by Candy Crum
“We can’t!” one of the adult women said.
“I know it’s scary, but you have to. I’m here to help you, I promise. I’ll get you out safely. Let’s go.”
She shook her head. “We have to stay and wait. The firefighters will be able to get a ladder up to the window, and we can all climb down. That’s safer. The stairwells are all on fire. We can’t leave.”
I knew then why she’d kept them up there, but the fire was about to come through the floor. She had no idea just how bad it had gotten down there.
“The building is still structurally sound, but that won’t last long,” I said.
I looked around and saw a sink along the wall. At one time, this school was the elementary school. There wasn’t a middle school back then. After sixth grade, you went straight into high school. The city grew quite a lot, so they built two smaller elementary schools and turned this one into the middle school because it held more students. Then, the high school was expanded quite a bit.
But that was back when funding was still available. Everything had gone to shit in the last few years. Something in the back of my head told me that it had everything to do with Jay. Somehow… It was.
“Everyone up,” I said again.
No one moved.
I stood, staring at them, wondering how many of them I could compel. They were children after all. Perhaps it wouldn’t take much to overpower the mind of a child as it would an adult. Tristan told me that it took a lot of energy to compel multiple people at once, but for someone like him, it was almost effortless. He hadn’t yet taught me how to do it, but if the kids were to live to see another day, they’d have to.
Final chance. “Listen to me. You can’t rely on the trucks to save you. Do you know how many other people are stuck in this building? That floor is about to get very hot. It’s all on fire directly under you. How it hasn’t burned you yet, I don’t know, but it’s about to. You need to get up. Now. If you don’t, I’ll have to force you. Please, don’t make me do that. We need to save these kids.”
Nothing. Damn it.
I took a deep breath and quickly made my way to the sink. Kicking as hard as I could, I broke it off the wall, allowing water to spray into the room. I turned and faced everyone, allowing my power to flow through me. At that moment, I wished I’d listened to Cass and Tristan and fed more often. I was getting better about it, but not like I should be. I just prayed that the lives before me wouldn’t suffer because of it.
You can do this, I told myself.
I saw several eyes widen and knew that my looks had changed. I felt every one of their life forces. So young. So strong. They could survive, as long as I didn’t screw up.
“On your feet,” I demanded.
The kids were fast to their feet, but the teachers were slower. I could tell that I had control of their actions, but their minds were their own. They couldn’t understand why they were following my orders when they didn’t want to.
“Everyone stand in the water and wet your clothes.”
The smoke began pouring down the hallway, and I could feel the heat in the floor rising. It was about to come through. That meant the floor could be compromised at any moment.
It only took a few moments for everyone to wet their clothing enough to keep them from burning if the fire touched them.
“Let’s go,” I said, not allowing any room for argument.
I led the way, careful to take them down a path that I knew to be safe. The fire downstairs had gotten worse, but the sprinkler system was doing an okay job at slowing it enough to let us through. I’d just gotten them through the front door when an explosion rocked the building. Screams could erupted from inside. I could suddenly feel the energy of a lot more people.
“Oh, my God,” I said.
“Wendy’s on her way!” Andrews called out.
“This school is full of kids! I couldn’t sense them until now, but they are everywhere! Get Tristan here now!”
I ran as hard as I could back into the building. I didn’t know why, but my powers had only allowed me to sense a few of the children. When that explosion happened, so many more revealed themselves to me. I ran down the hallway toward where the chemistry lab was. It had been the source of the first explosion. That is likely where most of the students would be stuck.
The closer I got, the stranger I began to feel. I could see why the firefighters were having such a hard time. The smell was terrible. I’d never been around drugs, so I had no idea what to compare it to, but it was thick and heavy in the air. My head was spinning. How anyone lasted in that, I’ll never know. The children and teachers down there must have been very sick.
The fire drew tighter and tighter in, making it hard to clear my way through. Forcing my eyes to see past the bright flames, I could see that was because the door frame had been blown to pieces leading into the science hall. While it was still twenty or more feet away from the chem lab, it was still enough of a blast that the heat weakened everything around it.
“Help!” I heard a blood-curdling scream from further in. A woman.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward, kicking as hard as I could at some of the rubble. It was on fire, and the flames bit at my jeans and skin, but I didn’t care. I’d heal from whatever happened. Finally, I was able to bust through. I doubled over and stepped through the small opening that I’d created. Through the heavy smoke and ash rising in the air, I was able to see something on the floor. Several somethings.
Bodies.
Three firemen were on the floor. They had a little bit of a spark in them, but not much.
I don’t know how to do the life breath…
I had no way to save them. I looked around and saw a door across from the chem lab had come off its hinges. In fact, a lot of the wall had been blown apart. There was wood, concrete, and insulation all over the place. I started to cough, unable to overpower all of the drug-laden smoke. I dropped to my hands and knees, trying not to care about the tiny splinters and pieces of glass stabbing at them.
