Fair Flame by L.E.P. Smith (best ereader for pdf and epub TXT) 📖

The first voice, the man’s voice speaks again. ‘You don’t have any human rights any more, I’m afraid, Effie, if that’s what you want to be known as. You aren’t human, and never have been. It’s only because of your mother’s wishes that you lived this long as one of them

.’ Contempt is woven throughout his words, lacing them with a bitter taste.

‘How…how can you hear what I’m thinking?’

I reel in shock when I hear the answer. ’I’m telepathic, Effie. I can hear your every word, every thought you have. But you can learn to block me out. You need to practise, and you could do this too’

‘You mean I can learn to speak and see into your mind too? I’m not sure I’d want to. It doesn’t seem right.’

I hear a gasp. I hear nothing for a long time. Too long. I feel something is wrong, it gets harder to breathe. The air in the room gets heavy, thick, I can almost taste it. Have they poisoned me? I can hear disconnected sentences floating into my mind; my mind begins to fog, my thoughts sticky, sluggish. One phrase said sticks in my mind. I don't think it will ever leave me; '

She's too dangerous...we'll have to kill her!

'

Darkness descends.

Chapter 3

This time, when I awake, the environment isn't feeling so friendly, well ‘friendly’ may have been a strong word. Well, let’s just say it was a rather hostile feeling. I open my eyes, look around, and lean forward to get up. I find I can’t. I feel like I weigh 500lbs, my arms are strapped to the bed, a hospital-style one, with the metal arms up the sides. The straps encircling my wrists feel tight, but not too uncomfortably so, but I still strain against them, pulling, fighting.

No-one comes. I feel like I’m there for hours, for all I know, I may have well been, or more, even days. Tears have been falling down my face, leaving a trail over my cheeks, a salty shadow, now that I can’t cry anymore. I have no tears left, none to shed. I lay there, my wrists burning with pain. The restraints are not just right anymore…they now seem to have bonded with my own skin, merging and sticking, becoming part of me, for the time I have been lying here, I have been trying to escape. Turning my hands, I had been trying to slip my hands out of the manacles, but to no avail.

At this point, I’m all but ready to give up, to give in. I can’t physically stay awake any longer…. stay frustrated this way. I begin to shut down my mind, go to a meditative state that my dad taught me when I was little. I relax my toes, working up through my calves, my thighs, my stomach, until I reach my face. But before I manage to achieve the final stage, my flames are back. These are not quite the same, a more vivid colouration of the original ones. And these ones? Well, these ones burn.

My restraints begin to disintegrate, the heat is so great. The slightest touch of my fire is too much for the material and leather to take. I can taste the remnants floating in the air.

My hands break free, swinging up. I hadn’t realised that they had been straining against my bonds. I leap forwards, nearly flinging myself from off the bed. Unlike the first ‘flame-up’ I had, these flames aren’t just contained to my hands and arms. They have spread to engulf my whole body. I feel a tingling sensation upon my skin. My wrists are no longer red raw. The surface has begun to heal over, as though the flames themselves are sealing the skin back together, leaving no marks, no remains of the manacle’s cruel marks. Seeing this enthuses me to do something, anything to get out of this room.

These are my flames, aren’t they? I think to myself. So if they are…well, I should be able to control THEM! With this thought, I stretch my arms out in front of me, putting all my anger of being trapped, tied and taken away from my family into my hands, to my fingertips…forcing my pain and anger towards the mirrored glass in front of me.
It shatters with a deafening BOOM. Glass showers down around me, glittering. As it hits the ground, the small insignificant shards make a cacophony of sound ringing in my ears. Musical, but haunting. The silence that follows is deafening. Whilst they finish falling, it seems as though time is slowing…I can see the shards spinning slowly in the air, the light that shines upon them, reflecting the light into a rainbow of colours that are bright enough to make me squint.
My breathing accelerates, gasps now escaping from my throat. My vision begins to waver, the view of the broken mirror in front of me nothing but a blur. I raise my hand to my head, coming away with a warm, wet substance on my fingers. I bring my hand towards my face, my focus going in and out, so it takes me a while to notice the colour.

Red.

