but some of the kids had been pretty badly burnt.

  I’d booked a room in at a motel at the edge of town. I didn’t want to leave town completely in case Lucy was somehow released, but I knew I couldn’t go too close to the home. I knew that they were looking for me and I knew that they’d try to put me back into the system if they found me.

  I waited a couple more days before I realized that I needed to start forming a plan. Lucy still hadn’t been released, and whenever I called I was told that there was no new information to give. I wasn’t even sure whether Lucy was still at the station any more.

  I didn’t know where to start, though. It had been so long since I’d been topside that I wasn’t sure who was a friend and who was a foe any more. I knew, though, I was going to have to start taking risks if I wanted any hope of keeping up with Lucy.

  I could feel my brain starting to take me back to the day that I’d turned my back on her. I could feel the sharp memories starting to pierce through the box that I’d put them in. I’d already lost her once. I’d already let her leave my life and I’d regretted it every day since. I couldn’t let it happen again. I couldn’t let it happen when everything had been working out exactly how I’d wanted it to.

  I left the small motel room, went down the back stairs, and headed down the sidewalk that led out onto a crossroads. It was dark. Night had fallen some time ago and the roads that led off in all four directions were all empty of both cars and walkers. I stood in the center of the roads and closed my eyes. “I think you know you’re being called,” I said into the darkness. “I think it’s time that you came running.” I used a teasing voice that was bordering on all-out mockery.

  I heard a rustle of wind behind me and turned to see a woman standing just beyond arm’s reach. She had long dark hair that fell way down her back. She was wearing a tight vest top and shorts that showed all of her curves, as well as the good bits of skin. “Sir,” she said with a small bob of her head and a hint of a smirk. “You’re looking younger than usual.”

  “Did you just think of that or did it take you all night?” I snapped at her.

  “Well, now,” she said in a slow and sultry tone, “that’s no way to treat a friend.”

  “I think we both know that we’re not friends,” I said as I pointed between us. “Now, I need some help. I need you to spread the word to everyone that you come across. I’m looking for Lucy.” I watched her eyes flash with rage.

  “You kicked her out, sir. Why would we look for her? Why would you look for her?”

  “It is not your place to ask questions,” I said as I looked into her coal black eyes. “It’s your job to follow orders. Oh, and Lucy is not to be harmed when you find her. You are to report her whereabouts to me as soon as you know them.”

  “Okay,” the woman said, as though she disagreed but knew better than to voice it. I watched as she shrugged her shoulders and then disappeared as quickly as she had appeared.

  I walked back to my motel room. I’d done all I could do. I knew that she’d have the message spread around everyone topside within a day or two. All I could do was hope that someone sensed or saw Lucy and that the word got back to me.

  I knew, though, that I was playing a dangerous game. I knew that the only reason Lucy had been safe so far was that everybody believed that I had destroyed her. It had never occurred to any of my followers or my haters that I might have sent her topside. I think they all thought I was too selfish for that. Which I suppose they were right about, considering that I’d followed her right on up.

  I sank into the damp mattress in my room and closed my eyes. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep, though. I knew that thoughts of Lucy would keep me up until the sun had stretched its bright beams across the sky. I stared at the back of my eyelids. I pretended to feel sleepy in the hope that I might be able to trick myself. In the end, though, I decided to sit up and accept that sleep wasn’t going to come.

  A knock on the door broke the frustrating silence that surrounded me. I walked over to the door quickly and opened it without even thinking about who might be on the other side. “I haven’t seen you in a while,” I said, as a redheaded woman with hips to die for walked into my room.

  “Well, you’ve been hiding away up here, haven’t you?” the woman said with a flash of malice in her eyes. “Word on the street is that Lucy is up here too, is that true?” she purred at me.

  “You are not to go after her,” I said sternly.

  “Oh, please. Do you think that I still take orders from you?” she said with a smirk.

  I could see the hate in her eyes, and I could understand it. She had been my second in command. She had been the most loyal of all my followers. I could understand why she had thought that the throne belonged to her. I could understand why my picking Lucy, over her, had caused so much upset. “I know that you don’t like her, but it isn’t her fault. She doesn’t even know who she is up here. If you hunted her down you’d get no pleasure in hurting her because she wouldn’t understand why.”

  �
�You took away her memories?” she asked me in surprise. “You’re even more heartless than I thought.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Lucy

  The first police officer had come back in with a doctor. The doctor had asked me some questions about the fire and I’d tried to answer them as honestly as I could. I’d seen the look in the doctor’s eyes getting more and more concerned with every answer I gave. He stopped eventually and thanked me before he left the room. I could hear him talking with the officers outside of the door, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying to each other.

  The friendly-looking police officer came back in some time later. I noticed a look of caution in his eyes that hadn’t been there the first time that we’d spoken. “So, I’ve just finished speaking with the doctor,” he said.

  “All good news I hope?” I tried to joke, but it fell flat in the heavy atmosphere.

  “He seemed to think that you might be suffering from short-term memory loss. I mean, like your brain can’t cope with what you’ve done, so it’s blocking it out. He’s suggested that we put you in his care for a while, so that he can do some further tests on you, before you go to trial.”

  “He thinks I’m crazy?” I asked him. I wasn’t really that surprised. I’d always known that I wasn’t normal. I’d just never really considered myself as crazy either.

  “He doesn’t think you’re crazy. He just thinks that your brain is struggling to cope and that some time with him might help your mind open up a bit more,” the officer said gently, as though I’d taken some kind of offense at being thought of as crazy.

  “So, when do I go?” I asked him.

  “Soon,” he said, and glanced at the watch on his wrist. “They’re just getting the car ready to take you across now.”