The Amplified : Fire Blight (Book 1)

Chapter Twenty Four - And He Burned With It

I opened my eyes to calamity. Rubble had crashed down around me, parts of the floor were missing, letting the smoke rise from beneath. Cracks rippled up the side of the walls like a river of destruction. Behind the high-pitched ringing in my ears, the sounds of crackling electrical wires displaced the sound of the collapsing building around me. With everything around me, I could barely hear the sound of coughing coming from underneath the collapsed roofing. Picking myself off the ground was worse than I could have ever imagined, my muscles cried out as I forced myself off the shambled floor. Worse of all, across my leg, there was a giant gash that spewed blood sporadically. With everything going on, it was the least of my problems. My hand flew to my ear to try and tap the earpiece, but the ringing only got louder as I tapped my empty ear. I could barely get a grip on the floor, but I managed, I limped my way over to where the coughing was to find the Gemini girl, Margot. Her body was entombed under the weight of the collapsed ceiling. The thought of her being someone who was trying to kill me minutes ago left my brain as I automatically started to lift the concrete off her piece by piece until she could crawl her way out.

"Why?" She asked through her coughing, rolling onto her back with a yelp.

"Why, what?" I pressed my hands against my knees.

"Why save me?" She sat up slowly. "I'm going to have to kill you. You realize that, right?"

"I don't really know why I saved you. I just did." I said as I tried to regain balance with a piece of concrete that wobbled against my weight. "If you want to kill me though, go ahead. But, I need to find Juan and Justin under all this."

She watched me as I started to rummage through the rubble either for of the boys, "They said you were a psycho murderer. Some arsonist maniac with a thirst for blood. This whole thing you are doing doesn't match up to that."

"That's more of my second personalities thing."

"What?"

"Yeah, I apparently have split personalities," I said as chucked a chunk of concrete. "Wow, I just realized you are the first person I told this to, and I don't know anything about you besides you have to kill me."

"So, the psycho part was right." She said finally getting off the floor and walking over to me. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I don't really have much to lose in telling you this, do I. You aren't going to make me see a shrink to help. Hell, you might not even believe me. At worst, you're just going to judge me really hard or kill me or both."

"That... actually makes sense." Her hands were silver fists this reflected the orange light of the carnage and fire around us.

"Are you going to kill me?" I asked fearlessly.

"Debating it. I saw that pile over there shuffle." She pointed out. We stumbled over to it and started to move the pieces of the ceiling and beneath it all was Juan. He had a fresh cut that rode across the bridge of his nose that bleed over his face. Margot and I, immediately, started to pull him out of the chaos and check for his breathing. Thankfully, he was still breathing and barely conscious. From the corner of my eye, I spotted Justin slumped against a toppled desk.

"They both need to be taken out of here. If you want to kill me, make the choice now but I need to get him to my sister." I said to the girl. She looked at me, searching for reasons not to end me on the spot.

"Get him out of here. If I ever see you again, I will kill you without hesitation." She said as she turned her back to me and fumbled her way to Justin.

"Thank you," I said to her as I grabbed Juan's arm and slung it over my neck, dragging him out of the building through a shattered window.

The carnage had extended to the open fields around the lab. Around us, the field was littered with divots. Where a hill used to be a giant sinkhole now existed. All the buildings were in flames, from the lab to the security build, the tower that held Colts' office slowly toppled to the side and crash into the ground with a heart-clenching crunch. Lugging Juan's body through the wreckage was tiring with the little energy I had but I still carried him through.