I look up, peering through the breach in front of me. I can discern 4 people, their shadows all I can see through the haze of blood and dizziness. They don’t seem to move, the figures just stand there. I take a step closer to the gaping maw. I manage to slip upon the broken glass, sliding forward and falling flat on my back. My head hits the ground hard, driving pieces of glass into my skull. I can feel the blood starting to pour from my numerous wounds. As I look up at the ceiling, I notice it’s an off-white colour; a hint of yellow, like it’s absorbed many years of cigarette smoke. I wonder why something so mundane seems to leap out at me.

A hand appears in front of my eyes, obscuring my view. I vaguely notice that it's holding a syringe. At this point, I’m too full of pain to worry what it contains, what the liquid will do to me; will it reduce the hurt I’m feeling, knock me unconscious….or will it kill me?

Chapter 4

Whoa. That must have been some night out! Random dream. Though…not so good that I start my new job in half an hour…and I seem to have slept through 4 days.

Hmmm….must have been really good! Well, need to set off, as I said, new job today, to go with my bar work. I had an interview a fortnight ago. It’s in a bookshop. I don’t know what made me apply. I was walking past one day, and noticed the sign in the window. A sudden urge took me, and I did it. I went straight in there and got an instant interview. When the guy behind the counter saw me, he gave me a look, as though he knew me. But it passed almost instantly.

I’m sure it’s not the usual way that they do things, and the manager did say as much, but I cant help wonder why it did happen like that. He showed me around, and offered it to me. Oh well. Shouldn’t complain, I have been looking for a full-time post for a while now.

In the back of my mind, something niggled at me; but I ignored it. It happens sometimes, sometimes I listen, and others I don’t. Like everyone in the world I suppose.

I make it with mere minutes to spare. My breath pluming into the air, the temperature outside is barely above freezing this time of year.

As I walk through the door, I’m expecting Mike (the boss/owner) to glower at me. To my amazement, he hugs me. I freeze up, not really knowing what the hell I’m meant to do with my arms….do I hug back? I decide a light pat will suffice. Whilst he has me in his bear hug, I take in the room. There are a few customers milling around, picking books off the shelves, looking at the spines, some well worn, some brand new: both mixed all together in the mish-mash of the dusty shop. A couple of school kids are giggling in the back. I’m guessing they’re looking at the sex books…who didn’t at their age?

As I start to turn back to Mr Custerson, my boss, I notice a guy sitting in the corner, at the desk. He’s crouched over a book wide open on the table. He’s oblivious to anyone around him. The door opens behind me, and his dark hair ripples in the light breeze.

‘Heya Elizabeth!!’ I shudder….Why is he so damn chipper?! No, I shouldn’t feel like that, it’s good that someone is happy all the time.

'Please, call me Effie, never Elizabeth’ I correct myself, my words sounding too sharp ‘…please?’

‘Right, OK, Effie it is then.’ He seems to be tasting the word, rolling it around is mouth. ‘Effie. I like it.’ He sounds determined to remember it.

I can’t help but break into a smile. I like the old guy. ‘Right then, what have you got for me to do today?’

‘Ah, right. First, I need to introduce you into your colleague – this is James’ Mike swings his arm out to his right. He looks puzzled. He turns, searching.

‘JAMES!’

The guy working at the desk in the corner starts, cringing; his head swinging round, his eyes catching mine through the murk.

‘Mr…Mr Custerson?’ The poor guy looks bewildered. He pushes back his chair, which gives a slight scrape across the wooden floor. As he swings around, I can hear him muttering; ’bloody hell…what does the old fogey want now??’ I realise that he isn’t muttering….he’s thinking. No, that wasn't real. I shake my head, willing it to go away, but I cant help but hear his next thought before it fades ‘ Damn…oh yeah the new girl…well, I’m ready for…’. NO! Not a thought, my own imagination running away with me. I had far too much to drink this weekend.

He walks towards us, his eyes looking everywhere but at me, or so it seems. It feels like he is looking out of the corner of his eye, studying, sizing me up.

When he reaches us, he gives a slight nod, acknowledging my presence. Custerson nudges the guy.

‘At least say hello James, you could do that, couldn’t you?’ He looks frustrated, as if this happens often. Maybe it did, he must’ve had other assistants working before me.

‘Why? It’s not as though she’ll be here long, no-one ever is, you know that. What’s the record… 3 weeks wasn’t it?’ He laughs. ‘’Til he couldn’t stand this place any longer? And by looking at this one, I bet she won’t do any better. No, she looks like a week-er to me.
I’ll bet you a week’s wages.’ He turns to glare