I managed to somehow end my disturbing slash totally confusing conversation with Neo, spare Jamie a quick glance that said something along the lines of 'see you later homie', and go back to join Penny at our table.

I had exactly five minutes to spare before I needed to ditch college and check out the emergency.

I couldn't go right away. People might get suspicious. I needed a good excuse too. Because, again, people might get suspicious. So I came up with a quick one that worked most of the time.

"I think a migraine's coming," I told Penny, wincing at the lie. Penny thought I was wincing in pain since her features softened. "Can you record the next two classes for me?"

She agreed because she was a lifesaver that way and made me promise I'd tell her everything about my conversation with Jamie (and the one with Neo too since she had seen us talking). I agreed because that was the least I could do.

Especially when I was lying about the migraine. That was one lie that worked most of the time when I had to ditch it all together for my vigilante duties. The teachers excused me. My friends excused me. It worked awfully well.

Perhaps that does make me a bad person. But there'd always be lies when it came to me and my secret. Orias had always told me that. If I needed to keep my identity a secret, there will always be lies.

As I dashed out of the college premises, making sure no eyes were following me, I quickly made my way to the local town bookshop I worked part-time at, and wasn't surprised when I saw Jon smoking behind the cash register.

"Jon, what the fuck," I grumbled, walking towards the back of the small store. There I spotted a large couch settled against one of the shelves, with stacks of books and novels piled over it. I pushed up the purple cushions to take out my suit.

"Sorry," I heard the old man saying. "I forget sometimes that you might be stopping by, kid."

I loved Jon, I really did, but it sometimes got on my nerves that he smoked inside a heavenly place like this sweet little bookshop.

"I stop by all the time," I told him, pulling off my hoodie and shrugging on my black leather gear. I wasn't worried about Jon seeing me naked, not when two big shelves were hiding me from view. I was, however, worried about someone else seeing me. "Close the shutters?"

"'Course." He coughed. "Duty calls?"

I hummed in response. It felt a little weird, like every time I stopped here to change into my gear, that Jon (the sweet innocent owner of Reader's Den--the tiny bookshop downtown--slash my boss) knew that I was Cinder Girl.

But I guess it shouldn't be. Weird, I mean. Jon had been a part of the Agency too (many years ago). The only reason he knew about me, and the only reason I was changing into my leather pants right at this moment, was because Orias trusted him. Even when Jon had retired from the Agency long ago and worked in a bookshop now.

I got out from behind the shelves, strapping in my belt, and fixed my mask over my eyes. The mask was built-in with lenses (credits to the Agency and their crazy techniques) that replaced the usual soft green from my eyes. A little eyelash inside my eye feeling, but it got bearable in a few seconds.

"Be careful, kid." I heard Jon saying as I opened the back door and escaped into the city of Arcanus.

He always said that, I thought. Except that this time he was a little too right to say it.

As I dropped by the location I had been sent on that emergency notification, the first thing I sniffed was the smoke. Heavy smoke.

Then came the screams and the fire.

Swallowing heavily, I dashed inside the tiny apartment building that was almost entirely engulfed in flames.

• • •

I got everyone out. Almost everyone out.

Have I ever stated how much I despise fires? Not as much as Ice Phantom hated them, though. Which told me that this couldn't be his doing. Sure, he could've planted a bomb or something. He'd done that once--light the local town library on fire. But he wasn't one to run away. If he did something as bad as bombing a place up, he always stayed behind to watch the view. That was one thing I had grown awfully accustomed to.

He didn't even care that he might get caught if he stayed. Clearly, no one's gonna appreciate your handiwork more than your own self.

But right now, Ice Phantom was nowhere in sight.

I didn't get much time to think over it anyway. I was too busy dragging people out of the slowly crumbling building, making sure everyone was safely out.

Back up is on its way, a voice spoke in my ears through the barely visible headset I wore. Backup meant firemen. I was strangely relieved when I heard the faint police sirens seeming to come from outside the building.

Jumping over and dodging past the scorching flames, I looked around the tiny room that was almost filled with flames.

They're gonna be here soon, I reminded myself. They'll put the fire out in no time.

Yet it still felt hard to breathe. Because of the smoke, yes. But also because the last time I had been inside a building that caught itself on fire, I'd failed to save a handful of people. Innocent people. And they'd died on my watch. Their blood was on my hands.

I shuddered and almost had a whiplash when I heard a tiny sobbing sound from somewhere deep in the room. There was someone left in here.

"Hey, is anyone there?" I spoke up over the sound of the whooshing flames and the loud shatters of things falling down. "You can come out! It's safe, I'll get you out of here safely!"

