So This Is Love? {NYSM: J. Daniel Atlas}

Chapter 6

The theater that Journey and Rhodes were in was much smaller than where the last show was.

The air was hot and stuffy which made Amber extremely uncomfortable. She hated being too warm. It gave her flashbacks.

"AMBER RUN!" A voice screamed.

Amber's eyes shot open and her fingernails dug into the stubbly cloth of the armrests.

"This better not take more than two hours," Rhodes muttered as he studied the stage from his balcony seat.

Like normal, he was totally oblivious to her condition. Usually Amber could hide it but after meeting The Horsemen everything, every memory had come back in a torrent.

She hadn't been able to sleep for two days. Every time her eyes closed, visions of her brother and their burning home resurfaced.

Amber took several deep breaths, trying to slow her speeding heart. A thin sheet of sweat had accumulated across her forehead and she gently wiped it away. Blinking, she stared at the hologram that showed an hourglass with a countdown suspended in the air above it.

2:37

Amber took a deep breath of the humid air trying not to think about how warm it was. She tugged anxiously at her scarf.

2:36

The room was stifling. Amber could swear she smelt smoke. It was becoming impossible to breathe. Fire sparked the walls on either edge of the building. It sprang to life and began crawling up the walls towards her.

2:35

She could feel the heat, scalding her toes that poked out of her shoes. Her leggings began to shrivel as the fire licked her legs. Nasty burns appeared on her pale legs sending jolts of pain through her body.

2:34

She made a slight noise and cowered away. Her shoulder bumped into Rhodes, who turned to her in confusion.

"Journey, what are you doing?"

"Can't breathe," she whispered as she clawed at her throat, nearly pulling off her brown scarf.

His eyes widened and he cupped her face with his calloused hands.

"Journey, what's going on?" He asked loudly, attracting several people's attention.

Whispers began circulating the air around the pair as Amber struggled to breathe.

"S-smoke," she wheezed out as she raised a wavering finger at behind her.

"What?" Rhodes asked, utterly confused. He peered behind her.

The fire was scalding its way up her spine. Her dress was turning to ash and her skin went from pale ivory to charcoal black. She could feel her skin beginning to peel away from her back.

A scream was crawling its way up her throat as she buried her face into Rhodes' shirt.

"Amber, what's wrong?"

Amber gently peeked over her shoulder.

The flames were gone.

Quickly she sat up and wiped her face. Thank Odin she had ignored Rhodes' plea for her to wear makeup.

"Journey?"

"I'm fine," she said quickly, "I'm sorry, Rhodes. That was inappropriate. I-I don't know what happened to me."

That was a downright lie. She knew exactly what had happened. She had a panic attack. They used to happen all the time after...after the incident. After ten years, she had hoped they would go away. But something told her they never would.