Short Stories for your Enjoyment

It Involves Fire.

"I have a solution."

"Thank goodness."

"It involves fire."

"Absolutely not."

Theo always tries to use fire.

Always.

Last time I let him use it, he burned down an entire forest by accident. He did apologize, but that didn't solve the problem. We still had a major dilemma on our hands. The bad guy had gotten away, and Theo got arrested. I sprung him from jail. What are best friends for?

Now, we were in more trouble than ever before. The same guy that had escaped our unintentional forest fire, now had us tied up in his dark, grimy, basement.

"Well we have to do something." Theo said to me.

"I know. We just are not using fire." I said back.

"Cora, how else are we gonna escape?" He replied, making an I'm-right-and-you-know-it face at me.

"Ok, fine. Just promise not to burn the whole place down." I told him.

"I can't guarantee anything." He said.

I rolled my eyes.

He reached his bound hands into my purse and pulled out a lighter.

"When did you even put that in there?" I asked him.

"I have my ways." He said, glancing up at me with a smug little smile.

He began to try to press the switch down on the little lighter in order to free us. I knew it would hurt. Fire burning against our skin. I don't think Theo had thought this through. I only said yes to make him realize what a stupid idea this was.

He finally got it to work and I heard the tiny click of the fire starting up. I looked over at his hands, quickly at work trying to burn through my ropes. Surprisingly, I couldn't feel a thing.

"Wait, how come I can't feel the fire on my ankles?" I asked with confusion and shock obvious in my voice.

"It's a secret formula I had the lab whip up before we left for the mission." He replied.

"Wow. That was smart. Also, how did our captor and his men not confiscate that?" I asked, realizing how weird it was that it wasn't taken away from us.

"They must have tried it out when we were unconscious and they went through your bag. I guess they thought since they couldn't feel or see the flame, it didn't work, thus leaving it for us to use to escape." He said.

"How do you know they went through my purse?" I asked.

"Why wouldn't they?" He replied.

"Touche."

"They always have the dumb guys do the searches because they're no help to real missions. That's probably why you still have your bag in the first place. At least, that's what I've seen in movies." He explained.

"Yeah, its-" He cut me off.

Literally.

My ankles were no longer bound to my folding chair.

"There we go!" He exclaimed. "Now for your hands."

All of a sudden the door swung open and slammed against the wall at the top of the stairs, the sound of footsteps echoing through the room.

"Hurry!" I whisper-yelled.

"I know, I know." Theo said calmly.

I waited a moment more before growing anxious and impatient.

"You almost done?" I asked.

Just then, I heard a tiny snap, barely audible. I was free. I quickly sat back in my seat, trying to make it seem like I was still tied up. Theo did the same as he tried to quickly and quietly free himself as well.

The footsteps came to a sudden stop at the bottom of the stairs. I knew he was about to open the door and interrogate us. I desperately hoped he was alone. He'd be easier to take out that way.

Sure enough, the door at the bottom of the stairway flew open and in walked the enemy. Eyes glaring like a ghost staring into my soul. He was wearing his standard black outfit, and a black mask covering his entire face excluding his eyes.

"Ah, my favorite agents." He said, softening his gaze.

This seemed rather odd, seeing as though he hated us with a burning passion. After all, we did destroy his base after getting carried away with the forest.

It almost sounded like he wanted us to get suspicious of him. That did seem very like him. He always tries to be one step ahead of us, but we're always two steps ahead of that.

"Nice to see you again." I flatly stated with sarcasm laced through my words.

"I see you are still here." He said, letting out a light chuckle. "You haven't tried to escape yet."

"Till now." I said, giving him a wide grin.

"Huh?" He exclaimed, clearly worried about what we were about to do.

I sprang out of my chair and lunged at him, tackling him to the ground. Theo bounded out of his seat at the same moment and tossed me a wood plank from off the floor.

Very convenient.

I smacked the enemy over the head with my two by four weapon and he crumpled to the floor. He was obviously not prepared, or trained enough to always expect the unexpected.

Theo ran over and gave me a high five, taking the weapon out of my hands.

"What was that for?" I playfully asked him, putting my hands on my hips.

"Well if I can't use fire since I destroyed things, you can't use wooden planks."

I rolled my eyes and stepped over our captor who was sprawled out on the floor.

"Dispatch, the package is secure, send in reinforcements." Theo said, speaking into the collar of his coat.

"You had that the whole time?" I asked, shocked.

"Why didn't you use it before?"

"Now where's the fun in that?" He said, grinning at me.

I grinned back at him and leaned against the wall to await the arrival of our team.