FIRE [FIRST DRAFT]

Chapter 11: Flames of Blue

 Aimee gasped, coming into consciousness and choking on the air. She sat upright, cautiously, an unsubtle sting shooting through her left arm – shoulder to wrist.

"Are you okay?" breathed Stefan.

She nodded; they were alive, she was gladdened by that alone. They were not in the lift anymore. Stefan had carried her out, laid her down in front of him before sitting himself against the wall beside the elevator, which had stopped – not crashed – with its top half on that level. The bottom half was blocked off by the ground they sat on.

With Aimee cataleptic, climbing out had been a complicated task, but it was the only way. A part of Stefan was thankful to have been conscious the whole time because, knowing Aimee, she might have tried something crazy like track Abba down by herself and satiate her own sense of vengeance by setting her alight or something.

"Are you?"

Stefan was rotating his foot, intentionally, "My ankle is sprained, but it'll fix itself."

"Your head," she uttered, realising the wound on his left temple.

There were further areas that panged, but he wouldn't whine or whimper about it. The lift had hauled his helpless body into the elevator wall as it came to its halt, and pulled Aimee down ardently, headfirst to its surface.

"It's nothing. What about you? You hit your head pretty hard."

Aimee stood up to prove her point, or rather, her lie, "I'm fine."

"That makes three of us then," another voice interjected. Abba stood a distance from them.

Starting towards her, Aimee hissed, "Was that you, the elevator? Are you insane?"

"I suppose. I made a few changes, what do you think?"

The cave; she had installed lighting throughout the place, florescent bulbs shaped like teardrops hung at different lengths from the uneven surface of the ceiling.

"You knew Stefan would come with me. How could you do something like that?"

"Your break-up was a lie."

"You broke us up!"

"Oh, Aimee," she sighed. "You cannot honestly believe I'm that stupid."

"You knew he would come with me," she restated, shaking her head, with insistent tears of disbelief teeming down her cheeks. "You are a monster."

Benjamin was standing beside his wife, his hands to his side and his mouth zipped. He reminded her of that robot: at Abba's side, waiting for a treat.

"And you are a coward," Aimee addressed him. "I will end you both."

She took a good look at her parents; Benjamin's careless demeanour and Abba's cockily raised chin.

"No!" Stefan called, trying to get up from the ground, but his ankle and knees prevented it.

Aimee knew what Stefan was thinking: this was not her. But this – rage, pain, vigour, and zealousness for freeing the people she cared for – was her, or at least a great part of her that had settled like a bruise. She was tired of her parents, of the constant reminder of abandonment and anguish.

"What would you have me do, Stefan?!"

Silence devoured him; there was nothing he could say to change her mind, and when he glanced into her eyes, he understood. He felt her torment. In a wisp of clear thinking, although it seemed to be anything but, he let her out of the box he had been keeping her in.