MANIPULATED Book A (Sequel to Tempted)

17. Turn Up The Heat

You fall back to the ground, hair inches away from the fire, and sobs escaping you. But you see the hole in the wall where the bolt once was.

It worked, but you have a white hot chain stuck to you. You just need to get out of the room and away from the fire, then it can cool down.

You bolt to the door through the thick black smoke, struggling to locate the handle. Blindly, you search with your good hand and find it, but it burns your palm slightly. It's metal too.

Then you just kick the door open, and it opens wide with a slam.

This was a huge mistake. The oxygen from the outside seeps into the room of fire, feeds it, then explodes, sending you flying down the hall in a ball of flame.

You crash in multiple ways. The scent of burnt skin and hair fills your nose. You can't open your eyes at first, because you realize you blacked out for some time. But when you wake up, your surroundings are in flames. Everything in the hall, tongues of fire are distributed to different artifacts.

You struggle to stand up, coughing up smoke, feeling weak in your legs, and having no feeling in your hand, now the loss of sensation spreading up your arm.

Then you notice the chain is gone. It must have blown off in the explosion, and all that remains is a black band of burnt skin that bleeds to parts of your hand and up your arm a little.

This is more serious than a 4th degree burn.

You can't move your hand at all, but you finally stand up and bolt a way from the fire down the hall.

Then you hear a voice coming from somewhere.

"WHERE IS SHE!?"

It was Anti. He has come here and now he's looking for you. But it sounds like Dark found him first.

You turn down a hall away from the voice. You coming across either men, both of whom want you dead, will assure you a non pleasant death.

But the fire isn't a good option either. Now the halls of the castle start to flood with smoke, but there's no fire in sight.

You have no idea where you're going and there's too much smoke to see or breathe in. This place is a maze and you know that eventually you will run into a dead end. But you avoid any and all voices and all flames and smoke as much as possible, trying to find the exit.

"(Y/N)!" You hear Anti call near you. You turn a corner to see him stepping out of a room, but he doesn't notice you. You quickly slip into a door closest to you. The lights are off and its cold. You listen for his footsteps to pass, but they don't. You hear them approach then stop at the door.

He opens it, you behind the hinges so he can't see you. The light from the hall casts a shadow of his figure on the ground. Then he steps in a couple paces. He looks around, remaining as quiet as possible. He's listening for your thoughts.

You quickly imagine yourself in the room of fire again, imagining yourself back in it, and focusing on the burn on your arm, trying reexperience the pain as if it was happening at that moment.

Then he leaves, closing the door behind him. You release a breath of relief, and count to 30, then slip back into the hall and continue in the opposite direction.

The fire has spread, because you now have limited ways to turn. You even at times recognize the hallways you've already been in. The fire closes in, and forces you down more halls.

Then you turn down another extended hall and you hear fighting. Grunts and battle cries echo around you.

Anti and Dark must have found each other again.

You can't go back, because the fire has already spread. It's like it wants you to go to them.

You come upon double doors, and the fire closes in around you. You open the doors and shut them behind you.

Inside you have found the ballroom, having not yet seen the light of a single flame.

The ceiling reaches tall, pillars circling the perimeter of the floor reaching above and meeting in the center, where a large black chandelier hands down. Tall glass windows line the back wall with drapes hanging gracefully from them. The black stone walls and the extricate pattern of the floor tiles makes this room beyond elegance.

But the only problem with this place is: it's not an exit. Nor are there any in sight.

You go to one of the windows and look to see you are very high above the ground, and below you can see the entrance of the castle, and the black moat that lays below. If you could just get down there.

You're just about to start to head back to the double doors when they burst open. Anti flies inside with wild eyes, searching for you. His shirt is burnt and ripped. He must have gone through the fire to get here, because now pieces of door engulfed in fire are scattered on the ground, and flames from the hallway surround Anti. But the fire around him doesn't compare to the flames of fury in his eyes when he sees you.