Charlie rapped her knuckles against the empty cage, littered with broken glass and left behind food of whichever animal had been locked up. Until Marshie and her had set it free that is. All of them actually, seeing as how the pet store was completely empty.

She'd received a note from Marshie asking to meet up with her at the Pet Store. Hang out like normal friends her age do. She had also mentioned bringing another Misfit along, which did make her a bit wary, but it just meant more friends!

Hopefully.

She huffed out a breath, deciding to leave and wait for her friend outside when her eyes caught something new. A door behind the registers, labeled 'For Employees Only'. 'Was that there before?' It must've been, it's not like anyone was around to add it; that was silly. They must have just missed it in the swamp of released pets.

And yet...Pushing the sense of ease aside, Charlie tugged it open easily, surprised it wasn't locked like the one upstairs. She went in, flicking on a light, and let the door close behind her.

It was sparse, probably having been ransacked for supplies already. By people with no need for pets, apparently. The room had one window, a rectangular one set near the ceiling, and no other doors. A few bare bookshelves were still upright while others were knocked over.

A singular wooden table was up against the opposite wall, flanked by poles with hooks. Glass bottles were haphazardly set up along the table's edge, most empty. Picking one up, Charlie peered inside. From what she could tell, it was either a special medicine for the dying snake they'd let loose or plain Coke.

'This was probably the techroom for the animals.' Usually only veterinarians had techrooms, but she supposed it wasn't too out of the ordinary for pet stores to have them. But it still nagged a bad feeling at the back of her mind, her spine locking up.

Overcome with the sudden discomfort of being there, she turned to leave and actually wait outside the store. Facing the door, a tense smell hit her nose. A pleasing but fear-inducing smell.

Smoke. Fire?

Heart racing, Charlie raced to the door and threw it open without a much needed second thought. The entire front room was absorbed in fiery yellow and orange flames, crawling up the walls and dancing across the ceiling. Burnt pieces of wood covered in embers were everywhere on the floor, effectively trapping her where she stood.

As soon as the door was open, a fierce wave of heat knocked into her while what air was in the tech room was released into the fire. The inferno roared and grew higher, right towards her.

Charlie hesitated, eyes wide, and frozen in place. Run! Run! She vaguely felt her legs move and she stumbled back into the tech room. Almost on autopilot, she grasped for the tech door handle and tried to slam it closed.

Tried. She pulled and yanked, but it wouldn't budge. Probably caught on a wire, but she didn't have time to search for it. The fire was hopping along the door frame, sparks skipping right onto the tips of her shoes.

She squeaked, jumping away and backed up. The fire followed, daunting like a mob moss ganging up on her in an alleyway. Something she would prefer dealing with at the moment. She kept walking back, eyes never leaving the impending doom swallowing the doorway whole and bursting into the tech room.

She hit the wall, the sudden force jolting her out of her stammer. Her eyes darted around the room, but everywhere she looked there was more fire. It fixated itself into the cracks under the walls and let out wisps of smoke that quickly billowed into clouds big enough to rival small tornadoes.

Black smoke rose up and enveloped her in its asphyxiating hold, chasing her as she slid down the wall. Charlie pulled the front of her shirt up over her mouth and nose, coughing heavily. The heat worsened but it made it harder for the smoke to get in.

A flame jumped out at her and she swallowed down a scream. It landed on her shirt and immediately burned through the fabric, hitting her skin with a searing touch. She batted at the tiny flame, too panicked to process any pain from it.

'Okay so no more of that.' As if sensing her decision, the smoke flew in to aid the fire, snuffing it out directly around her and taking advantage of her tantalizing shock. She violently coughed on the smoke, her chest already starting to wear down on her.

Her heart would be pounding with anxiety if it wasn't dying from the firestorm insulation.

'Find a way out. But where?! The door is not an option.' Gritting her teeth, she opened her eyes and flinched from the sting of the heat. It was like she was staring directly at the sun from the Earth's farthest atmosphere.

The window. It was high up, way over her head, but it was open. She could move the table underneath it and try to climb out. Even if she can't get all the way through, it would still give some temporary relief. Maybe yell for help. Yell for Marshie, wherever she was.

Charlie blindly reached around her, smacking the pole stuck in the ground. She gripped it and hauled herself up, her aching legs shaking with every movement. Moving her hands up the pole, she got to her feet and took a step towards the window.

With a painful jolt, her knees buckled underneath her and she collapsed back down to the floor. Her legs banged harshly into the ground and she groaned, shoving herself back to the wall and hanging onto the pole. She couldn't walk, there was no easier way out, and Marshie hadn't shown up. Where was she? Was she in the fire somewhere?

