Claire Hatchett watched as her beautiful Victorian home went up in flames. Huge tendrils of bright orange fire reached for the sky, leaving black smoke trailing behind them, and a scattering of ashes on the cool, wet grass, creating small puffs of smoke as they landed. A small peice of siding fell of the house, consumed in flames, and landed on the ground near her feet, and she took a slow step back, still staring at the house.
From beyond the thick walls, she could hear her parents screaming for her to do something, anything. To save them. But that was not what she was here for, this innocent bystander. She was here because she wanted to see their pain, and she wanted to end it all before it got to be worse. She visualized them clawing at the locked bedroom door and smiled.
Thoughtfully, she twirled the gas can in her left hand and began walking away from the house, turning her back on the brightness of the flames and feeling it warm her back. She briefly considered the fact that she locked the door, and it was her fault that they were going to die.
My fault? No. That's not right. They lied to me, betrayed me. And this is all their fault, everything is their fault.
Claire placed a cold hand on her forehead; She was already beginning to get a little woozy from the heat of the flames, and the whole idea of what her parents had done to her. The hand stayed there as she summoned up the tears that would lead her out of accusation. No one could know what she had done here.
If someone finds out what I've done here, I could be put in jail. No one else understands me, knows that what I do, I do for the sake of love. I did this to Mom and Dad because I loved them.
If I had any real emotion, or maybe a concscience, maybe I would really cry. These tears may be fake, but they will be more helpful than anything any high priced lawyer could come up with.
A sigh escaped her through her full lips as she rememberd what had started this this whole ordeal.
She had never known her real parents. They had left her at birth, and given her to the care of the Hatchett's, who were, for the most part, good parents. All of her life, they had told her she was the most important thing, that they could never need more, that she was special, that she was loved. A week ago, they informed her they were going to adopt another child. Another little girl. This time is would be one with curly golden blond hair and pretty blue eyes. A girl that would always listen and always said please, and never threw tantrums. The new girl would be better than Claire, and her parents knew it.
If I was so important to them and they loved me so much, why were they getting a new child? Obviously they thought I wasn't good enough for them. That's why they were going to adopt that little twit too. In the distance, a siren began to wail as it neared the house, searching for the origin of smoke, and the small Tulsa neighborhood suddenly became a flurry of noise and concern.
Well, I showed them.
The adoption agency was coming by with the new child later on today. Claire smiled when she thought of the little girl crying because she had no family to go to now.
She deserves to cry.
She threw the gas can in through the open kitchen window, right through her mother's blue and white checkered curtains and the fire roared in response, and the fire grew much bigger. Her parents had since stopped screaming for her.
The smoke must have gotten in through the bedroom vent.
A large red fire truck pulled into the long, curved driveway, and without hesitation, Claire ran to the truck, feigned tears running down her cheeks. She was immeadiatly given a blanket and asked about a million questions about her health. She wiped back her tears and answered the questions.
The smoke from the house changed hues, from a dark almost evil looking black, to a threatening gray, then to a harmless almost translucent white, and the time passed very slowly, and achingly.
"Miss? I'm sorry, but your parents didn't make it." a female fireman said to her in a sad, but comforting voice as she wrapped Claire up in a hug.
On the outside, she appeared to be a poor little girl who's parents had just died, weeping uncontrollably into the shoulder of some woman she didn't even know. On the inside, she was overwhelmed with relief, and in a great state of contentment.
They were mine, my parents. I wasn't about to share them with some other girl. If I can't have them to myself, no one will have them at all.
