"You get Katherine out of here. I'll send up the signal."
I climbed up to the roof of the building, feeling kind of like a superhero, with the cape part of my top fluttering in the wind. I held onto what I figured was a broken antenna and lit up the signal flare, holding my arm out to make sure it could be seen. Then, once I saw the signal from Officer Reynolds's car, I dropped the flare down.
I turned around to get back inside the building when Desdemona confronted me.
"You interfering little commoner!" Desdemona said. "You should've just let your little grudge against Connor stay buried with your precious fairy godmother."
"I don't have a grudge against him anymore," I said. "This is honestly gonna shock you, but I actually forgive Connor. I want to give him the cure."
"There is no way you are going to take my Connor away from me! You already got Katherine. I'm more than happy to wash my hands of her. But I am going to keep Connor! I cannot lose him the way I lost..."
"So you lost someone, too? Someone you loved? Been there. Done that. And you know what I learned? You're allowed to miss the ones you love. But life goes on and you have to move forward."
"I can never let him go. And I won?t take your stupid cure, either!"
I sighed as I made my way to the door that led to the stairway. "Then I'll leave you. But if you attack me, you will meet your end."
I shut the door behind me and locked it, but Desdemona was relentless. I ran down the stairs as fast as I could and almost giggled when I thought about how much easier this could be with Gabby?s little super-speed power.
Finally, I made my way towards a floor that had elevators and found Andy there.
"I was able to sneak Katherine out. But what about Connor and Desdemona?"
"Desdemona kinda found me when I sent the signal. I haven?t found Connor, though."
"That's cuz I'm right here!"
The two of us turned around. Connor stood in the hallway with his shackles still around his wrists.
Andy poured the contents of the bottle onto his handkerchief and then stuffed it back into the bottle. As soon as he lit up the handkerchief, I knew what was coming.
He threw the bottle towards Connor, but Desdemona went in front of him, taking the blast. She was set on fire in an instant, screaming in pain. The fire alarms started going off, but even with the sprinklers going off, the fire was still spreading. I had a feeling that the sprinklers were probably installed long ago in order to comply with keeping all the building codes intact, but they didn?t use the sprinkler system in a very long time.
Connor sunk to his knees as Desdemona reached out to him.
"You need to come with us, Connor," I said.
He glared at me. "No. I can't go back. I already made my choice a long time ago."
He took Desdemona's hand. She pulled him in, sobbing tearlessly and holding him like a child as the fire consumed the two of them and spread towards the walls.
"We gotta get out of here," I said.
"You don't have to tell me twice!" Andy said.