The suffering nurse gripped the pole tighter. No, Marshie was with a friend. So she was hopefully, ideally safe. Charlie wasn't.

"CHARLIE!"

She lost her grip on the pole and slumped against the wall. "DOC-" A huge wave of smoke took advantage of her open mouth, her chest throbing with pain with every violent cough.

"Don't talk!" A door thumped somewhere across the room. "Just bang on something to tell me where you are."

With what strength? Charlie looked around her, blinking through tears to see through the smoke and protruding fire. She could see up on the table from earlier, the glass bottles. Summoning what will she had left in her, she grabbed hold of the table leg and shook it as hard as she could.

Nothing. It barely moved. "CHARLIE!" She could still hear the Doc, somewhere in the fuggy blaze. 'He sounds angry.' She glanced up and saw the top of the pole she had been using earlier. It wasn't connected to the ceiling.

She leaned all her weight against the now burning metal, hissing at the searing pain it burned into her shoulder. With a shaky grunt, she heaved it over and it fell against the table. It shook slightly, but just enough for the bottles teetering on the edge to fall off. They exploded before they even reached the floor, dangerously expanding as soon as it touched the embers scattered about.

Charlie screeched and coughed. There was the sound of what she akined to a raccoon scrambling across a garage floor. She pressed herself further against the wall as something ran at her through the hell created around her.

Doc knelt next to her and pushed her head forwards with a surprising amount of courtesy. "Keep your head down if you're not gonna use your shirt to filter the smoke," he barked, keeping a gloved hand shielding her face. Charlie remembered he said he used to be a nurse and inwardly sighed with relief.

She coughed into her hand. "I was but the fire-"

"Stop talking! Your lungs are probably filling with smoke. Can you stand?"

The bruises adorning her knees from her previous attempts attested to a hard no. She shook her head best she could without breathing in more air. "I can't wa-" Fire burned in her lungs, threatening to melt her from the inside out. She'd never felt this much physical agony in her life.

"I said stop talking," Doc growled. There was a pause and Charlie felt something touch the top of her head. Before she could question it, a heavy mask slid over her face. The black smoke cleared out from her face, giving her room to suck in a deep breath of somewhat regulated air.

She tentatively reached up and touched a material she didn't really recognize covering her face, along with a long, elephant-like nose. "What?"

"Keep it on," Doc ordered with a horrifyingly gravelly voice. The excess smoke was already getting to him. "It's not really a gas mask but it'll work. Now get up already!"

He gripped her arms and yanked her to her feet, but didn't let her fall. She hunched over but was able to stumble forward. Through the thinly-veiled eye holes, she could see the dark figure of her co-worker leading her blindly amongst the raging fire crashing everything down around them. How the roof hadn't caved in yet, she had no clue.

Darkness waned at the corners of her vision and she wanted nothing more than to desperately sleep. But she trudged on, clutching Doc's arm for support as they navigated the simple maze that was the murky pet store with overwhelming heat beating down on every inch of her sore body.

Finally, it let up and she could feel a relieving fresh breeze on her hands. Pavement stretched out before her under her shoes and she dropped to her knees. She batted the flames on her coat sleeves, sadly sighing at the holes burned into it.

The mask was slipped off her and sunlight hit her too-open eyes. She blinked furiously, trying to rub the remaining smoke out of them. When her vision cleared, she looked up to see Doc standing in the road, staring down at her with his mask back on.

"What the hell was that?!" And he was back to angry.

"How'd you know where I was?" she asked, answering his question with her own.

He sighed with exasperation but answered regardless. "Some friend of yours, those misfits, came by looking for you. Woke me up." Charlie opened her mouth to apologize, but he kept going. "She had some note she said came from you to meet her somewhere but you didn't show up. She was also injured so I had to deal with that."

"Is she okay?"

"She's fine, but anyway. Found the other note on your desk so I came looking for you."

Charlie blinked at him, stunned. "You...came looking for me?"

"I told you, you're the only competent person in Safehaven. Can't have you dying on me. Plus," he turned away from her, most likely glaring down the street, "judging from the notes, someone might be trying to target either both groups or just you guys."

Charlie bit her lip. She was glad the two misfits were safe, but everything else made no sense to her. Maybe their group had angered the wrong people, but why include her into it? And who had they angered enough to make them resort to murder? That is, if killing her in the fire even was the goal of this.

"Come on, we should get out of here." He waited until she staggered to her feet and took a few steps forward. "At least you can still walk."

"Y-yeah." She swallowed, the sudden realization that she'd almost died furling in her stomach. With the burning pet store behind them, Charlie followed the Doc back towards Safehaven, wondering what she could've done to warrant someone setting a trap for her.

And worse, what would've happened if Doc hadn't shown up in time. Or at all.