Chapter 28

Aria & Third Person

Aria

I stifled a yawn as I stood in front of the printer. A glance at the clock on the wall revealed that it was nearly five o’clock, which was a relief considering how poorly I’d slept last night. All I could think about was getting home and crawling into bed.

After spending the afternoon perfecting the flyers with Lily, they were finally ready to print. Each whoosh of the printer was a satisfying sound, and I hoped that the flyers would grab enough attention when posted around the city.

But I never expected the flyers to be such a fire-starter.

No, literally.

“Holy shit! The printer’s on fire!” I shrieked when, upon turning away from the clock, I saw smoke rising from the machine.

I sprinted out of the copying room and down the hall, searching for a fire extinguisher. The office devolved into chaos as the alarms went off, dark smoke pouring out into the corridor. Lily leapt up from her cubicle and bolted toward the fire exit. Melissa and Brandon exchanged glances before following in her footsteps. Arthur just stood there, eyes wide.

But by the time I found a fire extinguisher and made it back to the copying room, the fire was already out, thanks to Darren beating me to it. White foam covered the smoldering printer, the ceiling sprinklers soaking the carpet.

“Oh, thank God,” I breathed, dropping the fire extinguisher. “I don’t know what—”

Darren turned to me, his raven hair plastered to his forehead from the water. He wasn’t alone.

Sarah was behind him. Her lips were curling up into the tiniest hint of an evil little smirk.

“What the hell happened?” Darren asked, his voice echoing loudly in the room as the sprinklers turned off and the alarms stopped blaring.

“I don’t know,” I said. I strode over to the printer and peered at the mess, although it was difficult to figure out what had happened when it was half-charred. “I looked away for literally two seconds and it just started smoking.”

Darren huffed and walked over to me, gently ushering me out of the way. I watched, a little breathless, as he inspected the burnt printer. The others had gathered in the doorway by now and were watching curiously, while Sarah just stood there, tapping her foot.

Finally, with a tug, Darren managed to pull open one of the little maintenance hatches at the back of the printer, where it was the most blackened. It must have been where the fire started.

“What the…” He reached in, brow furrowed, and retrieved something. When he held up what he had found, I was astonished.

It was my hair scrunchie. Half burnt to ash, but the dark blue velvet material was unmistakable.

My eyes widened, and I instinctively reached for my hair, which had been in a neat ponytail earlier. “How…” I muttered, feeling the loose strands. I didn’t recall taking it out; maybe I’d been so sleepy that it had fallen out and I just hadn’t noticed.

“Did you put this in there?” Darren asked, holding up the scrunchie for all to see. “This is yours, right?”

“Yes, but I didn’t put it in there,” I said. “It must have fallen somehow.”

Darren narrowed his eyes. “It’s a sealed hatch. There’s no way it could have just ‘fallen’.”

“Are you accusing me of putting it in there on purpose, then?”

“I think I saw her do it,” Sarah suddenly said.

A soft gasp rippled through the others in response. I whirled toward my adoptive sister, my jaw slack. “Sarah, you can’t be serious.”

Sarah simply shrugged, checking her nails as if we were discussing the weather. “I saw you lurking around earlier, Aria. Right after Mr. Avarise told you to revise your little flyers, actually.”

The room fell so silent you could hear a pin drop. Darren lowered his hand, looking completely and utterly stunned. I didn’t know what to say, what to do, where to look.

All I could finally manage was, “How do I know you didn’t put it there to make me look bad, Sarah?”

My sister clasped her hand to her chest. “Aria!” she exclaimed, looking like a wounded doe. “How could you accuse me of such a thing?”

“You accused me awfully quickly,” I growled, placing my hands on my hips. “You know what they say. Point a finger at someone, and there are three more pointing back at yourself.”

Sarah scoffed, but before she could come up with a retort, Darren held up his hand to stop us. “That’s enough. Both of you.” He leveled each of us with a stern glare before turning to Arthur. “Arthur, pull up the CCTV footage. We’ll settle this right now.”

I folded my arms, feeling satisfied. Indeed, we would settle it.

