Intertwined

Chapter 3: Eat Each Other In Private

S C A R

"No," I tell Axel, comfortable in my bed with the blanket over my head. I was not going to go to some stupid town library to study. The only reason Heath and I are going to this shitty school is because Hunter wants us to blend in.

Blend in, my ass.

"Oh come on, listen, I'm not the biggest fan of wanting you there, but Parker, Mason and Max have already bailed. And Heath wants to hit the gym. This was supposed to be a group study thing. J loves this shit. So please, just show up. I'm not taking no for an answer," Axel flops down on my bed, peeling the blanket off of me.

Ugh, the light.

"Get out of my bed! What, are you gonna eat me like you eat Juliet all the time?"

He gives me a devilish grin. "We only eat each other in private."

"That's disgusting."

He shrugs. "See you there," he leaves the room.

I hate everyone.

***

"So you came," Axel asks with a smug grin.

"Don't."

He laughs and I throw my bag at him, which he catches efficiently. Stupid idiot.

"Behave, boys," Juliet reprimands trying to focus on her textbook.

"Alright, I'm gonna go look for a book on Atticus Finch. I've got a paper on him," Ax gets up and walks lazily over to the other side of the library. I saw a kid running around earlier, but besides that I don't think there's anyone else here.

After a few minutes, which comprised of my math homework ruthlessly butchering me and Juliet biting her pencil and flipping pages, she gets up to go upstairs and find a book on cell organelles or shit.

A few minutes pass and the smell of abundant smoke fills the room. I look around to see where it's coming from.

What's happening?

The glass panels in the middle of the library burst into tiny shreds.

What the fuck?

A visible fire spreads through the room.  The stairs that allowed Juliet to go upstairs crumble and a huge wooden log falls over the centre of the room making it impossible for me to go find Axel unless I squeeze in through a small gap at the bottom.

The library is too big. Even if Axel was calling for us, we wouldn't be able to hear.

I'm completely cornered. The fire spreads to the wall on my left and the upstairs is completely filled with smoke.

Shit! Juliet!

"Juliet!" I call for her and I hear coughs.

She comes into view.

"I can't get down. The stairs are completely destroyed," She tells me, coughing in between.

Even I didn't know how I was gonna get out. My cell showed no cell reception.

Great!

There is one way I could get out. A somewhat thin and extremely long strip of wood was lain diagonally against one end of the wall that was on fire and one end against the top floor where Juliet was.

The bottom end of the strip which was the only part of the wood accessible to me was on fire that was slowly spreading.

If Juliet could move the wood from the top part, I'd be able to get out but I couldn't ask her to stay there. Not with her like that.

She needed to jump.

The look on Juliet's face told me she knew that she needed to move the strip of wood but the fire was spreading too fast.

"Jump. I'll catch you," I assure her.

But she pays no heed.

She runs to the strip of wood and pushes it up and the fire around her begins to spread.

She's gonna get herself killed! She puts in as much effort as she can.

"Go!" she yells.

And I run, making it out of the area with the most fire. I could probably get to Axel now. But not without this idiot.

"Okay. Now, jump," I tell her, holding my arms out.

"I can't," She shakes her head.

"Yes, you can. From what I've heard, you've done much more, this is nothing. I'll catch you, jump."

She looks at me like I'm crazy, but this was the only option.

She mumbles something to herself and takes a few steps back and gets a running start.

She closes her eyes and soon, I catch her and place her on the floor.

She coughs a little, from all the smoke she's probably had to inhale.

"Are you okay?" I ask and God, I hope she is. I'm a shitty person but I know a good person shouldn't suffer.

Especially, if that person was sort of my friend.

"Yeah," she nods dazedly, "We have to find Axel."

She's up and running instantaneously, and I have no idea how she's doing it. Probably the adrenaline.

We run past a few shelves, I'm sure a couple of minutes have passed and neither one of us has any cell reception.

We do find Axel. But with what he was doing, getting out of here soon was going to be difficult.