Escaping Relativity
Chapter 15

It was as though that same hand dipped in ice water had slapped her for the second time that night. Day? Whatever time it was. They wanted to put her in a ventilation shaft. They wanted to stick her in a hole which was metal and long, and they wanted to put someone in front of her, and someone behind her so she couldn’t get out. She would be stuck. Stuck in a hole.

The air left her lungs and nothing she did brought it back. She tried, but things began to fade in and out of focus.

No! She would not pass out, she couldn’t pass out. She had no idea where she would end up next!

Slowly, she pulled herself together. She closed her eyes, and knew she was in a big, spacious room; a big room, where nothing could happen.

Opening her eyes, she saw Xander, his black hair messy as only short hair can be. His deep chocolate eyes didn’t shine like tiger’s eye, they were wary, warning her of something––she didn’t know of what though.

“You don’t understand Xander, I can do a thousand different things, I can do recon without giving us away, I can kill a person in twenty different ways and make it look like an accident, but I can’t get in there,” Charlie said, pointing toward the vent and shaking her head.

“Look, I understand. Tight spaces get to me sometimes too, but we need to get to my ship, and if we go any other way, our chances of getting out of here together are little to none, and that’s if I don’t get killed,” Xander said, the ring of truth once again in his voice.

She knew she looked a little wild, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Fear with the power of memories, stark and real––terrifyingly real, was paralyzing. She felt as though she were about to choke, the knot in her throat growing bigger by the second.

A small cold hand touched her on her forearm. Looking down and following the hand to the arm, to the face...it was Lennie, the young boy who had helped her and Xander escape so far.

“Miss Time Keeper?”

“Charlie, call me Charlie,” she said.

“Miss Charlie, I’m sorry if you’re scared to go through the tunnels, but it’s the only way I figured out for us to go without getting caught. You see, we have to get out of here, because Mr. Xander has a brother who The Dilligara are gonna kill if we don’t, and I have a sister who was taken by slavers. If we can’t get out of here, and if we can’t find my sister and his brother, then we...the two of us I mean, we aren’t gonna have any family left. I’m sorry that I don’t have another way, but please come with me through here. Please?” Lennie asked.

His fear, and need was so powerful, she could taste it like the predator she was. There were countless reasons she couldn’t get in the tunnel, yet only two which said she could. The two which were looking at her now, with the whole world in their eyes. If she didn’t do this––she...Charlie, not her mom or her dad, not the team back home, she––they would lose the only family they had. It was on her, and she couldn’t have that. She didn’t know how, but she would do it.

Swallowing the lump unsuccessfully, she looked Lennie in the eyes and nodded once. His eyes lit up like the fourth of July a the White House.

Okay, okay, she could do this.

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