I crawled over to the room and saw that there wasn’t much room to walk in there. Everything was blown apart and scattered everywhere, but I didn’t care. What I was interested in was the windows across the room.
I was stronger than a human, but not nearly as powerful as a Vampire. I’d have to work for what was about to happen. I took a deep breath and ran into the room, doing my best to ignore the pain from the fire burning my now bare lower legs. I picked up a flaming piece of wood and busted through the windows. How they’d not broken in the blast, I didn’t know. I didn’t care.
Someone saw the glass breaking and the immediate smoke that began to be sucked out. They ran over.
“Get down!” I said. I couldn’t see details of the person heading toward me, only shapes. The smoke was too thick. “This smoke is full of drug residue. You need a mask!”
“You don’t have one,” the man said. “Take mine.”
“No! I don’t need one,” I said. He tried again. I couldn’t really see him, so I reached through the window and put my hand on the only part of his bare skin that I could find, his neck. “No. You keep it. You need it. Since you have one, come inside and help me throw these firemen out this window.”
Being ground level, it wouldn’t be a terrible fall. The more I fought through it all, the angrier I became. The budget cuts had spanned across our men and women in uniform just as much as it had the schools. But where was it going? Why didn’t we see any of it? I became angrier by the minute. These men, women, and students were dying.
“Shit!” I said as soon as the firefighter got through the window.
“What is it?” he called out. The sound of the fire was roaring, and the hoses outside weren’t any quieter.
“Someone called for help down the hall. I saw the down firemen, and I forgot. We need to get them out of here quick.”
We rushed out of the room and to the first of the men in the floor. “How are you in here with no protective equipment? Your
skin is burned, but it doesn’t seem to be getting worse. It’s like it heals as it burns.”
“Perks of being a Succubus,” I said. Even through his mask, I could see him look at me strangely. “Long story. Don’t ask. Just know that I’m able to help and that you shouldn’t underestimate me.”
“Duly… noted,” he forced out as we threw the first of the three men out the window. There were two cops there, including that cute little guy I’d met earlier, standing ready to catch them. They also wore masks.
We headed back in and grabbed the others, repeating the process of taking them across the room and leading them through the window to the men that were ready to help.
“The smoke…” my fireman said. “It’s getting to me. I have to get out of here. I’ll send someone else back in.”
“Have you seen a woman with curly white-blonde hair and piercing light blue eyes?” I asked.
“No. Why?”
“Don’t worry about the specifics. Just know that she’s a lot stronger than I am. If you see her… You get her to me. Understand? She can save more lives than anyone here combined.”
There was a pause, and I could feel a flicker in his energy. There was both fear and hope there.
“Absolutely. But listen… You’re on your own.”
“Wait. What? Why?”
“I don’t know or understand what’s happening. But we are under strict orders not to go back in the building.”
“There are kids still in here!” I said.
“I know. And as soon as I get my head clear of the shit that’s burning in there, I’ll be right back. Bet your ass. The only reason why I was able to sneak in was because of the thick smoke. The two cops had to help me. They are under orders, too. Something weird is going on. I’m only telling you this because I trust you.”
“If someone is telling you to back off—and you don’t know why—well, I think I might. Seems to me, you might have a few rotten people in your midst,” I said.
“I’ve been suspecting that for a while, but had no way to tell. I’ll see if I can find something out. Until then, good luck. You need to get moving.”
That was no joke. There were a lot more people inside, and it seemed that I would be the only one to help. I wasn’t entirely sure if the whole thing was planned or not, but I did know one thing…
Jay was behind it.
He may have orchestrated the whole thing from the beginning. He may have just heard what happened and decided to play the rest by ear. Which one, I couldn’t be certain. It didn’t matter right then. All that mattered was that I get in there as quickly as possible and save as many kids as I could.
Chapter Three
Moving through the thick cloud of smoke in that part of the school was nearly impossible. It was so hard to breathe. Once again, I found myself on my hands and knees, crawling through the rubble. Luckily, I was faster than the average human, though that wasn’t saying much. When comparing it to Cass, I was a slug. I wished that he was there with me, but I knew he’d burn in the heat. He may have been a Day-walker, but his blood still had enough toxins in it to ignite it.
Just ahead of me and to the right, I heard coughing. Several of them, all kids, coughing in succession. My heart sank. I found the room and stood, squinting my eyes to see through the smoke. The door was still attached, though the walls all around it were on fire.
“Get away from the door!” I shouted.
“We are!” I heard a little girl call out before being breaking out into a coughing fit.
I kicked as hard as I could, and then kicked again. The third time was the charm. The hinges broke, and the large, heavy door flew several feet back before hitting a desk and tipping into the floor. There were several screams, but once it settled, the kids seemed to calm down.
Thinking back on what I’d just done, I realized how stupid it was. I had no way of knowing how structurally sound the wall was. When I walked in, everyone was on the floor, huddled under student desks. A lot of the kids were pass out, or dead. I couldn’t be certain. Their energies blended together. I didn’t see any gaps, but there were a few that looked pretty dim. I had to get them out. Quick.
