TW: Cursing, themes of death, fire, violence
Virgil's POV:
The scream that inturrupted our conversation draws the attention of all six of us. We hesitate for a moment before Roman steps past me and opens the door to the room.
Oh. I get why they were screaming now.
As we step into the room, we see that it the far left corner has been doused by fire. The heat of it makes me cringe, as I can only imagine how much warmth is radiating off of it for the kids who are actually close to it, further into the space.
It doesn't take me long to figure out that the culprit who started the blaze was Ezran.
They look guilty and scared, and it is their power. I'd assume the yelling and me kind of killing a man set off their powers.
I can see that both Roman and Remus immediately go into battle mode, running towards the flames to grab some kids around the ages of 5, because they probably think: 'Ooh, fire pretty!' and wanna touch it as their immediate reaction.
"Right, I guess we were planning on leaving anyway, we're just gonna have to be a bit quicker because the building is on fire." Logan says, looking to me.
"Hah, yeah.." I pause. "Seriously though, we should go, like right now-"
"CMON GUYS!" Patton shouts, making the kids all start to hesitantly walk towards the door, some running out of fear.
I count them as they filter through, the fire getting a lot bigger and starting to become more of a problem.
33, 34, 35, 36.
When they're all out I take a look back to Quinne's body on the floor and run over, feeling a little bad as I pry her teddy bear from her cold, dead hands.
She looks so peaceful. Her hair is slightly over her face and her lips are parted as if air would be passing through them if it weren't for the drying blood covering her torso. After pulling the bear away, her hand falls slightly and lands on the floor, lifefless as ever.
I bend down on one knee and pull her both of her hands to be lying on her chest, as if she were in a coffin rather than here.
"I'm sorry."
She doesn't respond.
Not that I expected her to.
"Virgil!"
I turn myself around to see Patton at the door, beckoning me over pretty hastily. Right, yeah.
Before I'm gonna leave, I see Ezran standing up against the wall, and I take one last look back and Quinne and run over to them.
"Hey, Ez- Come on, we need to go-"
They hesitate, looking back to the floor and shaking slightly.
The fire isn't waiting for us to leave. Infact, it's spreading quickly, so I grab their wrist and pull them away from the wall, starting to run and forcing them to do so to in order to not be pulled over and draggeed along the floor by the force I'm holding them at.
I get that they're scared, genuinely, I do. But I can calm them down when we aren't at risk of being burnt alive.
Priorities, you know?
When we get out the door of the room and into the corridor, I have a thought.
If I set off the fire alarm, it'll open the doors to the cells, yeah? And, even though they're already open, that'll log. Which would give the media and general government the impression that the lab somehow caught on fire, and oh so tragically, none of the staff survived.
Only us.
"Virge?" Patton calls to me while we're running, since we're behind most of the others, who are also probably sprinting to leave before we get crisped-up like when your dad would burn the chips in the oven and set the smoke alarm off.
I don't reply to Patton, since I want to save my breath both running and dragging this scared kid behind me, but he acknowleges that I've heard him and continues.
"Don't we- dont we kinda need to go back and help all the people who are passed out? Aren't they gonna die?"
I stop moving for a moment, and Ezran begins to catch their breath while I do so.
"Pat, I'm sorry but I can guarentee you that you are the only person here that gives a shit about those doctor's lives. Only you, Lo, Roman and Remus have not properly stayed at a lab full-time, so I get it might be harder to understand what they put us through,"
"But we don't care if they die. I think most of us would celebrate them all rotting in hell."
The perky boy looks down to the floor. "But, we can't just- leave them, can we?"
It almost pains me that he looks genuinely upset.
"Even if we wanted to, Pat, we can't. It would put all of these kids at danger if there were any people left alive that knew what we were doing and how the fire started. Now, we really need to carry on, yknow, running for out lives."
Patton looks back at the fire and Ezran nods fearfully. "..Okay, I guess."
And now we run.
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Logan's POV:
My right hand is holding the left hand of this one six-year-old girl who said she was too scared to run alone. I don't know where Virgil and Patton are, but they're responsible enough that I'm not worried. Patton's gotten us out of much more dangerous situations in the past.
Then I run past the door that we locked my dad in.
He's gonna die if I leave him.
But I want that, don't I?
If I'm being honest with myself, I don't even know.
"Hey, Lo, you coming?!" Roman yells from infront of me. "We kinda might die if you don't."
Right. I just. I feel weird.
I take a step forward but turn back around and sigh.
Right, then. No looking back, I guess.
As quickly as I can, I use the keycard that I've aquired to open the door, where I see my father leaning against the wall and looking angry.
Then, he sees me and his eyes go wide.
"LOGAN! What the fuck is going on?!"
I don't have time for this bullshit, so I grab his shirt collar and pull his face close to mine quickly.
"Do you value your life?" I ask calmly, looking into his eyes.
