Whispers on a Wing

Chapter Twenty Eight

"Kathy!" Alice yelled again, but neither of us looked over again, locked in a weird kind of staring contest as we tried to figure each other out.
I was pleading with him to leave, to go back to the party and forget any of this ever happened. He was begging me to let him in, to tell me what was going on and allow him into my life.
"Whats going on? Kathy why are you looking like you're on the verge of tears right now?" Alice asked, sounding slightly out of breath after she'd ran over to us.
I glanced her way, noticed the guys jacket was gone and her heels were clutched in her hand and I felt guilty all over again for dragging her away too.
"Nothings happening Alice, you head on back to the party, I'm going to go home and get some sleep," I told her, trying to communicate with her that I wanted to be alone.
"She knows doesn't she," Jake said, gesturing to Alice with his thumb as his eyes flicked between our exchange. "She knows about you and what happened and why your-"
"So what?" I yelled, getting angry. "So what if someone I've known for literally years knows more about me than you. I've known you only a few weeks Jake, weeks, and you expect me to pour my heart and soul out to you? There are so many things I still don't know about you, why can't you give me the same curtesy?"
"It's not my fault you don't know anything about me because you never ask," he said, voice going cold as he took a step away from me. "I get that you've had a difficult life, but that doesn't mean everyone else's has been a walk in the park either."
I stayed silent staring over at him as a million emotions flashed through me. Anger, hurt, confusion, sadness... they all swarmed together in a confusing kaleidoscope as I struggled to figure out what to do, what to say next.
"Okay why don't we all just take a breath-" but I cut Alice off.
"I need to get out of here, I'm going home." I turned on my heel, fully intending to march off into the night, but the spin made my head feel kinda dizzy and I stumbled slightly sideways.
"Oh my god, Kathy how much did you have to drink?" Alice asked as she gripped my shoulder to help steady me.
"Barely anything, just one sip." I should be feeling this dizzy after one sip, surely.
"I'm going to take her home," Alice said to Jake, wrapping her arm around my upper back to help steady me, a move I knew Jake had clocked. "You guys can chat tomorrow about this once tempers have cooled down a little."
Jake stayed silent for a second, his eyes locked on Alice's arm around me, as he shook his head. "No, I'm done Kathy, I'm done letting you push me away and leaving me in the dark. When you're ready to tell me the full truth I'll be here, but until then don't bother calling me."
He stared into my eyes for a second, almost as if he was trying to memorise my face in some way, and then turned to head back to the party, not glancing back once.
I watched him leave, his back arched slightly and hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans, and I had a weird feeling that he was taking a part of myself with him.
"Come on K," Alice said, gently coaxing me to turn and walk back to her car.
What had happened? How had a night that had been going so well turned so shit?
"What do I do Alice?" I asked softly, finally allowing her to walk me to her car after Jake disappeared inside.
"I can't answer that for you, only you can."
Somehow we'd made it back to her car, but I was in too much of a daze to notice much else. Not Alice buckling my seatbelt., not the drive home and not the silence as it filled the car.
"What happened K? One second I look over and you're both having the time of your life and the next I see you two yelling at each other through the living room window."
"He... he felt my wings and I..." I sighed and rested my forehead on the passenger window.
"What do you mean he felt them? Like actually felt them, knew what he was touching?" She asked, her head furiously swivelling between watching the road and watching me.
"No," I shook my head, the glass finally cooling my skin after what felt like hours of feeling so clammy. "No he didn't know what they were, he thought I had a bag on under your coat, but he still felt the bump of them."
"But... that's good right? He didn't know what it was so now we can regroup and come up with a reason why you'd had a bag on."
I shook my head again, more violently this time and lifted my head to look over at her. "No Alice, I can't go back to that school now. Jake knows to much and if word got out that I was here my parents would descend and come and get me. It's best if I leave now whilst the damage is only minor."
"WHAT?" Alice practically screamed, her voice ringing in my head as it echoed in the small confines of the car. "You can't leave K, just because you guys had a bit of a fight doesn't mean you have to run away. It can be fixed and you guys can go back to the way it had been," she tried to reassure me, but I was having none of it.
"I can't risk it, I'm not risking my life on some boy who may or may not scream my secret to the world if he found out."
"You don't honestly believe he'd do that to you,"she argued, pulling into the dirt road that lead to my house. "That guy is crazy about you, it only takes five seconds of watching you together to know he'd do anything to protect you."
"I can't risk it," I repeated. "I just need to graduate school, graduate university, and I can move on with my life. I can get my own place and never have to worry about people finding out about me again."
Alice remained silent, her grip on the steering wheel tightening as her eyes never left the road.
"What?" I asked, knowing her enough to know something was bothering her.
