Writing Prompt | Write a short story set in a library on a snow day.
The beginning of Snowmaggedon.
BEFORE YOUR READ: These writing prompts come from a writing coach I follow: The Plottery. I try to use characters I already have to help develop them a bit more, get to know them, and see what they would do in different situations. Mostly, they are not the Main Characters in my current work in progress. I treat each of these as If the chapter was plucked out of their book, though… Ashlynn is a character from a future-planned and plotted duet. Highland University is a fictional University that shows up, is mentioned, or things take place throughout all my books.
POV: Ashlynn Scott from ‘The Bloodwar Series’ (A future project)
It’s been exceptionally quiet here since they canceled the afternoon classes because of the impending snowstorm. It’s a welcome quiet after the chaos of the last few weeks, a quiet that I can use this time to hide in my favorite corner of the library next to the old fireplace. It’s not as big as the one on the main floor of Highland University, but just as cozy.
I place the black folder that I have been avoiding on the table in front of me and pull out my laptop. It is time to dig a little deeper into who I really am.
The woman at City Hall confirmed that this was a real birth certificate even with the redacted information, only faltering when she discovered it was missing from the digital files. It’s looking like someone worked really hard to wipe all traces of the real me from existence. Who? My real parents? My adoptive parents? She is doing some research on her side through the old files but in the meantime, I’ll continue to dig on my own.
I already tried to back-light the redacted documents. It was mostly a failure but not completely. I know I was born here in Chicago at a hospital that has since closed. I’ve been trying to find a connection with the medical company that purchased them before they closed it with very little luck. Now, it’s time to dive into all this legal paperwork.
I’m about halfway through the pile of papers in front of me. Sticky notes and annotations marking all the places that I have questions to look up when the overhead lights flicker out leaving only the small desk lights. No one has come to put the fire out so I know someone is here but I still take this as a sign to take a break. Standing I stretch my neck and take a peek around to make sure I’m not completely alone.
I see an undergrad with their books splayed across the front counter and a few kids scattered around, I also notice that the sky outside is darker than it should be and snow blankets Millenium Park. It’s beautiful.
I don’t get very far in my reading after I settle back in before I feel what is becoming a familiar tingle. The awareness that someone else's eyes are on me.
Callum is here. I should have expected it, he’s been lingering in the background since I arrived back in Chicago. He’s dangerously attractive and I know it’s him leaving me the random gifts in my office. I’m not sure I want to let him know I know though.
“You should have left hours ago.” His voice fills the surrounding space. “They just closed Lake Shore Drive.” Crap. I should have left. I forgot how much it can snow here.
“I thought I had more time.” He rounds the table to place himself in front of me. He surveys the table and picks up a paper.
“What are you looking for? Or rather, who?” He sits down reading further. His jaw tightens as he reads further.
“Just some family things that I found when I was going through my parents' things.” I watch him as he reads, flipping through the stack he picked up.
“How do you know the Capperelli Family? I thought you were Irish?” He asks me with genuine interest but I there is something else in his eyes that tells me that interest might go deeper.
“I don’t know anyone by the last name Capperelli. Where did you get that from?”
“Ashlynn,” is leans in over the table looking at me with a little more intensity. “Their name doesn’t need to be, the family crest that you marked here is theirs. Do you know who they are?”
“No, I am unfamiliar with that name. How did you know that is their family crest?” I had searched the internet a bit for that family crest. It’s unique, a golden crown adorned with colorful gems sits atop a key that grows from a Byzantine Cross wrapped in what looks to be grapevines. The words ‘sangue del sangue delle montagne’ or ‘Blood of Blood of the Mountains’.
“I can’t tell you that with ears around us.” He taps his finger on the table, never taking his eyes off me. “Pack your things, I’m taking you home.”
“Um, I’m not going anywhere with you and I can get myself home, I drove in today.” I don’t trust us alone, I can’t go to his house, we work together - if those rumors are true he is my boss, and my attraction to him is something I will deny as long as were work in the same building.
“If you want answers you're coming with me, to my home. There is no way you’ll make it to yours in this weather anyway.”
“And what makes you so sure we will make it to yours?” He might be right about the fact that the weather is more of a problem than predicted but I’ll spend the extra time in a car to get to mine just to keep some distance.
“Because my driver is already here and I live six blocks up Michigan Avenue. If he can’t get me home my building is connected to the pedway.”
“The pedway doesn’t go that far North,” It stops just a few blocks from here and then the river disrupts it. He doesn’t answer, instead, he rounds the table getting so close to me I can see where snowflakes melted to leave small spots on the collar of his black dress shirt.
“Tell me about the Coat of Arms then. There’s no one here then I can deal with getting myself home.”
“Ashlynn, I’m not asking. Pack your things or they get left here. These walls have ears, you need to come with me.” He snaps his fingers and a man in a dark grey wool coat and hat with Peaky Blinders vibes walks from the stacks.
“Yes sir?” The man asks in a practiced way.
