The Weight of Innocence

d hit m

a blanket. The kind that seeps into your bones

ll, like someone was driving nails into it. I tried to lift m

I realized my

y thin strips of gray light slipping through gaps in the walls. The air

e wa

es began to form. Metal beams overhead. Concrete floor beneath me

berate. My ankles were bound too. I was sitting on the floor

d I ge

coming down. Voices shouting. Prison ba

is

r. Everything afte

voice. Low, cold,

d have sta

nc

mories came fast. Not just the trial and the verdi

en waitin

ropes, ignoring how they scraped my s

ut, but my throat was dry

ly the echo o

Heavy boots on con

this time. "V

th

creaked. Not the sound of someone ar

against the ropes. Pain flared in my he

oo

d had h

ar sound. Vincent's black SUV. The same one

No,

tearing, wrists slic

was driving away. H

d think. Look around. Anyt

lass. Rusted machinery. A metal sh

ot through my left ankle

d. Mayb

nastasia

ar memory was walking out of the prison gates. Squinting into

ent had b

lease," he had said. Smilin

ve screamed. Should have don

, foolish part of me had still hoped

forgotten warehouse,

as gone now.

n I sme

ok

laying tricks on me. But then thin wisps curled throug

art f

o

trance, about twenty feet away. A flicker o

i

spreading across the ceiling like it belonged the

e cracked. "Som

d louder than my v

fore. Pain did not matter. Blood did not ma

nots

ed along the walls, feeding on old wood and fo

at. Coughs doubled m

g. Not after surviving the trial, the conviction, a

f it from me. Even my ch

ped from the ceiling. One piece cracked on the

the rough beam at my back. A splint

it and started to see. Back

scraped like sandpaper. My lun

p g

Bits of burning wood rained do

movement. The rope fibers sc

re in the building. The struct

e was goi

spun. Parts of the warehouse were collapsing now

arely. But enough to

iling crashed behind m

ope s

pes around my ankles. My fingers were weak, clumsy

s slippe

led and sent me crashing to the gr

to c

heat pressed down from above. Th

h tore at my muscles. Each breath

t my bearings completely. Kee

thing wet. Blood. I did

uder, or maybe it was my heart

micals igniting. The impact shove

Keep m

edges of my vision.

e edge of c

s dy

being blamed for a crime I did not commit. Afte

s how i

nt ha

dy hit the floor. No mor

ke and blurring vision, was the small window

ngle

enough to see.

rything