"What? Stop being ridiculous and let me past-"
"I asked you a question."
He slightly nudges past me and looks out the door of the small room, seeing the flames and red hot anger of the fire just down the corridor.
"Oh my fucking God."
"Do you value your life? Or do you want to die like you deserve?" I make sure not to let my voice falter, even though I'd have to admit I'm a little scared of the life-threatening fire at the end of the corridor.
"Yes. Yes, please Logan. I'm sorry."
That's all I need.
I roughly pull him out of the box-room and raise my voice. "I thought so. And so, if you value your life then you agree that you have no idea how this happened and it's a horrific tradgedy that this lab burned to the ground today?"
He nods fearfully, and I push him back, letting my grip on his collar go and running off to catch up with Roman, Leaving him standing alone in the doorframe of the room.
If I'm being honest with myself, I'll probably regret letting him live.
Roman watched that whole thing, and just stands staring at me for a second before raising an eyebrow and looking back down the corridor towards the exit. "Right then, let's go."
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Remus' POV:
"You good there, Jan?"
He exhales heavily and leans against one of the corridor walls, letting quite a few teenagers run past.
It's quite entertaining if I'm being honest, they're screaming things like: "Anarchy!" and "Fuck the patriarchy!" What they're saying doesn't even apply to this situation, but I can't deny that it's fun as hell to run down a corridor to freedom while screaming.
"Yeah, I'm fine- This is just- a lot."
"Care to elaborate?"
"It's like, if you told me about this four years ago I would've called you delusional. This time last year we were living with your brother, Logan and Pat, literally not allowed to leave the house - and the year before that we were living on the street able to do anything but go into a house. Then four years before that I was in a kinda similar situation to this, escaping a lab."
I lean against the wall next to him, in a different way that he is. J's back is against the wall, his knees bent slightly as he looks up to the ceiing. I've placed my right hand against the wall, so I'm leaning on it and looking down at the snake-boy.
"Baisically, time is weird and it's tripping me out. Everything can change so fast. What will we be doing this time next year? Will we even be alive?"
Looking back down the corridor, I see Logan and Roman just around the corner.
"You know I love you, but can we possibly contemplate existance after we get out of this burning building?"
He laughs under his breath and plants a foot against the wall, pushing himself off the iron-covered concrete.
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Virgil's POV:
While we're heading in the general direction of where the others went, I take the time to establish the timeline of events of what would have happened today if we want to cover it up in my head. For everything to work how I'm imagining the media would see it, somebody would have to have set off the fire alarm.
I get a feeling that somebody will be me.
I need to set it off before anyone gets to the doors that we'll leave through, because the excuse we're using for getting out of our rooms is that the fire alarm being pulled causes the doors to open, (which is true). It's kind of surprising how the doors to the rooms that we're locked in open when there's a fire considering that our safety is literally the very last thing that the doctors care about, but hey-ho.
Once I find the fire alarm an set it off, all we have to do is leave.
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Patton's POV:
"You guys run ahead, I'll catch up, I need to hit the fire alarm."
Virgil ushers Ezran and I along as he looks down a corridor and sees one of the red boxes on the walls.
I watch him run towards it, and notice that when he runs, his feet lift off the floor subconciously as his wings take most of his body weight.
Ezran runs ahead while I stand and watch V. I'm not worried about catching up with them.
He plants both his feet on the concrete floor and brings his right leg up, kicking the fire alarm pretty violently.
Immideately, it creates a very loud blaring beeping noise that makes Virgil push his hands over his ears as he runs back towards where I am.
When he gets further away, he slows down and peels his arms away from the side of his head.
The mechanical clanking of the big main doors opening inflicts a sense of urgency in us, and we run to catch up with the others.
"Fuck, this is loud." He states while panting.
I frown at his unnessecary use of bad language, but decide this isn't the best situation to reprimand him in.
The heat of the fire is catching up to us and it's a little scary, but we're quite far ahead despite being at the back of everyone. It doesn't take long for the two of us to catch up to the other four, who are standing waiting for us about 50 metres from the doors.
"Took you two long enough." Janus says, looking back to the door at the other kids that have just left or are leaving now, standing in the car park outside waiting for us.
"Yeah, yeah, okay." Virgil replies, running a hand through his mop of black and purple hair. "Let's get out of here already."
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Hey guys! Surpise! I'm not dead! I literally couldn't be more sorry that it's taken over a month for this chapter, I promise it's not gonna be a regular thing. I'm so greatful for all my readers.
I appriciate every single person who reads this for being so patient with me (I'm pretty sure I said that last chapter but you know,) and hope you all have a lovely day/night!
OOH! ALSO! In the 456784276673 years that I haven't updated, this book has hit 20k reads! I cried when I found out, because I remember getting excited and messaging my friends when it got to 500, and now it's got to 40 times that amount. Thank you guys so much <3
:)
Stay safe!