#Bonus AmberPriceRich

[rainboq]

Arcadia is Burning

Summary:

With her life in cinders following her parents' bitter divorce, Rachel finds herself torn away from the sun and surf of Long Beach and dragged into the rainy forests of Oregon; dumped by her dad in a little town called Arcadia Bay in the ass end of nowhere to attend a boarding school named Blackwell Academy. Confused and hurt by her sudden exile, Rachel turns to The Vortex Club, run by the cream of the school, and theatre to keep herself busy. Embedding herself with the eldest son of town's preeminent family, Nathan Prescott, in the process. At least one girl, a local firebrand struggling with the sudden death of her father, Chloe Price, seems to promise a reprieve from the constant boredom as she drinks her way from party to party, skipping class and getting in fights. She just needs to find a way to get her to notice her. But not all in Arcadia Bay is as it seems. A trusted friend today could be your worst nightmare tomorrow, memories are long, and there's not much of anything but forest and the ocean for miles in every direction. There's nowhere to run from her problems, precious little to distract her, and trying to keep them under control will only cause them to build and build... Until they consume her.

Preview:

Embers flicker in the air around her.

Tiny pinpricks of winking incandescence floating in place.

Her hands reach out but the lights dance away from her touch.

Will o’ the wisps slipping between her fingers and flowing around her arms.

She reaches for purchase.

To grasp and hold.

Rachel falls.

Tumbling into an ocean of lights below.

Warm and cold, young and old, blue and gold.

She falls into the space between their indifferent glow.

The lights show her no truth.

They give her no empathy.

They exist in their multitudes but none react to her.

Tumbling through their spaces, she reaches out for them again. 

Desperately trying to touch their glow and feel their warmth.

A blue light shimmers as she draws near, dancing agonizingly close to her touch.

She flails forward, trying to touch it, her fingers managing the barest graze.

Warmth fills her as she holds it tight.

An agonizing, burning hotness as they float away again and she falls below the cluster.

With nothing but the fire in her veins and the blue glow in her hands.

The air turns to flame as they tumble.

Art by the ever delightful @patchodraws!