"Goodbye, Belna. I really look forward to seeing you again." He hung up.
I held the phone to my ear. My joints were frozen with terror. I could hardly move. It was like I was already dead.328
I knew I had to think, but my head was filled with the sound of my mother's audible panic. Seconds ticked by while I fought for control over my joints.
Slowly, slowly, my thoughts started to break past the brick wall of psychic pain. To plan. For I had no choices now but one: to go to the mirrored room. And die. I had no guarantees, nothing to keep my mother alive. I could only hope that Yames would be satisfied with winning the game, that beating Fredward would be enough. Despair gripped me once more; there was no way to bargain, nothing I could offer or withhold that would influence him. But I still had no choice. I had to try.
I punished the terror as well as I could. Sent it to the corner, threatened a spanking... My decision was made. It did no good to waste time agonizing over the outcome. I was going to die in a mirrored room. It could be worse, right? I could be in a concentration camp. I could have been gang-raped in Fort Angles. I could have never loved at all.
I had to think clearly because Alice and Jasper were waiting for me and evading them was absolutely essential, and essentially impossible.
I was suddenly grateful that Jasper had gone to check out. If he had been here to feel my anguish in the last five minutes, how could I have kept them from being suspicious? I choked back the dread, the anxiety, tried to stifle it. I couldn't afford it now.
I concentrated on my escape. I had to hope that my familiarity with the airport would turn the odds in my favor. Somehow, I had to keep Alice away... from me...
I knew Alice was in the other room waiting,
328. "I originally intended for this to be the end of the novel, but wound up adding the rest when the publisher bounced it back to me and requested a more 'round' ending. Roundabout, is more like it." The Author, The Charlie Rose Show, September 5 2032