COF 5: The Secret Race

Foreword

I stretched my legs and wiggled my toes. My back throbbed from hours of being hunched in front of a laptop. The skin on my forehead felt like it was being stretched thin from the stress of the past days.

I lasted about a week in Paris after that fiasco about Jacqueline Shaw. Then, my hotel room was bombed through by a fairy that could summon rocks out of thin air. I remembered packing quickly, shoving the journals into yet another orange suitcase I acquired in Montrogue first. Then, the laptop came in second.

I had grabbed a few spare clothes to last me at least three days in a new city. I didn't even bother getting undergarments from the dresser. Too much time.

The fairy had bounded from the anteroom, wailing about sniffing something delightful somewhere in my area. My heart had pounded against my chest so hard I felt like it's going to burst out of my skin. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think.

I had bounded down the emergency stairs as sirens wailed outside, no doubt searching for the cause of the shaft of smoke now billowing from a hole in the wall of my ex-room.

Then, I booked the nearest flight to anywhere while aboard a taxi heading towards de Gaulle Airport. I felt like I was in an epic car chase scene in a movie when I urged the driver to drive faster, the rock-throwing fairy not far behind.

How they even manage to find me everywhere I go was beyond me. It's probably the journals but I don't think about that. The letter warned about my life being dangerous as the writer was not sure about the type of magic this world had. Well, it just turned dangerous, all right.

I had hopped off even before the car had stopped moving completely, throwing a handful of Euros into the backseat. The driver swore at me in fancy French as I tackled my luggage out of the boot. His cries faded behind me as I strode forward and blended with the people amassing the airport.

I didn't relax until the plane had taken off. Sleep had left my system. What if the fairy hitched a ride with everyone in the plane? If it would go insane when we were thousands of feet from the ground...

You get it.

As soon as the plane landed in Luton, my nerves were frayed like a wire chewed on by a cat. I swiped Jacqueline's card everywhere, buying myself some clothes, food, and a room in an apartment in Churchway. A quick Google search later and I realized that the British Library wasn't far from here.

I smiled. Bingo! I'd spend all my time there and write the hell out of this fifth journal.

That, folks, was how I ended up sipping cups of warm coffee under a square table umbrella, typing madly into my laptop the contents of the fifth journal. I've spent a week getting myself halfway. A week more and I could probably finish the whole thing.

Nothing has sniffed me since coming to London. Odd. No one even gave me more than a sideways glance. Well, maybe except for the barista in the coffee shop in the Library that kept sneaking glimpses at my table every time I was here. I winked at him too many times now that he probably thinks I was twitchy from too much coffee or from something worse.

Every day, as I walked from the apartment to the Library, I didn't stop scanning the roads, the people, and even the garbage. After four months of running for my life, I had become quite acquainted with their nuances well enough and those were their usual hiding spots. Weirdly, I still didn't find any signs.

The sky was gray today. It's even grayer than yesterday and London has some of the grayest skies I've ever seen. A sigh tore off my lips. I hope it won't rain. The last time it did, I slipped and landed hard on my butt on the pavement on the way back to the apartment.

I shook my head, pinching the bridge of my nose. I blinked, trying to dispel the growing cloud of weariness in my eyes. Perhaps I should get tested for glasses but who was I kidding when I say that I have the time?