Edit: Can it be? I'm in the home stretch of editing this story? Ten chapters to go?

I'm baaaaack! Yeesh, I'm gonna need a new thing to say to start a new chapter's author's note...XD Anyway, yeah I am! :D With another chapter! I LOVE the reviews I get! LOVE 'EM! KEEP 'EM COMIN'! Pwease?

mchap1154: Well thanks, I try. ^^ Lol. Yes, yes wait and see what happens! *evil laugh*

eylandria: Lol, I'm making her say something like that. :D

ilikadachocolate: *cue creepy voice* Yeeees... Yeeees, waaaait aaand seeeee... Ahem. You'll see what happens. :) It's perfectly fine. :)

PieFace314: Lol!

Mere: I do TOO have the guts to kill him off! Remember Lead Me Home!? Haha, I do too... Erm. :P I don't wanna do it again. :P I WILL, THOUGH! Oh, just read and see. :P

Sahara Amethystina: Thankya! :)

EEEEEEEnjoy!

Chapter 21

"You wanna piece of me, rich boy!?" Annabel yelled, currently in an argument with Axlerod that she started when he disabled Finn's weapons.

"All of them! Dead!" Axlerod snapped back, then turned around, wanting to end the argument.

"Why don't you lemme out of here so I can whack that grin off your face!?"

"I'm not smiling." Axlerod said nonchalantly.

Annabel sighed and crossed her arms. "So-o-o-o... You gonna kill us yet?" Annabel asked, starting to get quite bored. It had been about an hour since they were locked up. "Can I have my iPod?"

"Why, so you can contact your friends?" Zündapp asked.

"Dude, it's an iPod. I can't do anything but listen to music without wifi."

"No."

"Dad gum..." Annabel sighed in disappointment.

Zündapp quickly spun around in surprise to look at her, then relaxed.

"Dude, what is with you?" Annabel raised an eyebrow.

"Gatling guns..." He mumbled. Annabel snickered.

"Good old Mater..." She smiled.

"Annabel has a point. Are you just going to let us starve? Or are you going to actually do something?" Finn asked.

"We at least get a last meal, right?" Annabel asked like it was more important than surviving this.

"No."

"Jeez, you two are ruthless... I want chocolate before I'm killed, at least! With caramel... Mmm... Carmel..." She mused, now in a trance thinking about chocolate and caramel. She looked down, and noticed a screw that was a bit unscrewed. She tried to loosen it more with her fingers, and it worked. She held the screw up to her face, inspecting it.

Finn noticed what she had managed to do. She looked at him questionably, and he looked down at the cage floor. So did Annabel. There were more screws holding the floor in.

Finn motioned over towards a big red button. "That opens the cages," He mouthed. Annabel took a moment to figure out what he was saying, but eventually nodded.

Annabel reached into her pocket, and pulled out an old guitar pick. Finn raised his eyelid in question, but Annabel ignored him, and use it to unscrew the rest of the screws with it.

When she was on the last one, the cage floor was sagging and coming out a little. Luckily, Axlerod and Zündapp hadn't noticed yet, and Annabel was almost done.

When the last screw popped out, the cage floor fell to the floor with a crash. Axlerod and Zündapp spun around.

Annabel didn't have anything clever to say. "Uhhh..."

The three of them just stood there for a moment. Annabel sprinted towards the button Finn had directed her to, brought down her fist on it, and spun around to see Finn's cage open.

"Annabel, go! I'll be right behind you!" Finn ordered her. She obeyed and ran out as fast as she could.

She ran up the ramp, out if the room with the trap doors, out onto the platform, finally stopping as she almost ran off the platform down to the ocean below.

She looked behind her. Finn wasn't there. He promised he would be...

Finn did eventually come out... But he wasn't alone for long. As soon as he came out Zündapp and Axlerod held him back.

"Finn!"

"Annabel, go!"

"Bu... But where?" She asked.

"Jump!" He urged.

"What!?" Annabel acted like he might as well have told her to jump into an active volcano. "There is no freakin' way I am jumping off this thing!" She screeched, looking behind her at the ocean below. "And what am I supposed to do, swim to land!?"

"Annabel, you're smart, I know you are. You'll think of something! Now jump!"

"I am not going to jump off this thing!" She screamed.

"Huh, I'm starting to think this will be easier than we thought, sir."

"Why is that, Zündapp?"

"When we first captured these two, McMissile told me not to hurt the girl because she was only a child. Now, I see that's true." He said, approaching Annabel. "You're only a weak, defenseless child. You couldn't stop us if you tried." He taunted.

Annabel looked down at the water, then back to Zündapp, then at Finn. She looked at her, and tears threatened to come from her. Determination appeared evident on her face, and almost to the point of tears, she forcefully kicked Zündapp in the face.

"Ow!" He cried, reversing a few feet. "You little...!"

But Annabel was already falling down to the churning water below.

...

Since it was a long fall from the platform to the water, when Annabel hit the surface, she went under quite far. She immediately began swimming up, towards the sun. Annabel feared she wouldn't make it before she ran out of breath. She still had a few feet to go as she was already gasping for breath.

Annabel was getting flashbacks to the heart-stopping moments when almost ran out of air swimming up from the deep end of the pool near her house. She remembered how scared she was then, and looking down into the dark depths below, she knew that fear was nothing compared to this moment now. She swallowed a mouthful of seawater in an impossible attempt to fill her lungs. She began coughing, but, of course, no air came to her. Everything had started fading to black.

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