Broken Innocence

Ch. XV

It didn’t take long for the smoke alarm to start going off and the loud sirens buzzed. 

My heart raced fast and I looked at her. “Here!” I ordered and shoved the file into her hands. “Take it and go. Be sure to give it to Michael.” 

Sabrina’s eyes widened. “What?? Come on!” 

I looked over and the flames were growing bigger. The papers around the can was feeding it, making it bigger and bigger. I looked at Sabrina. “Go-” The fire alarms slightly drawing out my voice. “Now!” I took the air vent and closed it over the vent and I hopped down. tried to find a fire extinguisher, but I couldn’t. I coughed at the thick smoke, grabbing papers and trying to move them away from the can, feeling the heat starting to build up in the large room as papers started to burn all around. I tried to move quickly, but the fire was too fast.  I continued to cough, feeling the flames burning at me and I tried to move back, but the fire was now all around me. 

I could feel the room starting to get hotter and hotter, like an oven on full blast. My heart raced, feeling the sweat trickling down my face and my hair clinging to my neck. “Someone help!” I called out, trying to avoid getting burned, but I could feel the flames licking at my hands. 

With the loud sirens and the thick air taking effect, everything was just starting to turn into  nothing but a blur-even the sounds of someone kicking the door open. 

Soon I heard nothing.

Soon I saw nothing...

‘Beep! Beep! Beep!’

The beeping was so loud as I came around, slowly opening my eyes from the darkness. Everything was a slight blur but it did not stop the bright lights from burning my eyes. Wincing, I slowly moved to look around as my vision started to clear up. I saw I was in a hospital room and could hear the heart monitor just beeping away.  I moved to lift my hands up, wincing a little and looked, seeing my left hand was wrapped up. I narrowed my eyes, moving to look around some more, feeling something on the  left side of my face and reached to touch it, feeling it was wrapped up. 

“You’re finally awake.” I looked over, seeing Miss. Pierce. 

In that moment looking at her as she just stared at me with no emotion, I felt the need to throw up. Then my mind went to Sabrina. Did she make it out all right?

I watched as Miss. Pierce moved to sit in the chair next to my bed, and I refused to say a word the entire time. The woman fixed her gray skirt and she moved to cross a long leg over the other and she saw back and eyed me. “Thanks to you, nearly every bit of the files has been destroyed...would you like to explain why you set the file room on fire?”

I eyed her, not saying a word for a moment. If she was asking me this, it meant Sabrina made it out fine and didn’t get caught with the file. 

I licked my dry lips, and looked at the cup of water next to the table. I went to reach for it, only to have Miss. Pierce grab it and held it back. “Answer my question.”

I wanted to smack her, but I felt so weak. I started to speak, but my voice cracked. I cleared my throat, licking my lips again before trying to speak. “It was an accident.” I told her. “I was trying to get my file...” I lied, and watched her face. 

“Why?” Her tone was stern. “Are you trying to get thrown back into that padded room?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

I didn’t know what to say. I just eyed her, and I could see her cheeks were hot with anger. “I wanted to destroy it. I was trying to burn just mine, but...the flames went out of control.”  I saw her anger building. “I didn’t mean to burn the entire place down.” I insisted.