Page 92 of Break Me Not

“What? Why do you look so serious?”

I sat up straight and locked my hands together to stop myself from anxiously picking at them. A burning smell reached my nose, so I tried to see if anyone was smoking, but no one was.

Maybe it’s just my mind playing tricks on me so I don’t tell her the truth.

“I wanted to talk to you about something,” I said and took a deep breath.

Claire looked around as if something was going to pop out at her and then looked closer at me.

“Are you moving or something? Or sick? Oh God, are you sick, Mom?” She then narrowed her eyes further and must have seen something on my face that told her it wasn’t life-threatening. “You're not pregnant, are you? Can someone your age even get pregnant?”

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I ignored it, and after a few seconds, it turned off.

“Okay. First off, ouch,” I said, giving her a glare. The smile on her face told me she was just kidding. “I'm not that old.”

“No, you’re not,” she said, and grabbed my hands. “So what is it? Why are you so nervous?”

My phone started ringing incessantly in my pocket. No one ever really needed me so urgently to call me this many times, not even Stefan.

I gave Claire an apologetic look and quickly grabbed my phone, noticing Jen’s name on the screen.

“Jen, what’s⁠—”

“There’s a fire! Liz, hurry!”

Claire must've overheard it because she shot me a look.

The universe slowed around me. The pumping of my heart drowned out all the noise in my ears. My breath was having trouble escaping my lungs. Alarm belts were going off in my head, my body seeming to be coming to terms with something my mind could not.

“A fire? Where?”

No. Not possible. Claire’s hands were on me, pulling me up.

“The gallery! Liz… it's all going up in flames!”

I'd never run as fast as I did from the park to my gallery. The closer we got, the darker and more ominous it looked, with smoke covering the entire area.

Oh my God. It’s all going to be gone.

When we finally got to the front, I saw Jen and a crowd outside. The firefighters were just pulling up. I tried to head for the door, but Claire held me back. She wasn’t the only one—my security team also stopped us from going further.

“Mom!”

“Liz!”

Jen was running up to me, her face panicked and her hair a mess.

“I'm so sorry. I went outside for a quick call. You know I don't get any reception in there. And I just wanted to make sure that the buyer was right and then… I don’t know what happened. I turned around and it was on fire!”

I pulled her closer, wrapping my arms around her.

“Thank God you’re okay. No one else was in there, right? Milo wasn't working today, right?”

She shook her head. My heart was pounding in my chest as fear took over my entire being.

“But the royal collection—it’s inside!”

I tried to focus on what I could see and feel and smell, but all of it just made me more panicked. Because all of it was on fire. The only thing that remained the same was my feet on the ground, but that ground felt like it was going to collapse under me at any moment.