Chapter 12

The friends, alarmed about what happened to Kit, went to the library to discuss what to do next.

"We can't give him the file!" said Dorian as soon as they were safely out of hearing range from any of the volunteers.

"But if we don't, there's no telling what he'd do to us," replied Daniel. "Just look at what he did to poor Kit!"

"We can't give it to him," Sarah said. "Don't you see? It contains all the evidence against him. If he gets it and destroys it, nobody will be able to stop him. He'll be able to do whatever he wants."

"Even if he does destroy it," Samantha continued. "Who's to say that he won't hurt us then?"

"You're right," Daniel quietly admitted.

Samantha continued, "We just need to be more careful. As long as we are not alone and the file is safe and hidden, he can't hurt us."

"We have to promise," declared Dorian. "That we will continue to gather information against Olaf that could be used against him. We must promise that we will never tell anyone outside our group the location of the file. Agreed?"

Everyone put their hands together to seal their promise. Everyone except Jacques, who stood staring at the door to his rail sister's room. He thought about her future; how she wouldn't be able to touch seawater with her bare hands again for fear of infecting the burns. He remembered the time he saw her crumpled over the hatch of her damaged submarine, covered in terrible burns. He saw the terrified look on her face again in his mind and put his hand with his friends' in agreement.

"We will defeat him," Jacques said. "For Kit."

The friends were cautious for a while after Kit's attack. They always went places in groups of two or more, they got Beatrice to hide the file in the library, and they always supervised their cooking. After a while, even the Baudelaires and Quagmires had seen no sign of count Olaf. They soon began to relax, read in empty rooms, and even Lemony would sometimes leave the kitchen for a moment to check on Kit's bandages.

One night, however, the false sense of security brought about dire consequences. Lemony was walking in the woods nearby a fire that he had been investigating. He was enjoying the crisp sound of crunching leaves under his feet when his thoughts wandered to the recent events in the organization. More people had been disappearing rently, and there were also more fires than before. Lemony and his friends were pretty sure that it had something to do with Olaf and his followers, but before he could think much about it, a familiar scent reached his nose.

"Is that smoke?" he asked himself, running to the source of the odor.

He ran towards a small clearing which contained a small cabin. The cabin was ablaze and there were people rushing about, trying to put out the fire. Lemony stood at the edge of the clearing, gasped in amazement, and burst into a fit of coughing because of the smoke. After a minute or two of coughing, Lemony looked at the people frantically running around with cups of water.

"These people can't put out the fire," he realized. "I'm the only one who knows how." He then ran out of the clearing, rushing to get his equipment.

He sprinted through the dark woods, stumbling on roots and bits of brush. On the way to his camp, Lemony ran into a person whose face was covered in shadows.

"Sorry," Lemony muttered, beginning to rush on towards his camp again.

"You will never extinguish the fire," the raspy voice said. "It will be your demise, Snicket!"

Hearing this, Lemony quickly turned to see who it was. However, the person had mysteriously disappeared. "Who...? Olaf...?" he whispered. "Olaf!" he yelled at the voice. "Come out! You can't hide!" Nothing happened.

After a minute, he realized that he needed to get his equipment to fight the fire at the cabin. By the time he returned to the clearing, he found that he people had left and the wooden cottage had almost been completely reduced to glowing coals and ashes. Since he could no longer help the fire, Lemony sighed and returned to his camp.

After that assignment, he returned to the headquarters. However, when he got there, he saw the building nearly empty. He ran, worried around the headquarters until he passed by Beatrice's room and saw Beatrice, Jacques, Kit, and the Baudelaire and Quagmire parents.

"Lemony!" cried Beatrice. "We've been so worried about you!"

"What are you doing here?" asked Lemony worriedly. "Is anything wrong? Why aren't Daniel, Dorian, Samantha, and Sarah at their houses?"

"We were so worried for you," Sarah said, standing up from her armchair. "Haven't you heard what happened?"

Jacques continued, "Several copies of today's Daily Punctillio have been received by volunteers. Lemony, do you know anything about a fire from last night?"

"I saw it; why do you ask?" asked Lemony.

Kit handed Lemony a copy of the newspaper and pointed to the front page.

UNEXPLAINED FIRE DESTROYS COTTAGE-

A fire destroyed a small cottage last night. No injuries have been reported and no one was living there at the time. However, our very reliable sources confirm that there was also a mysterious person around at the time of the fire, who is now considered a suspect but has not been apprehended. If you have seen this man, please contact the authorities immediately.

Lemony looked at the blurry, poorly taken photo and saw that the picture was of himself.