Secret Revealed (5.2)

As Rivi approached the double doors that opened into the fourth hall, she could feel the heat radiating through them. She held her palm in front of the closed doors and stepped through the middle of the door. Seeing the fire raging all around, she created an invisible bubble around herself, causing the flames to become harmless as they flickered against her.

Rivi heard yelling coming from a classroom halfway down the hall. She opened every door, checking inside each one for other people until she reached the door, where she could hear the pleading calls. Realizing that the fire was stronger here than in the hallway, she decided it would be best to step through the door again instead of opening it.

"Where are you?" she called above the flames.

"Back here!" a young male's voice called, followed by a hacking cough.

Rivi waved her hand and swept aside desks, books, and chairs. Textbooks burned brightly along the edges of the path she created. She walked steadily up to the wooden partition that obscured a small section of the classroom. Rivi feared that if she walked any faster, she might lose her concentration and the bubble around her, which was the only thing keeping her from being burned.

"We're back here! The shelf collapsed, and I think my leg is broken."

Rivi walked to the opening at the end of the partition closest to her. Seeing a few students surrounded by flames, Rivi forced her protective shield to extend around all of them before she did anything. The three boys turned white in shock as they realized the fire's heat was no longer affecting them.

"Bill, Ed, Kurt?" Rivi asked, looking at the three of them over the pile on the floor that was Bill, jackets, backpacks, boxes, and wood from the broken shelf.

"You! How did you get in here?" Bill questioned, although the pain in his leg was apparent in his voice.

Rivi gave a slight smile.

"Things aren't always what they seem at first," Rivi said, as she noticed a bunch of matches laying around the boys' feet.

Bill noticed where Rivi's gaze fell, and his own face turned defiant, although Ed and Kurt looked at their feet.

"Well, are you going to get us help or not?" Bill demanded.

"Help is already here," Rivi answered, narrowing her eyes.

Bill stared at her blankly. Rivi's eyes closed briefly and then, suddenly, snapped wide open. Bill, Ed, and Kurt looked at Rivi in terror. Rivi stretched out her hands, palms up, and lifted her arms, bringing a pile of charred backpacks and coats off the floor and onto the shelves above their heads.

Watching the backpacks and coats, Bill, Ed, and Kurt shrank away from Rivi in fear. She looked down at them with a sad expression.

"I won't hurt you, although this fire could've injured more than a few people today," Rivi said, kicking at a spent firecracker at her feet. "Ed, Kurt, I'll get you two out first. You two are not injured."

"The fire's too big now. We'll never get out," Kurt answered, scared, and failing to remember that the fire was no longer endangering him, thanks to Rivi's protective shield.

"The fire has little effect on me," Rivi answered matter-of-factly.

She stretched her hands out to the two boys, who stepped around Bill, still sitting on the floor. They took her outstretched hands, grasping at them as if they thought Rivi might pull away, as she led them to the opening of the partition.

"Don't leave me here!" Bill called, terrified.

Rivi released the two boys' hands as they stood looking out into the fiery classroom. Rivi's long brown hair flipped off her shoulders as she turned to look at Bill, sitting on the floor.

"Don't worry. I won't," Rivi answered.

She placed a hand between the shoulder blades of the two boys' backs, and drawing her shield in around them, she led them through the fiery classroom. As they reached the classroom door, Ed held the back of his hand toward the door.

"It's too hot to open," he said.

Rivi said nothing, but pushed them, screaming, through the closed door. They stopped screaming once they realized they had walked through the door, and they continued in shocked silence through the burning hall and toward the door to the exit. Again, Rivi pushed them through the doors and into the safety of the schoolyard, where students and teachers were all gathered together. Ed and Kurt stumbled toward the nearest teacher, who was looking past them to Rivi, who had only come halfway through the door.

Rivi withdrew herself back into the burning hallway. She walked back to where Bill was lying, now unconscious and overcome by the smoke.

"I've never liked doing this," Rivi said to herself, waving her hand over Bill and making him lighter than air, which caused him to float.

Rivi grimaced, knowing that it was much easier for Aun healers to manipulate the atoms in a person's body, so doing this would surely sap her strength. She held her hands under his levitating body and guided him back through the fiery hallway, where she had just led his friends. By the time she stepped outside, the students and teachers were also joined by Dan, the dark-suited men, and the newly-arrived firefighters. As she floated Bill through the outer door and into the fresh air, the firefighters were the first to rush to her side. Dan and the president's men wisely held back.

Rivi lowered Bill to the cool grass, as the smoke-free air began to revive him. Rivi fell to her knees as a firefighter pushed an oxygen mask to her face. Rivi took a deep breath, coughed, and pushed the mask away.

Closing her eyes, she ignored the protesting firefighter, and with the last of her mental strength, stretched her shaking arms toward the sky. Choosing only oxygen atoms, she brought her arms down and drew several deep breaths. When she opened her eyes, she found a few firefighters carrying Bill on a gurney toward a medical truck. The other fireman, who held the oxygen mask, looked at her in confusion.

Rivi gave a weak smile.

"I'm fine now, but thank you," she said, nodding to him as he stood up, still looking confused.

She got up and walked past the stunned students and staff, and over to where the school secretary was standing with Dan and the men.

"You okay, Rivinaig? " The secretary asked.

"You look exhausted," Dan said, concerned.

"I am, but I'll be fine. You said that Miss Tate knows I'm leaving school right?

"Yes, she knows. She told me to assure you that you would be ok with these men."

"Alright, let's go and have that talk with the President," Rivi said, turning toward the men.

"Right this way," one of the men said, motioning toward two black SUVs parked along the edge of the schoolyard on the curb.

Rivi shuffled toward the vehicles, until Dan offered to help. He took her arm and brought it around his neck to help support her. After a few more steps, her legs went limp and he scooped her up into his arms.

"Thanks," Rivi mumbled as she rested her head against his shoulder.

"What are friends for," he said as he carried her toward the vehicles.