“We need to get everyone out of here,” I said. “I anyone that’s awake to listen to me carefully and don’t be afraid. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I quickly took inventory of the room. The windows were out. The fire had consumed the ceiling and surrounded the windows. The smoke was abundant, and the air that came in was only feeding the flames. This room wouldn’t last much longer. The way that I’d come was far too dangerous.
Hiding under the desks was smart, but it wouldn’t save them. The floor above us was about to give due to the high level of heat. The desks would hopefully protect them from the weight of the floor, but not everything that would come with it. Desks, tables, sinks, and many other things would tumble down along with it.
I ran to the windows. They were my best bet. The fire was raging, but if I could get the attention of one of the firefighters, and I called out, surely, they couldn’t ignore me. Right?
“Hey!” I shouted. “There are kids in here! The fire is surrounding the windows!”
Nothing.
“Hey! You bastards! Get your asses over here! I know you’re just standing around out there!”
I couldn’t see them, but if what that firefighter told me was true, they were hanging around out there under the guise that it was too dangerous to go back in, and they had to wait it out. I could still hear the water going, but that wasn’t going to do shit. Not the way they were doing it. To the average person, I’m sure it looked like they were helping a lot, but not to me. My dad was once a volunteer firefighter for this town. I knew how they worked.
Still. There was nothing. Only the roar of the flames, and the sound of the fire hoses outside.
“Having fun in there?” I heard someone say.
“Thank God!” I said. I couldn’t see them for the flames and smoke in the window, but I was just happy to hear a voice. “Point some water this way! If we can get even one of the windows clear, we can get these kids out!”
“Actually,” he called back. “That’s gonna be a no from me. You see, I have a message for you now.”
Chills ran down my spine.
“And what’s that?” I asked.
“You should have stayed away. You should have died when you had the chance. Now, you get to watch them die and know that it’s your fault. If you have any sense to you, you’ll stay dead this time.”
“You have no idea who you’re fucking with,” I shouted back.
It must have been too loud outside for anyone to hear what he was saying to me. It was loud inside, too, but not loud enough. I looked back and saw all the tiny, filthy faces of the children staring back at me, terrified of what had been said.
“No one is letting you die today,” I said. “I promise you that.”
I used my power to reach out to the man that was walking away. Tristan had recently taught me that life forces were like fingerprints. Everyone’s was different. I could see it through the walls and the flames, but I wasn’t powerful enough to control it from where I was. I just wanted to memorize the man I would be hunting down later.
The sounds of cracking pulled me from my rage. I looked up to see the ceiling beginning to give. I grabbed a stray desk and slammed it against the wall. The only thing that I could think was to break the top off of one of them and use it to try to block the flames in the window while the teacher helped me shove kids out. It was a terrible idea. Absolutely terrible, but it was the best one that I had. There was no way out the way I’d come. The kids were guaranteed to get burned or pass out from the thick drug cloud. It hadn’t been so bad in this room.
“Get the kids ready,” I said. “We have to shove them through the window. We have no other choice.”
The teacher began to scramble out from under the desk. “Some of them are passed out. At least, I hope they are.”
“I
can sense their life forces. They’re alive,” I said. I didn’t care about my secret. It didn’t matter at all. Not right then. “We need to get the ones that are awake out first. The others we will drag out together.”
She nodded and began herding the children that could move over to the window. The crunching, cracking, and whining of the floor above us got louder and louder.
“Quick and fast,” I said.
The teacher nodded. I sat the large chunk of desktop in the window which partially blocked off the flames on that side. It wasn’t much, and it wouldn’t last long, but it worked. We just had to be careful not to fling it out the window.
We picked up the first student and pushed her out the window. It was the ground floor, so it didn’t matter much on the height, though it would still be a painful fall. With my added strength, I was able to throw her good enough that only her feet and legs dragged through. I heard her hit on the other side and hoped that she’d roll away and get help from someone that would actually care.
As we readied the next kid, a loud whine followed by several deep cracks echoed through the room, showering everything in flaming debris. This was it. I knew that it was about to happen. Everything was about to cave in, and we hadn’t even gotten the second kid out yet.
“Hurry!” I shouted.
We grabbed the boy and threw him out next, followed by another. The teacher was beginning to look pretty unstable. She was surrounded by the smoke that was being sucked through the window, and I knew it had to be hurting her. How she’d managed that long, I had no idea. Pure soul, was all I could figure.
As we grabbed for the fourth child, a young girl, the entire area began to shake as the floor overhead finally gave in. I closed my smoke-burned eyes out of instinct, waiting for the screams of all the children I’d failed, but they never came.
“Mia!”
My eyes darted open to see Wendy Cain standing in the room, her arms straight out to her side with a powerful blue energy swirling around her as she used her dominion over the elements to calm the flames overhead and hold the floor above us steady. Her curly, white-blonde hair whipped around in the little bit of the wind that surrounded her, and her crystalline blue eyes almost glowed as she worked.