Sparks Fly {the flash}

sixteen

Izzy

The world slowly started to return to me in a dizzy haze, everything around me blurry and muffled. The ground beneath me felt cold and hard, the texture too smooth to be asphalt but the right feeling of concrete. I could hear the sound of a keyboard clacking and a low hum that sounded like a generator from a distance. I went to move my hand to hold the throbbing knot in the back of my head but felt my hands bound by something that felt like twine. When I opened my eyes, everything was blurry with a black edge, something that I usually got when I came to from passing out. Strangely enough, I didn't remember passing out. I didn't even remember feeling like I was going to pass out, so I tried my hardest to retrace everything that had happened this morning.

After Barry had left, I started catching up on paperwork for work so that I didn't have a mountain of it when I came back tomorrow. After I had finished everything, I called Dave and Susan before going down to the grocery store to get a few items that I was either out of or running out of. I usually called my aunt and uncle once a week when I could, and I figured that it would be best to tell them that I was now involved with the partner I had told them about on more than one occasion. Even though I was well into my twenties, Dave still questioned me relentlessly about what Barry was like and if he was a "nice guy." I appreciated the effort he was putting into making sure that I was okay, but he asked me the same questions every time I told him I was slightly infatuated with a guy.

The last thing that I remembered was coming back to the apartment after going grocery shopping and beginning to unload all of the groceries into the cabinets and the fridge. I'd gotten a total of ten or eleven items, so I wasn't planning on spending too much time unloading all of the food items. I remember putting the milk on the top self like usual, and then my entire world went black. I had no recollection of being lightheaded or feeling faint, so I ruled out passing out. The only other thing that made sense was that someone had broken into my home and knocked me unconcious. By the bland smell of the room that I was in, I could tell that I had also been kidnapped, and that didn't made me feel any more at ease. 

I blinked numerous times to focus my vision. I was lying on a smooth, concrete surface underneath a rather dull light hanging from the ceiling. There were only a few on all over what the warehouse-like structure, and I could see someone else set up underneath one about five yards to my left. He had a massive computer setup in a semicircle, my assailant sitting directly in the middle of the technology. I knew exactly who it was before my long-distance vision focused, and I was disgusted to say the least. I struggled to sit up on my knees, finding that my ankles had been bound as well. I groaned slightly at the blood rushing to my head, making the throbbing much more violent than before. I heard the keyboard silence, a sign that Hartley had noticed me waking up.

"Bentornato, Isabella." He greeted, pushing himself away from the desk and beginning to make his way towards me.

I groaned, wanting nothing more than to rub the tension out of my head. "I didn't think you had it in you to kill someone, Hartley." I stated. "You don't look like you could support the weight of another human being."

"Well, you didn't weigh as much as I anticipated."

"Thanks." I joked, looking up at him. "Why can't you just go crawl in a hole and die already? We get the point; you hate everyone and everything."

"Yes and no." He squatted down in front of me so that he could be, somewhat, at eye level with me. "You see, I've had a revelation, Izzy."

"And what would that be?" I asked in the dullest voice I could muster. I was fed up with arrogant asshole, and I felt like I was going to smother him if I were given the chance.

"I'm not necessarily mad at the people of Central City. I'm mad at Barry Allen."

I arched my eyebrow in intrigue when, in reality, the statement worried me deeply. "And how's that?"