Adventures of The Red Bee

Chapter 4: Out of the Frying Pan

Richard opened his eyes, and he saw a fire blazing around him. His senses were nearly overpowered by the heat, and he was tied to a wooden chair with ropes. He observed his surroundings and discovered he was inside a little wooden shed ingulfed in flames. This was it. This was the end of Richard Raleigh. This was the end of The Red Bee.

Thinking about his impending doom, he reminisced on his life choices. Was Tom and the rest of the city right in calling him a menace? A criminal like the scum he went out of his way to stop? Technically, he was a vigilante, and those could be dangerous if they were irresponsible. With all of this in his mind, he also had his family and friends to think about. How would they react if they discovered he was burnt as a crisp while fighting as the Red Bee? He knew his long estranged father wouldn't have cared, but his mother loved him dearly, and it devastated him to think of what her reaction would be. Then, he thought about Tom. What would he think of all this?

He was awoken from his thoughts by a stream of flame tickling his left foot.

"Ah!" he shouted instinctively. He jumped in the chair, which caused it to fall sideways to the ground with him in it.

Stuck on the ground, the fire slowly approached him. It would only be a matter of time before he himself was engulfed in flames, similar to his surroundings. Looking into the inferno that presented itself to him, he realized something. He couldn't die. No, he wouldn't die. There were people who needed him, and there were people hurting others. People like Storm couldn't be stopped by natural discourse. They needed to be stopped by the people who were willing to stand up for the will of the people.

With this in mind, Richard began thinking of ways to escape. He was on the ground, which was going to make standing up a very difficult option. Looking around the room, he stared into the fire. Of course! That was his answer.

Richard squirmed in the chair, which slowly brought him closer to the fire. When he was in front of the fire, he allowed it to partly travel through the ropes covering his chest. Once the rope was weakened enough, Richard threw his arms towards the sides of the ropes as hard as he could, snapping the burning side of the ropes. He stood up and kicked the chair away from him. Then, he ran through the fire, as he saw a window on the other side of it.

He arrived at the front of the window. Having no time, Richard punched it as hard as he could. This caused the window to fracture, but it was still intact. The fire was slowly covering his calves, and Richard begun to feel a burn. Determined, he threw himself towards the window with the force of his entire body. Now, the window did break, and Richard fell outside of the building. Richard rolled on the grass he fell on top of to extinguish the fire on his body.

As he stood up, he looked behind him and saw the burning building. It was being consumed by the fire, and Richard knew he had escaped just in time. Looking around, he saw he was in the middle of a large field in the middle of the night, and in the distance, Storm's building of operations was in view. Richard began to walk slowly towards the base, still hurt from his burns.

As he approached the base, he saw what appeared to be police cars in the front of it, with Storm talking to the police.

"Are they talking about me?" Richard wondered to himself, getting closer and closer. It would make sense, as the public viewed the Red Bee as a dangerous vigilante, which would have allowed Storm to say whatever he wanted about him to the police. "I guess tying me to a chair in a burning house was Plan A," Richard thought.

Soon, Richard was directly beside the side wall of the large building. He had avoided detection from the police and Storm fairly easily. Now, all he needed to do was come up with a new plan, and one was already forming in his head.

He sneaked along the side of the building, and he looked into each of the windows to see if he could find Storm's office. Finally, after around the tenth window, he found it. Even though he didn't want to break through another window by force, he knew this was too important to worry about a few more glass related injuries. Hoping for the best, he rammed at the window as hard as he could, and it broke into hundreds of sharp pieces, some flying around the room and some landing themselves on him. As he got up from the hard, tile ground, he saw one of Storm's henchmen behind Storm's desk pointing a gun at him.

"Freeze, Bee Man!" the man shouted. "Don't get one step closer!"

"How many times do I have to tell you," Richard said as he covertly reached for his belt compartment, "my name is the Red Bee!"

"Oh please," the henchman said, "don't be an idiot! Give up, and you'll get a quick death!" As the man said all this, Richard sneakily released Michael from his belt, and using his thumb to make a small signal, sent the bee towards the man.

"Really?" Richard retorted. "Can't wait to see that happen." Right when he said the final sentence, the henchman yelped.

"Ow!" he exclaimed, "A bee stung me!"

Michael came back to Richard, and was put back in the belt compartment. Then, Richard ran towards the man and kicked him into the wall, blacking him out. He opened one of Storm's desk drawers and saw his jar of bees and pollen, as well as his stinger gun. When he took these, he placed them on his belt. There were also documents within the drawer, and he took them, needing evidence to prove Storm guilty, since he knew he couldn't stop Storm all by himself.

With the documents, Richard jumped out of the window and back into the dark field. From here, he knew exactly where to go.

*******

Tom Darrow was preparing for a good night's sleep after a long day of work. He kept trying to find the culprit behind the fire, but he simply couldn't find anyone. Maybe it was one of the runners for mayor, such as Timothy Storm, who were trying to hide their criminal record from the public. Even with that theory, he had no evidence to prove it.

No time to think of that now, however. Tom went to go say good night to his wife, Elizabeth Darrow.

"Good night," he said as he kissed her on the forehead.

"Good night," she responded. She seemed more despondent than usual, though.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Well," she said, "I feel like you've been overworking yourself lately... With little Jimmy in middle school now, I feel he could use some fatherly attention, and I know your work place burnt down, and everything must be stressful, but-"

"Oh, Elizabeth," he said, looking at her sympathetically, "I want to be with you and Jimmy more, but being district attorney is a difficult job, and the city seems to get more dangerous every day..." 

Elizabeth looked at him sadly, and then looked away. 

"Well," Tom continued, "I'll go lock the front door, and then I'll be in bed."

He left the room and walked towards his front door. As he got closer to the door, he saw someone in a red costume with a mask on place a folder directly in front of his door. After observing him closely, Tom realized it was the strange Bee Man. With this in mind, he ran towards the door. Once the Bee Man noticed him, he ran away from the house and back into the darkness. 

Tom opened the door, and he looked around. Then, he cautiously picked up the folder and went back inside, locking the door on his way in. 

When he was inside, Tom noticed there was a note attached to the folder, which read:

Document files on the possible pyromaniac who burnt down the law building

- The Red Bee

"What the..." Tom told himself, surprised at this development. How did this Red Bee know where he lived? Why was he helping?

Whatever the reason, Tom was too tired to read the files at that moment. Placing the folder on the table, he went to his bedroom and fell asleep instantaneously.