But Sarah, for her part, didn’t look the slightest bit fazed. And it was no wonder—because when we all crowded around Arthur’s computer and looked at the footage, we quickly realized that none of the cameras actually faced the printer directly.

“Dammit,” Darren said, passing his hand over his face. It didn’t even matter who was seen walking in and out of the area that day, because we’d all used the printer at least once. Even Liam and Darren were both seen walking into the copying room during the day. It could have been any of us.

That was a relief, at least; now the blame couldn’t be placed solely on me.

Sarah, however, seemed to disagree. “Look,” she said, rewinding to the minutes just after lunchtime. “Aria went in there with her hair up and came out with it down.”

I felt my stomach twist into a knot as I saw the footage. She was right; I walked in, stayed in there for a few minutes, then came out and my hair was loose around my shoulders. That must have been when my ponytail fell out without me realizing.

“But that proves nothing,” I said a bit more squeakily than I would have liked. “Look, Sarah went in not long after me. For all we know, she found my scrunchie on the floor and decided to stuff it into the printer.”

My sister rolled her eyes. “Why would I do that, Aria?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I retorted, “maybe because you’re still pissed about what happened when you tried to rip my hair out of my skull? Or maybe you just hate me, just like you did when we were—”

“Enough!”

Darren’s shout was enough to make all of us, even Arthur, go rigid. I felt my lower lip begin to quiver, but I bit it to keep it still.

Darren sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense. Aria, it was your hair tie in the printer, and it was you who was there when the fire started. I’m sorry, but I have no choice but to—”

“It wasn’t her.”

We all turned at the sound of Lily’s soft voice. She stood off to the side, wringing her hands as her large eyes wheeled back and forth between me and Darren.

“How do you know for sure?” Sarah asked with a derisive snort. “You weren’t there.”

Lily shook her head, causing her pixie cut to bob a little. “Aria wouldn’t do that. She told me that she appreciated Mr. Avarise giving her constructive criticism, and we spent the entire day working together. She never gave any indication that she might have been disgruntled over it.”

I let out a tiny sigh of relief. Darren glanced at me and said, “Is that so?”

Lily nodded vehemently. “Mr. Avarise, Aria is incredibly eager to improve her skills. We had a lot of fun together working on the flyers today. Please, you have to believe me; she really wouldn’t do something like that.”

Darren looked down at the burnt scrunchie in his hands. I stared at him, silently imploring him to at least believe Lily if not me. Hell, I didn’t think it was even possible for me to use whatever telepathic abilities they all seemed to use with one another, but I gave it a shot anyway.

“Please.”

Darren flinched a little, and for a moment I wondered if he had heard my voice in his head. But if he did, then he gave no other indication.

“Let’s just assume it was a freak accident for now,” he said. “At least until I can investigate further. For the time being, Aria, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to dock your pay for the cost of the printer unless anyone can prove that someone else intentionally put it in there.”

“Fair enough,” I said. It was my scrunchie, after all, and if it was an accident on my part, then I was willing to take the blame.

Darren nodded. “Very well.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s past five. You can all pack up and go home.”

…

Third Person

As everyone dispersed, Sarah remained frozen, her jaw hanging open. “You’re just going to let her off the hook like that?” she squeaked, grabbing Darren and pulling him into the nearby office. “I know she did this! She’s… You know how vindictive she can be. Look!”

Sarah pulled up her sleeve to reveal a small circular scar on her wrist. “Look!” she repeated, shoving it in Darren’s face. “The cigarette burn that she left on me as kids!”

Darren stared at the scar with a sad look on his face. He’d seen it before, many times.

Little did he know that Sarah had left that scar there herself, when she’d been careless enough to put a cigarette out on her arm as a dare when she was a teenager. It had worked before when she used it to make Darren buy into her lie that Aria had been her childhood bully.

But to Sarah’s horror, Darren just shook his head and pocketed the burnt scrunchie. “I’m sorry, Sarah. But I can’t assume that an employee committed arson unless I have solid proof.”

Sarah felt hot tears of anger burn her eyes as she watched Darren walk away. Her gaze flicked to Aria, her form blurred through Sarah’s tears.

How far did Sarah really have to go to make the bitch leave this place before she revealed Sarah’s secret?