The crying stopped for a few seconds, only to enhance tenfold. I ran towards the sound and saw a little boy curled up under a wooden table, which (thank God) had not yet caught on fire.

"Hey, hey, little guy. Come here." I held out my gloved hands towards the boy, crouching down to his level.

He sniffled and looked up at me with wide, scared eyes. "I can't find Mama."

"Don't worry. She's outside. Let's get you out too, yeah?" I hoped she was.

The little boy hiccuped this time. "I...I hurt my hand. It hurts."

A curtain fell down its holder with flames and the heat nearly blinding my vision. Fortunately enough, the little guy got the message and jumped up into my arms right on time.

I wrapped my cape around him, holding him close, and hobbled out of the room and down the empty burning hallways. It was adrenaline, adrenaline, adrenaline. Scary and suffocating. I tried pushing the horrible feeling away. The feeling to run away and hide.

By the time I handed the kid to one of the firefighters that had come in to help, everyone else was out.

Or at least that's what they told me.

Because right then I saw someone's silhouette by the same room I had just left. Thinking it was another occupant of the apartment, I went running back. Only to get the shock of my life (not really) when the said silhouette happened to be a masked person.

And then I was being punched in the stomach, getting slammed back into the nearest wall.

I narrowly missed the growing flames on the chipped floorboards as I stumbled backwards, clutching my stomach. "Ow." I gritted my teeth and looked up at the masked person.

At first, I thought it was Ice Phantom. But it wasn't. Ice Phantom didn't rely on his fists. He could easily make me bleed with his powers alone. And this masked person, whoever that they were, wearing a ski mask with holes only for the eyes, seemed much taller and much bigger than Ice Phantom.

"Big mistake you made coming here, hero." It was a guy judging from the voice as he advanced towards me, cracking his knuckles.

"What?" I wheezed, standing up and squinting. "Who the hell are you?"

The only answer I got was, "Someone who'll put the Agency to its rightful place." Then he was lunging towards me again and I barely dodged on time.

"Wait, what? Why?" I heaved, pulling out a knife from my belt loop. The smoke all around was kind of making me see things now. "If you have issues with the Agency, you go to them. You don't light buildings on fire."

"Oh no." The hunky man laughed. It was a loud, confident, evil laugh. I nearly shuddered, my eyes darting across his posture, trying to calculate his movements. "Killing you will be a message enough."

Oh, I thought. Damn.

He charged towards me again, with something that I hadn't quite noticed in his hand before. A black sort of device. I realised too late that it was some kind of a taser, as it grazed just past the side of my stomach. The fact that it still managed to zap me with my leather suit on told me that it was no normal taser.

"Fucking hell," I swore, convulsing on my knees, blinking and blinking and trying to look past the blurriness in my vision. It strangely felt like my insides were wobbling. Maybe Orias was right, I thought. I was so out of practice these days.

When I managed to look up, trying to grasp for anything around me in the darkness, the ski-masked man had appeared right in front of me and was once again holding up the black device.

I gripped something that felt like bed railing and nearly cussed some more at how hot it was.

"I'll kill you. I'll kill the Agency." He growled. And he might've even plunged that device into me if it hadn't been for the sudden loud wooshing noise. Not of the flames, I realised, as I stared at the walls in a little bit of horror and awe, both.

I wasn't the only one taken aback. The man in front of me lowered down his device in surprise too. "No, no, no." He was muttering.

I swallowed, pressing my back against the wall. It was getting cold. Cold inside a building that's on fire. I realised why soon enough. The flames weren't extinguishing. They were turning into ice. Frozen flames.

I had seen pretty strange things in my life, stranger than most, but watching blazing fire frosting over and changing into ice was...weirder than anything.

"Won't escape the next time." The masked man threw those words at me, so full of hatred and remorse, that I forgot the situation we were in for a second there. The next thing I knew, he was jumping from the already broken window and I didn't hear shrieks like I was expecting. Not even a loud thud.

Just silence.

Empty silence. And cold.

I got up from the floor, pressing my hands gingerly on the wall behind me. Frozen and solid, I realised. Every flame stroking this building seconds ago was turned into ice. How, was an easy question. Why, I didn't know. Why would Ice Phantom help me?

I stumbled towards the broken window where the masked man had escaped from. My mouth felt gritty like sand as I stared at the pavement below. There were no signs of him down there. No signs of the ski-masked man. The stinging pain at my side was the only thing that told me he'd been here only seconds ago. Ready to kill me.

Weird, I thought.

And then Neo's words from earlier in the college cafeteria rang in my head.

"Holy shit," I murmured.

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why would someone wanna open a bookstore and name it 'Wet Pages'???