“Acquire Miss Scott’s things from her office and meet us at the car.” The man nods and hurries away as I start to pack my things. I can do this. He has information that the internet doesn’t. I just need to make sure that my curiosity stays on task - the search for the real me. Not on the six-foot-something man who has been haunting my days and nights.
“Happy?” I snap at him once I have my things packed.
“Happy and I aren’t familiar with each other. Let’s go.” When his hand lands on my lower back to guide me toward the doors, I know I’m in for a long night with Callum Donovan.
POV - Callum:
Well, between the weather and the spitfire sitting next to me in the back of my car, this evening's planned meeting isn’t happening, and for once, I couldn’t care less.
When I texted Teresa and the rest of the team that our meeting would have to wait, and they all agreed. I left out that I might have the one thing that we have been searching for or the someone. I wasn’t planning on snooping through papers from the table, but one glance at the stack and the Capperelli Family Coat of Arms screamed at me to pay attention.
I got angry when I saw it; I thought she was grading papers and someone broke a cardinal rule, using identifying symbols for the families openly. When I read a little of what it was, I was stunned myself. I know she has been looking into her dead parents, I never asked about it. I should have. If she is who I think she is based on the things that I saw this afternoon, She is in danger. I need to protect her. Teresa needs to protect her.
Of course, it has to be the first woman to catch my attention since Saoirse disappeared.
“So, you’re kidnapping me to sit in silence in traffic?” She has some bite to her. It’s a defense mechanism, I know but I still want to punish her for it like she’s a brat.
“We’re almost there,” I answered her, even with Lakeshore Drive closed, we moved somewhat smoothly down Michigan Avenue. Good, I didn’t want to have to show her the secret tunnels that we have left from the long-forgotten pedway extension. I don’t want to compromise the most valuable tool that we have in getting girls off the street. Teresa would murder me, no question.
She nervously played with the strap on the laptop bag sitting on her lap. It’s a small tick but very noticeable. I take her gloved hand in mind, lacing fingers to hold them between us. I feel her tense beside me.
“You’re nervous. There’s no need to be. No one will hurt you.” Her eyes go wide and she finally turns to look at me.
“My mind never even considered that. Now it is. Is your Peaky Blinders guy going to rough me up?”
“What? Liam? Liam is going to let us out of the car, hand your bag to me, go park it, and go home. He is my driver. However, you should always consider the danger to people. He can kill a man in more ways than you can imagine and hide the body without a trace.”
Pulling her hand back she stares, wide-eyed at me. “I- What?”
“A skill he has under wrap unless I deem it necessary. If he unleashed around you, It would be to protect you, princess.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m not a princess.” I smirk, because if she is who I think she is - she is indeed a princess. Just not the kind with castles and balls. The kind that comes with bloodshed and honor.
The car pulls up to my building, and the doorman meets us at the car with an umbrella. Liam hands me the bag he grabbed from Ashlynn’s office, and we head through the lobby and the entire elevator ride to my floor without a peep from her.
I can feel the anger simmering from her. I also know that there is a lot of curiosity within her winning over that anger or she would have left me on the street, even in a blizzard.
We walk the short distance from the elevator to my door before she acknowledges anything. “You’re one to call me princess when you seem to be the prince up here in the urban version of a gothic castle in the sky.”
“Art Déco. The building is in an Art Déco style, my penthouse is more suited for my own comforts so that I can watch over my city from my throne because I am more of a King.”
The door opens and I lead us to the Kitchen, “A Drink?” I ask. She drops her things on the floor with a thump.
“No, Callum. I want answers, and your cryptic shit will not do. So Spill.” I pour two glasses of the whiskey my family makes in Ireland and slide on toward her. She crosses her arms and ignores it.
“Get comfortable. There could be a lot for you or not much depending on how this conversation goes.” All she does is remove her jacket. “OK, well. That Coat of arms belongs to the Capperlli Family - Don Dario leads that Family from his castle in the sky not that far from here. After reading just one paper from your mess - I think you’re his oldest Daughter who has been presumed dead since she was six months old. Right about the time those adoption papers were forged.”
Nothing. She stands there in complete silence. I should have eased her into that but her little ‘I’m in charge’ attitude had to be squashed. She drops her coat with her bag to sit on the stool across from me and downs the whiskey I poured for her.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“You see, you could, in fact, be a princess. Princess times two actually because if you are here, your mother was the oldest daughter to one of the rival families on the south side.”
“What the hell does that all mean? And how do you know?”
“How I know is a long story that we will get to soon. Who I am is more important. My father is the leader of the Irish Mob. If you are here, your mother’s nephew murdered my brother last year. The same date that your apparent adoptive parents also died.”
Ashlynn stays silent, I take the time to read her as best as I can. She is good at masking those feelings from me. Maybe that is why I can’t get her out of my head. I can read everyone. No matter what, I know two things, bringing her here might have been a bad idea, and that fate brought us together for a reason I need to know sooner rather than later.