Well, here it is, chapter two :) In case you're curious throughout the chapter why things don't quite add up, keep reading. You'll find out in the end.
Thank you very much TraiterousFreshman15, who has been beta'ing this and the last chapter for me. Enjoy.
14th of May, 2013
Smoke. Drifting around me, scratching my throat, getting stuck in my lungs with every single breath I take.
It doesn't fit to what I'm seeing around me. There's the beach, the cream and grey coloured sand soft beneath my bare feet, the waves are small and don't really splash.
It's early. The sky is a baby blue, dark behind me but becomingsoft pink in front of me, even though I can't see the sun itself yet.
The wind twists my wild red hair around my head, it gets stuck on my dry lips, which I keep wetting.
Why do they taste of smoke and ash?
The waves get higher, crashing on some rocks that weren't there before, but they are still tame, only sometimes reaching my knees.
The splashes on the rocks nearly reach the mental two meter mark I put there.
The sand under my feet is rougheras well, only grey now, with little pieces of broken shells and small rocks that roughen up the previously smooth skin under my feet.
They look smaller than usual, a small scar on my left ankle more obvious than I'm used to. It hasn't looked like that since I got it, and that was when I was six.
I look around again, back to the dunes, grown over with small spots of grass and plants.
I remember this beach. There is a small lock of hair on the rocks, stuck between two of them, and I liked to imagine that it was from a girl, running somewhere, her blonde, silky hair getting suck between the rocks.
I remember slipping on those rocks, my fingers bleeding.
I remember this moment, Father standing behind me, one hand on my shoulder.
This is in Denmark. This is from years ago, I'm sixteen now, so ten years ago. This is impossible.
The smoke wafts into my nose again, around my head, and I start coughing. Turning my head, I try to listen to something which doesn't fit here, not on this calm, quiet beach, not in this memory.
The quiet rustling of flames eating away fabric, the cackling of the fire.
I open my eyes and I lift my head from where it was, laying on concrete floor, and look around.
There is fire everywhere.
How I get out is nothing but a blur in my mind. I remember the agony of walking with my left leg, even though I don't know what happened to it. I don't have the courage to look at it, the probability that I will fall down and not get up is too high.
I stumble more times than I want to think about and at least twenty centimetres of my hair burns off. Still, it seems longer than I remember.
When I am outside of what I now recognize as a warehouse everything gets a lot clearer. It's easier to breathe, though there is still a huge amount of smoke in the air, and I am away from the flames.
I'm not sure yet where I am, or what's going on, or why everything hurts. At least I am out of the inferno of flames and there seems to be no other danger at the moment.
Only a moment later I scold myself for that thought, for being so optimistic. There are police cars standing in front of the building, and many officers swarming around them and around the entrance. Too many.
Swearing quietly I limp backwards as fast as I can, if they see me, I'm as good as dead.
I get lost on my way twice. I don't know why things aren't like they were, shops different and once even a completely new street, but I push it to the back of my mind. Worries and suspicions can wait until I'm safe.
Honestly, it's a miracle that I find the house as quickly as I do.
But even here, things are different. It's scary, it feels like so much time has passed even though I only ran away two days ago. Approximately. I don't know for sure for how long I was in that warehouse or how I got there, but it can't have been that long, can it?
The door opens and I nearly fall down the steps behind me. The woman looks like she is in her late forties, dyed blonde hair with the grey visible at the roots, too much make up, and clothes made for people two decades younger than her.
"Yeah-" she starts, but then sees me properly and stops in the middle of the word.
"My god, what happened to you?"
I use my left hand to wipe across my face, it's sticky and disgusting and my pinky has blood on it when I look at it.
"I -" I start, and look at the number hanging beside the door, proclaiming this as exactly the house I'm looking for – so what is that woman doing here?
"I'm sorry, where are Andy and David?" I try to deflect her question, I don't want to have to explain something I don't know myself.
"Sorry, who?" She asks, off guard, she didn't expect the question.
"Andy and -" I stop, and memories flash before my eyes – not complete scenes, only small details – the different streets of London, me not knowing how I got into the warehouse. Time has passed between me running away from here to get away from the news of Father's death and waking up in that warehouse. But how long? What happened? I try to scour my mind but there is nothing, only a blank spot, like I slept through the whole time.
"The people who lived here before?" I try again, and this time she smiles tentatively. The confusion and worry is still clear in her eyes.
"I – I don't know where they live now, my husband and I moved in here about a year ago -" Her voice tapers off into silence, probably because of my facial expression. A year? How on earth?
"Erm – I do have their phone number though?" I nod blankly, still trying to work through everything in my head.
"Come in, I will call them and they can pick you up, okay?" She asks, still sounding worried and confused, so I croak out a yes and follow her into the kitchen.
It's different to how I remember it. Darker. A laugh bubbles up from somewhere inside me, a hollow laugh in a completely serious situation. Father, the criminal mastermind, and baddie in so many crimes had a lighter colour-scheme than this ordinary woman. How ironic.
"Are you alright?" The woman asks, and only then do I realise that I don't even know her name.
I nod once, twice, and even though she doesn't look convinced, she takes a step back. Gets a glass out of a cupboard and fills it with water, puts it in front of me.
"I'll call them now if you want? What do you want me to say to them?"
"Tell them Spitfire. They will know what it means." It feels wrong to abuse the name and what it means like that, to give it around to complete strangers, but I don't dare give her my real name. A year has passed at least, and it's all blank. Who knows what happened in that time?
She calls them and I can hear a voice on the other end, but the words are indiscernible. Everything goes quiet for a minute after she tells Andy or David, whoever she is talking with, the name, and only after she asks twice for them to answer do they start talking again.
"He said he'd come pick you up right now. You're not in trouble, are you?" I look at her now wary face, and shake my head.
"Okay. Do you want a coffee or something while we wait?" For a moment I wonder why she hasn't just kicked me out. On the other hand, I do look rather unthreatening and probably lost.
"Yes please." She gets up to some kind of coffee maker on the counter and I reach for the paper on the table.
I stare at it, not believing my eyes. The news is something I can't follow, not really surprising since politics and other matters haveprogressed in the year I'm missing. But the top of the page is what I can't tear my gaze away from.
"Sorry, is this today's paper?" I ask weakly.
"Today's or yesterday's, don't know, why?" She replies, not turning around.
I can't breath, only realising that I moved when my back hits the wall, only realising that I started screaming a few seconds after I hear the high pitched sound.
The date at the tops of the paper says 2013. 14th of May, 2013.
I lost two years.