Safe House

The building burned slowly; while the flames crackled, spread, and licked at remains of what it once was. Sirens wailed, water was sprayed from enormous hoses, devoted firemen charged through the burning house as the flames only roared higher in response. The heat turned up as the brave souls did their best to salvage the place. It was named Branches, and until this one balmy early June morning, it was torched, the most devastating fire that the complex had ever seen. Caleb Prinz sat a fair distance away in a parking lot, watching idly by, sitting on the hood of his beloved truck, his gaze never once faltering from the flames as he silently commended the firefighters for working their hardest before finally letting the building smolder into embers. When he was not concentrating, he was listening, he wanted to leave a mark, but he never wanted to hurt anyone. He listened for a scream he knew too well, a wail that he could hear for miles, Caleb’s friend Avery could scream down a building to alert an impending death.
Every bit of it would be worth it if it meant he would never have to see Rowan Cain ever again. All he wanted from here on out was to be left alone, by him. To get back on track, and pull the plug the only way he could; and that was urgently, he never said where he was going, or why, he figured Cain knew all that, or at least would figure it out eventually. They continue to scramble through the place, probably trying to salvage any kind of paperwork or items they could. This was all the closure he needed, he hated long goodbyes.
The classroom went up first, he made sure of that, the mirror, the clocks, the floors, the walls, all of it in one slow blaze. Then came the office, that was easy, all that paper, all those books, all the wood, every stupid idea he had to go along with, one intricate inferno. Apart from the circumstances it really was a masterpiece, he could not wait to tell Violet all about it. Caleb thought back fondly to when he was a little boy and could barely light a candle without sending the curtains along with it. He had better control now, he had been called ‘valuable’, ‘gifted’, his gifts praised by everyone but the very man he was trying to hurt. Rowan Cain had tried to take everything from him, so he was going to take the one thing that mattered to that pathetic old man. Caleb was only eighteen, he was supposed to start over at this age, but Cain was old, he was on the brink of retirement and now he was going back to square one. There was a part of Caleb that hoped he would take the insurance money and move to an island somewhere, he did not care where, so long as he was out of Caleb’s sight. As a final measure, he concentrated on the windows, and made them explode, one by one. There was a dozen of them, broken glass shattered behind the firefighters each time one of them left the room.
His past, his home, the majority of his life for the past twelve years, was suddenly engulfed in flames and smoke like cheap kindling. He made sure to do it at two in the morning, he was angry but he did not want anyone hurt. Maybe this is why Avery cries, he thought to himself taking a few deep breaths, as the catharsis sank into his bones. He rubbed his eyes and leaned back as he slid off the hood and hopped in the car. He would have popped a brain cell if need be, he pictured Cain enlisting the help of his new flock to gather the scraps of the building, giving some pastor like speech on how rebuilding your world was part of life. He would paint Caleb as some ungrateful passerby who took advantage of Cain’s soft heart. Oliver Twist gone rogue, the lost lamb gone astray, Caleb had heard it, and believed it, seven other times in his life.
“Good luck cleaning that up, asshole.” The eighteen-year-old muttered bitterly, licking is lips, the way Avery told him he did when he was angry, started the truck and drove away. Caleb tried his hardest to ignore the twinge of guilt in his stomach. Liam, Cassie, Nathan, Avery, Kaia, all sleeping in the next house over, in their dorms, expecting to see him at breakfast, all under Cain’s care. The Safe House for his own colony, a league, an army, a cult of extraordinary children. Each and every one, with their own view of the world. Most of them, like Avery, came to him scared, eager, and lost. But at least Avery had the good sense to keep him at arm’s length. She and Caleb clicked, and he felt like a monster for disappearing on them in the middle of the night, he drove faster before he could hear her scream. He worried about what would happen to them, it would just be a matter of time before he started winding them up and tearing down Caleb. To his relief, the scream never came.
Caleb then spent the night on his girlfriend Violet’s couch, the fire had left him spent and he ate the rest of her leftovers, and slept for what felt like days. He did not know what he was going to the next day or the next hour, and for the first time in his life; he did not care. He woke up, and Violet would be there to wait on him and wait for him to talk.
She was an outsider, she did not understand what it took to leave the way he had to, and she has never had to run away from anyone, every person in her life had told her they would be there for her, was. No one tried to use her, for that she was lucky. Honestly, right now he needed Liam, or Nathan, even Avery, someone who knew. He tried not to talk about that stuff with Vi, he wanted to protect her, the less she knew, the less she might have to lie about if that was what it came to, he hoped he was just being paranoid.
Every time he opened his eyes, he would debate alerting one of them just to tell them he was still alive, and somewhat okay, luckily he soon learned he did not have to; one time, two days later, there was fervent knocking on the door with a familiar voice commanding Violet to open it and let her in. He nodded to his girlfriend as she opened the door to reveal the tiny hurricane that is Avery Faye Pierce.
“Cay,” she started, her face etched in worry. “Oh my God, are you okay? Was it that bad? I saw what you did to the school and I knew it was you. Are you all right?”
“Ave,” he said, holding out his hand. Wordlessly, she sat next to him. “I think I messed up…”