"I just don't think that's going to fix your problems," she said, pulling over to the side of the road as we neared the cul-du-sac and the little footpath that lead to my house. "I think if you really took a look at your life you'd see that all these plans you've made, to live in solitude and away from everyone, is just your fear talking. I think if you listened to what you actually wanted, what would genuinely make you happy, you'd see that you like being around people and you like sharing this secret so it's not all on your shoulders."
I shook my head and turned to get out the car, needing the conversation to be over, but when I opened the door and the fresh air hit me in the face, I froze.
Something was different, wrong.
I threw myself out the car and all but ran home. What was it? What had happened that had caused the base of my neck to tingle in that uncomfortable, knowing way.
"K, what's the matter?" I heard Alice yell from behind me but I didn't wait for her to catch up, I just continued to practically sprint through the woods as I made my way closer to the house.
Smoke. I was smelling smoke, and it was coming from the direction of where I lived.
Panic seized my chest As I sprinted through the woods, leaving Alice behind as she yelled at me to slow down, but I ignored her.
Please no, please don't say it's what I think it is.
I saw the flames before I even broke through the clearing, the oranges and reds almost blinding as they engulfed the building.
How had this... no... please no.
My chest rattled with the exertion of the run as I stood there, frozen for all of a second before I sprinted into the burning building. I needed to save my things, needed to get as much of it out as possible. My whole life was in there and I refused to start again because of some freak accident.
"Kathy no!" I heard Alice scream from behind me, too far away to do anything to stop me as my legs carried me into the flames.
The hallway was filled with smoke, it billowing out in thick grey clouds as I opened the front door and stepped inside, causing me to drop to the floor in an attempt to find some cleaner air.
I brought the sleeve of Alice's coat up to cover my nose and mouth but it did little to mask the smell of smoke as I started to cough, my eyes watering as they strained to see past the greyness.
I blindly walked through the hallway, fingers trailing along the wallpaper until I found the doorway to my bedroom and stepped through the threshold without hesitation.
The smoke was thicker here and I almost retched as more entered my throat and lungs, but I pushed forward. There were no flames here, but I knew if I just stepped slightly further into the room and looked into the kitchen I'd see a wall  of fire. The heat alone gave it away as I heard it crackle ominously through the open doorway.
How had this happened? I had nothing here that could even remotely start a fire. No electrics, no gas, no nothing. How could it be that a house with nothing could seemingly self combust?
A cough ripped my from my throats as I crawled through the room, gathering everything I could with one hand whist still using the other as a makeshift mask.
I'd mainly come in here for one thing and one thing only and it was sitting on the mantle of the old fireplace. If I could get to that I could get out of here.
I glanced over to the kitchen and my face turned pale as I watched the room disappear behind a wall of flames. The ceiling above me groaned as the house struggled to hold its own weight and I scurried over to the mantle before the building could collapse on top of me.
Tears streaked down my cheeks as I thought about what this could mean for me, what I would have to do now after potentially having nowhere to go, no home, and no belongings, but I ignored them. I was crying because of the smoke and nothing more.
The mantle came into view and without a seconds hesitation got to my feet and grabbed the box I knew would be resting there, had been since the moment I'd decided to move in.
The box grazed my fingers and the sigh in relief that left my lungs almost made me choke on more smoke. I needed to get out of here, soon, before I died of smoke inhalation or sometime.
I turned to leave, but as I did something caught my eye on the far wall, words that hadn't been there before and I froze, my eyes straining to read them. The fire had fully taken over the kitchen now and was slowly starting to lick up the walls of my bedroom, but I couldn't seem to move as the words caused ice to fill my veins even with the heat surrounding me.
See you soon Kayla.
"Kathy!" A voice suddenly penetrated through my smoke filled brain a second before I felt hands grip my wrist, dragging me out the room, but my eyes stayed fixed on the writing.
Someone knew I was here and had deliberately set my house on fire. Why? To draw me out? Prove that I wasn't safe even in a place where I thought I was?
Cold clean air finally filled my lungs and I took a wheezing breath as I collapsed to the ground, a choking Alice lying next to me.
She'd come in after me? When?
"What the hell were you thinking?" She yelled at me, but her voice lacked strength as she started coughing again.
I remained silent as I stared down at the small bag at my feet. That was all I had left, everything else was gone.
"Didn't they teach you not to run back into burning buildings in your last school? Nothing is more important than your life, everything else is replaceable."
I wanted to respond, wanted to tell her that she was wrong, that not everything could be replaced, but I couldn't find the words. My eyes had travelled from the bag at my feet and were now locked onto the house in front of me, my home, as the roof started to cave in on itself.
Tears ran free from my eyes and this time I didn't bother trying to ignore them.
Just like last time, fire had taken everything from me.