Legacy In Fire (Book 1)

Looking In Front of You(Chap-6)

I dashed through the hall, down the stairs, taking two at a time and before I was even cognizant of it, I was in the living room, mind emulsified, and standing agape like a fish with severe brain damage.

I should take stock of what I have while I have time to prepare, but what will I need? I scrutinized the room and found something that I hadn't seen on the first futile search for my mother and I almost sighed in relief, not until the thought coalesced in my mind. Oh my mother! Just thinking of her hurt tons. I had to hurry. The new thing that was additional to the previously thought store was my mother's purse. In it was her credit cards, ID, driver's license and some psychologist cards, but it was missing something imperative.

Car keys.

I started scouring the house for them right when Max emerged from upstairs jingling his rather noisily. I regarded him as if he was invisible and continued my pursuit of finding the keys, which was fruitless. Max started shaking his keys boisterously, the dissonant chime reverberating off the walls, leaving me very annoyed.

I finally looked up at him; he had a peculiar look on his face, one on the bridge between amused and piteous. I wanted to peel it off his face, painfully, no matter how perfect it was.

"I'm coming with you." He deadpanned, "Correction, I'm bringing you there".

"No you're not!" I stroke out at him in an attempt to grab the keys from his hands, but his hand receded immediately. "You said it's going to be dangerous, why would you throw yourself in the mouth of a possible shark for me?"

A smirk formed on his face and a glint of endearment in his eyes. He was leaning towards me. Was he going to kiss me? My heart started galloping inadvertently and I was sure my cheeks were wearing rosette. But as his face neared, it passed and went to my ear.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" His breath was warm and it heated my earlobe and ruffled my hair.

If my face weren't as bright as the sun, then the sun wouldn't be coming up tomorrow morning.

"Of course I'd like to-"

"Why don't we finish this conversation in the car?" his tone was unutterably condescending, but the hue of my face was beginning to decrease, so I didn't want to say anything to get re-flustered. And maybe it won't be too bad having him around to watch my back.

"Just go. I'll be coming."

"Are you sure you won't try to hide?" he smiled, his unnervingly perfect smile. "Because Jade, let me tell you, I'm stellar at hide-and-seek."

He turned and walked towards the door. "And I will find you." His voice fell an octave.

I will cut that boy one day I tell you. You think I'm bluffing? I'm not. Well kinda. I seized my mother's purse and found my feet bringing me to the kitchen. No! No! No! I was not doing this again; I cerebrally willed my feet to come to a cessation, but they were my feet, they didn't follow orders, they kept taking me to their desired destination. In the kitchen, I saw it on the counter grabbed it and made to leave.

*****

"I was beginning to think you were asinine enough to try to run away and do this by yourself." I was greeted by a bittersweet British voice as I stepped on the portico. "So come on, I thought that you wanted to save your mother quickly." A poorly masked look of pain crossed his face.

I was going to ask him what was wrong; but we had a long ride ahead. I clutched the handle of his new black Jaguar; it was a beautiful car, sleek, sexy and thirty million dollars. He got it for his sixteenth birthday; I guess his father thinks gifts can fill the void left by his absence; his extensive absences. That's an understatement. I hopped into the front passenger's seat and we drove off.

I looked at my house; at a plethora of memories. The portico furniture, where I used to sit and ponder about the meaning of life, when I got tired of contemplating inside. My mother's car, where I sat for many a trips to the psychologist's office for psychotherapy of my condition, but also trips to the mall, where we'd buy clothes and shoes, and talked and laughed as if we were normal; because we tried to be normal. I glanced at the slightly fractured glass window at the front of the house, where I had punched when no one believed that I had burned my pet hamster, Mr. James, with my hands and that was why he was dead; no other reason. The trees, I used to climb up and sit there when I was feeling peculiarly happy and read, and wrote ambiguous sentences, like this one:

Burn,

She sits and burns,

While the inside is frozen,

Ice,

Consumes her soul,

But the flames are still unbidden...

I also smiled from time to time up in those trees.

I was trying to get an eyeful of everything I could get, so I even looked at the grass. Every emerald tendril that was in its place and every jade tendril that wasn't; I had made footprints and walked the ways of myself, paved a pathway through those blades.

As we drove, everything got smaller and smaller, further away...until it disappeared. I had to start looking in front of me.