Flames left behind

11{Strangers}

   I woke in the middle of the night to an alarm. No, that's not right. I awoke to screaming. So really, it's not an alarm at all. I could smell smoke. It was thick and held the trace of death in it. Death and desperation, like someone inside was trying to get out. Or maybe someone from the outside was trying to keep us in. Perhaps the cook caught something on fire. That's happened once already in my stay here, and I ended up smacking the cook with a frying pan for interrupting my beauty sleep. Good days.

  I inhaled the air for a breath and choked on the air. It was toxic like my body was trying to reject all air that entered me.

        I sat up and looked at my room, praying I wasn't doing magic while sleeping. Rupert would be mad. Oh sorry, I meant Robert. You know, Rupert is a much better name. I just might call him that from now on, but obliviously not to his face. I'd be dead and gone before you could say Rupert. Haha, Rupert. But Rupert also seems like a name that comes with a wart. A giant wart. So maybe it's a witch's name. I'll make that his new name. It has a ring to it.

    I glanced around, and the room looked fine, but I saw the smoke seeping under the crack of my door, and it piqued my curiosity. But I decided to lay back down and sleep. Maybe this was a bad dream. I used to get a lot of those when I first became a vampire.

     I was halfway lowered down, my head only inches from the pillow, when my door busted open, and someone grabbed my arm, dragging me out of my bed. My adrenaline had not yet spiked, and I looked at my surroundings, in a state of calm. It never occurred that something bad could be happening. My silk nightgown ripped along the edge of the bedframe, and I cursed aloud. I could barely hear myself. 

  By this point, I had tears in my eyes from the pungent air that was giving me a migraine, and the hem of my pants were covered in something thick.

      The person dragging me was wearing a hood, he was tall, and his grip on my arm was not loosening up. Ronin? I stumbled over something large and squishy, but wasn't able to see what it was, the smoke was so heavy, not letting up. The screams got louder, and I could only assume the Institute was under attack. I could also only assume that I just stumbled over a body. A dead body. I tried not to gag as I was led away from my room. I tried listening for anyone familiar with a familiar voice, but I couldn't hear a single thing over the crackles and roars of the fire, and the screams of the helpless. I strained my ears more against the noise, hoping to hear a trace of Ronin's voice, to see if he was talking to me. As mad as I was at him right now, he was the only person that made me feel safe in this hellhole of an Institute. I heard nothing.

  I felt my shoulder brush against something that felt like a bookshelf, and the falling object confirmed my suspicions. We were running through the drawing room. I tried grasping onto a shelf to catch what was left of my breath, but the supposed Ronin tugged my arm away again. I screamed and screamed until I couldn't scream any longer and my voice was horse and I started choking on the smoke.

Under all the chaos, a voice ripped through the terror.  

"AMBROSIA!" It was Ronin. I knew it was. He has this certain edge to his voice, but at the same time, a deep velvety base. I was in love with it. Wait no. If I was in love with his voice, would that mean I'm in love with him? No. Not at all.

   "AMBROSIA!" He roared again.

     Which meant that the person gripping my arm really was a stranger. Instinct and adrenaline finally kicked in, though it didn't do me much good. The kidnapper was in front of me, and at least two feet taller, so I'd have to kick out his legs. 

  I leveraged his arm as a propeller to hoist myself up and targeted my feet at the back of his knees. I anticipated his grip would weaken enough for me to escape, but he sprang back up as soon as he touched the ground. His other hand slammed into my cheek, causing me to stumble. That's going to leave a bruise.

  I must plan these ideas more realistically in my mind. The next time I get the opportunity to train with the shadow hunters, I'll seize it. Never again will I tolerate being yanked from my bed, and disrupting my beauty sleep. Attempting to speak, I gagged on the stench of blood—perhaps it was my own.

   Tears were already free-flowing in my eyes, but every time one would fall, it would evaporate just as quickly, not leaving anything behind to tell you it was ever really there.

    Shock hit me, and I was scared. I was really truly scared. I was a 16-year-old girl, being kidnapped from a place she was told would keep her safe but was dragged out of her bed and over dead, lifeless bodies that could be her friends. I'm not safe.

   Then I noticed a glow. It was all around my captor, growing brighter and brighter by each passing second, every minute. Time was moving so slow, but I knew it was just the events not yet catching up to me.

   Wings shot out from his back, and blood coated my face. He was a faerie. I assumed from the Seelie court, there was no way someone from Unseelie would take part in this. But why the blood? He should have already had his wings. I would have taken time to be amazed if I wasn't being dragged to my death. I felt my feet start to hover over the ground, as the stranger let out some sort of dog whistle. The call of the Seelie's. I have no idea how I knew that, maybe because I am a, well, fairy. Gross. 

     Part fae, I might I say. No, 1/3. I do not want to classify myself and be more like them than I already am. They are soulless creatures. Proof is dragging me away right now. Well, the Seelie are awful. I'm alright with the Unseelie. No offense to all the fae out there. 

   The screaming had died down, and a giant blast of heat exploded from the doors to the chair room. The grief hit me like a smack in the face. 

     A formation of people stepped out, into the dark and sticky room, taking in the coated walls of blood and grief. Damian led at the front, Amaya to the right, Ronin to the left, and the rest of the group in line behind them. I could only assume the rest were behind them because I was getting dragged further and further away. 

   I attempted to dull my other senses to concentrate on my vision, yet the smoke was too overpowering. My gasping for air drew Ronin's attention. There was no reason for his hearing to be superior to mine. How discourteous. Despite my feeble efforts at kicking and screaming, it led me nowhere, except to receive another harsh slap across my face.

  I bit down on my tongue from the impact, so hard I drew blood.

    I spit blood, praying I would make it out of here alive. Alive and well.

   Ronin shouted something, but I was already a few feet off the ground, watching helplessly as the group ran towards me, and blood spilled from my face. Then I fell. It was like I fell in slow motion, and I turned my head to watch as an arrow shot through the stranger's head, one through his back, and through his mouth. It was a gruesome sight to see, and I all but cried. The tears stopped. Blood splattered over my clothes and covered my face. I threw up just as time seemed to catch up with me. So much suffering and death. I have never seen so much death in one place.

    I hit the floor, landed on my arm, and screamed out from the pain. It was searing, like my muscles were being ripped out piece by piece, and someone was pouring acid in place of blood. I saw red and white haze, and then my vision somewhat focused back on the scene unfolding behind me. Ronin was already speeding towards me, the group somewhere else helping the rest of the survivors, or what was left of them. Ronin was too late. A group of four fae were already picking me up, already taking the place of the one lying dead on the ground, not paying attention to my cries of protest as they gripped my bad arm with as much strength of the original captor. Their wings shot out of their back, more coating my face, and then they lifted me off the floor, seemingly not noticing my weight, and I breathed in my last gulp of smoke. 

  My last thought was, I'm going to die. I'm actually going to die.

"Please, I'm too pretty to die..."I groaned. Famous last words.

  Then I passed out.