Flames of Revenge

Prologue: Fire

There are thirteen matches. It only takes three of them.

She counts them carefully, each and every one. Vaguely, she wonders whether the matches would light after all this time. After all, it has been eight years since she took the box from the drawer in the kitchen, palming it carefully and swearing revenge. It's been so long. Too long, perhaps?

She stops, hesitates. Does she really want to keep going with this? A lot can happen in eight years. A lot can change.

She shakes the thought out of her head. No, she can't have any second thoughts.

She can't turn back now.

The flames of revenge have already been lit. They were lit eight years ago, on that fateful day when one little girl walked through charred ruins, lost and alone, and crying pitifully for her parents who would never come back.

She vowed that day that she would make them pay. She would make them suffer for their actions, as they have made her suffer.

She bid her time, waiting, watching. Seeking the perfect opportunity.

And now, eight years later, she is ready.

It had all started with a fire. How fitting that it is to end with one, too.
She runs her fingertips along the smooth leather spines of the books, selecting the perfect one. It is to be a ritual, she's decided. She's waited eight years for this day, and she can wait no longer.

She selects a thick red volume bound with velum, a record of Charles Chapworth's business activities in the past two years, the evidence of a fortune. She thinks how easy it would be to destroy it forever, leaving no record of it at all. Like erasing history. They'd have other copies, of course, but that doesn't matter. This is only the beginning.

She watches as the paper blackens and crackles and curls, collapsing in on itself.

Two more books, that's all it takes. Just three matches and three books, and soon enough the whole bookshelf is smothered in flames.

Paper burns quickly.

She watches, mesmerised, as the tongues of fire climb towards the ceiling, sending tiny sparks flying through the air. She feels the heat on her face, warm and comforting.

No, not warm anymore, hot. Too hot.

She smells singed hair, and smoke. The air is thick with it, as are her lungs. The smoke is suffocating. She is finding breath increasingly hard to come by.

She falls to her knees, coughing and choking from the smoke attacking her lungs. Her vision blurs, and the office starts to fade out from view until all that she can see are the dancing flames. Resignedly, she realises that it is quite possible that she's going to die tonight.

It would be her doing, it would be her own fault if she is to perish here. But it hardly matters. She doesn't care whether she lives or dies. Not anymore.

But she knows one thing for sure:

If she burns, then she's going to make all of them burn with her.