Uncontained

Alarms blared.

I bolted to the man in the corner and untied him. "What's going on?" I demanded. "Do you know what he just did?"

"There's a bomb at the bottom of Silph," the man gasped out. "They planted it there as a threat. If I didn't do what they wanted they'd blow the building to smithereens. Now I think he activated it."

"No," I whispered.

Then I felt a firm claw on my back and snapped to my senses. "Come on." I pulled the man to his feet. "We've got to get everyone out of here. Call them on the intercom, I'll be back in a second."

I booked it out the door and ran straight into Spirit.

"Oof!" We hit each other like crash-test dummies. She grappled onto me before I could regain balance. "Beau, you have to get out of here!" she shouted.

Our awkward momentum made me slam backwards into the wall and she kind of fell on me. I almost pushed her off, but I didn't. "Where's Malachi?" I snapped. "Where is he being held?"

She realized I wasn't going to listen to reason. "Grab your Pokemon and the director and let's go," she said. It took me a moment to get she was talking about the man that was tied up. "I'll show you where he's locked up."

"Florence, Czeslaw, Rose!" They crashed out the doorway with the pikachu on Czeslaw's shoulder. The director ran after them. The man blanched when he saw Spirit's uniform. "It's okay," I said. "She's going to show us the way out."

Spirit grabbed my hand and ran.

There was a fast Rocket-made chute going to the outside, where she ushered the director into, but she took me across the building to a storage closet. While she fumbled with the keys, Czeslaw took the initiative and punched through the door. A crack like lightning split the door hinges to splinters. Czeslaw then tore it out of the frame. The storage room was bigger than I expected and Malachi was tied to a water pipe. His eyes went huge. "Beau!" he blurted.

I dashed to him and cut his ropes with my pocketknife. "Do you have your pokeballs?" I demanded.

"They took them away from me. What is-"

Czeslaw slammed a meaty arm on a wooden crate in the other corner. It cracked open like an eggshell and Malachi's pokeballs spilled out. He and I scrambled to pick them up. Malachi hooked them on his belt. "Beau, what happened to your face-" but he cut himself off.

He was staring at Spirit.

Then I felt a blast from across the building and I smacked into the floor. I went deaf and the world turned white. A split second later it refocused. I was spinning on a merry-go-round and my ears rang. Something heavy was on top of me, and I realized it was Malachi, Czeslaw covering him, and his arm was around Rose. They rose, and Malachi pulled off of me, saying something I couldn't hear. Then he tugged me to my feet.

I looked at the door and gasped. Flame was erupting in the hallway and Spirit lay on the floor, motionless. Blood pooled out of her mouth. Something surged in my chest. And I returned my Pokemon, even Florence, grabbed Malachi's shirt, scooped Spirit into my arms, and ran.

With a popping noise my hearing returned and the flames roared in my ears.

"Beau!" Malachi shouted. "We can fly out of here! We need to find a big window!"

"This way!"

But I wasn't thinking straight at all. My mind was a bag of marbles being shook and Malachi's words bounced off of them. I dove into an unfurnished room with boxes unlit by the fire and the window I saw warped in front of my eyes. The glass melted like liquid and the sunlight was a blob in a lava lamp. I kept running. Something in me didn't feel danger anymore.

And I plunged right into the window.