Swooped | ✓

Chapter 24: To Rule the Roost

Everything was working out, and life had never been better. I was helping people, I was a legitimate superhero, and I had the best bloody boyfriend in the world.

Yeah, life was great.

***

It was late on a Thursday night when I was abruptly woken up from my poorly-timed nap by Milo frantically shaking my shoulders. I groaned, swatting away his hands.

"Nooo, why are you waking me up you handsome buttface?" I whined groggily, Milo's hands unrelenting as they shook me. 

"C! This is serious! There's something happening at Lark's uni!" Milo said, voice thick with urgency, which made sleep vanish from me in a split second. I sat up, Milo quickly climbing out of bed and rushing to my wardrobe, throwing my super suit at me.

"What's happening? Is Lark okay?" I asked, not questioning anything and quickly pulling on my suit, which was now second nature to me. I was pulling on my goggles when Milo clicked a few things on his phone, images being sent directly in front of my retinas. "Oh my God."

It was a live newsfeed of a raging fire at Lark's university, with a black wall of smoke billowing up into the pitch dark midnight. The fire casted a menacing red glow against my eyes, me stomach dropping when I recognised the building. I had been there, multiple times.

It was Lark's dorm building.

"Oh, fuck. Oh my God, Lark, fuck, is she okay, oh my God," I chanted to myself, scrambling to the window to open it, not bothering  to take the time to head out the front or back door. 

"Go, C! I'll keep an eye on things and update you. Hurry, but be careful," Milo said, touching my back with worry before I launched out of the window, panic settling inside me. 

I didn't need Milo's fancy GPS  system to know where to go - all I had to do was fly in a straight line towards the blazing inferno that was spiralling up into the sky. 

"Emergency services are there, but the fire is getting worse. Reports say there are still students trapped in there," Milo said, pulling on his glasses as his fingers frantically clacked on his keyboard, brow furrowed and eyes flitting from side to side as he read. 

"Lark?"

"Can't tell, I've tapped into the security cameras at the form, but most of them are fried, and I can only see fire and smoke from the few that are working," Milo said.

"Fuck, fuck!" I cursed, forcing my wings to flap harder and for the wind to be at my back. As I neared, the group of nosy spectators outside began to cheer as they spotted me, but I didn't offer them my usual camera-hogging love as I usually did, dropping right beside a firefighter that seemed like he was in charge. 

"What's happening?" I asked, voice desperate, the man shocked silent at the sight of me for a moment before his brain caught up. 

"The kids on the first floor escaped, and a few of my men went in and got most of the students out from the second and third floors, but the fire's gotten too big and I'm going to have to pull them out," the man said, face looking as devastated as the feeling inside my chest. Lark was on the third floor. An image of Lark lying on the floor being eaten by flames, her beautiful face screaming as smoke filled her lungs and fire consumed her made me want to retch in my mask. "We had  a ladder team on the east side, but the building's about to collapse and I'm sure there are still people-"