A/N: I miss the 80 degree weather back in Lima. PA snowy, cold weather sucks! Oh well, at least now everything is in English and people drive the speed limit. I had a blast in Peru, though! I was sick most of the time, so most of the food never stayed in my stomach for too long. That was the only down side to the trip.
BIG UPDATE: New email address, people! My parents are sick of having my emails shared with theirs, so I have a new one that you can find on my bio on this site. Send everything to that new one!
Enjoy the long awaited update!
Disclaimer: Nope.
Chapter 19 Money Shortage
Abe gave a sigh while hearing his sister hang up on the other end of his cell phone. It had been hard to keep his voice steady and right when he was still dangling 20 stories above a buzzing street with cars zipping every which way for destinations unknown. He didn't know if his sister had bought his false conversation, but he had only said a few things and given a few orders. She would be calling him again, so that meant Slade had to keep him till then. Abe's quick thinking saved him maybe a few extra hours to live. But the boy didn't know how the mad man was going to react to this.
The boy let out a sharp yell right after he gave his cell phone back to Slade. The man had suddenly thrown him down onto the concrete roof in one powerful motion with his arm. Abe rolled painfully a few times with a few winces as his skin scratched against the course surface. He finally came to rest on his butt and looked up with wide eyes of fright to see Slade coming after him.
"You did that on purpose," Slade hissed at the boy while grabbing him by the front of his mud laden shirt. He pulled the scared kid to his feet and walked him backwards. That little slip of anger was making the kid extremely frightened for his life. Slade knew that Abe wasn't stupid. His sister would have to call him back in a few hours. Slade didn't want to keep Abe around for a couple of extra hours! It only made the masked man annoyed. His patience was being pushed to its limits with this smart kid.
"So?" Abe managed to get out of his mouth while trying his hardest to pull out of Slade's hold on his shirt. He let out another small cry of fright as Slade roughly pushed him backwards and into the hands of some of his robots. Abe quickly got over his scare and lashed out at Slade with a lightning quick roundhouse kick before the robots could pull him back from the man.
Slade simply caught the boy's ankle in both hands and glared down at the little annoyance. Abe returned the glare till he realized that Slade wasn't letting go of his leg. The kid was a bit surprised that the guy was that fast. He was skilled beyond his years. But now Abe was in panic. He heard his dad yell his name to warn him as he opened his mouth to say something. It was too late.
In one sharp motion, Slade twisted the boy's ankle in his hands with a small wicked smile coming to lips under his mask. He heard a small pop that was followed by a loud cry of pain from the boy. Slade let Abe's leg go and watched him silently as he dropped to the ground with extreme blasts of pain shooting up his leg that had been damaged by Slade. The man was very satisfied to see the boy look down to hide his tears of suffering. James was freaking out now and was ready to kill someone to go and be with his hurt son and comfort him.
"Let that be a warning to you," Slade said coldly down to the boy. Abe gave a wince while lifting up his head to look Slade in the eye. Small salty tears slowly dripped down the side of his face, but he quickly sucked up his pain to glare his extreme hatred to the man standing menacingly over him. Slade silently gave the boy some credit for endurance. But the thought was quickly vanishing.
"Take the boy away," Slade said to his robots with the wave of his hand. "Drive him to the hideout, give him a small shower, and then lock him in a room with the girl. If he protests in any way kill the girl. She is beginning to lose her use to me. Keep the man here." The tone in his voice almost seemed bored in the subject. After his orders, the man started to walk away and left the robots to do what they were told.
Abe winced while being pulled to his feet. His ankle was now swelling up profusely and giving him a lot of pain. But the boy didn't say anything as he limped his way to the stairs with Valentine right behind him. He only looked up to James with worry in his eyes.
James's face showed a mix of anger, suffering, worry, and sadness as he watched his son leave. He wanted to say so many things to Abe, but he had such little time to do so. He mouthed the most important words we wanted to tell his son. "I love you."
Those three words put a weak smile to Abe's lips as he responded the only way he could. "I love you too." And then he was gone. The boy slowly made his way to the elevator and it was the ride down to ground level that the robots were smart enough to tie the kid's hands behind him. Valentine was already bound.
"How's it going?" Abe asked a robot with a teasing smile coming to his face. He glanced to Val and he smiled on the inside when seeing her shoot him a weak grin. "I've always liked you," he told the robot and nicely succeeded in making the girl next to him smile at him for his cocky sense of humor. Jake always had that kind of humor in him, and right now just getting a little taste of her brother was enough to make Val smile.
How long had they been separated? She was beginning to forget how he looked now. She had only seen Slade and his robots for the past two weeks. She had forced her mind to not dwell on his health or what he was doing. She didn't want to worry about him because that would only overwhelm her brain. She didn't want to go insane over the stress. But seeing Abe was so refreshing to her that the girl realized how much she missed Jake.
The two kids were forced into the car that had brought Abe there. Valentine was shoved into it first with a robot sitting in the middle of the two. Abe guessed that Slade must have programmed his robots to be violent as one of them pushed him roughly into the car and didn't care that the kid managed to bang his head against the side before entering. He gave a small gasp as the door was slammed in his face right when he sat down. He then heard it lock and quickly they were speeding off into the street with all the other cars swarming around them.
Abe stared out the window the whole time and tried to memorize what roads and streets they were on so if he ever did escape he could know where to go if he wanted to rescue his dad from this place he was now going to. He wanted to know why Slade kept his father on the roof top. He really hoped that Slade wouldn't hurt him, but if he knew Slade enough, he knew for sure he would do something to his dad.
It didn't take long for them to get to Slade's hideout. They stopped right outside a wall that looked just like all the others that held homes in them. The two were forced through the metal door and they finally got to see where they were going to be held.
It was an old, run down apartment building with very little windows and only two floors. The yard leading up to it was just dirt with little patches of grass sticking up randomly. Deep green vines pretty much had engulfed the whole house. Abe and Val just thought the place was creepy as heck, and they gave each other uncertain glances before they were pushed ahead and into the house.
"Talk about your fixer upper," Abe muttered while looking around. The kitchen was dimly lit by one light bulb that was on the ends of its rope and blinking on and off every so often. The sink was rusty, and the cabinets looked to be infested with termites and were breaking apart.
The living room was just a bit better looking than the foreboding kitchen they passed. It looked like Slade had decided to make this room his makeshift headquarters for the time being. Plastic tables were off to one side with little gadgets the man had been working on. A TV was showing static off to the other corner of the room. The two couches with fading and ripped cushions faced each other with a weak coffee table in between.
The two were forced upstairs and by now Abe couldn't take the pain of his ankle anymore and cried out a few times on the last few steps to the second floor. Val then went one way while he went the other. Abe was jerked down the hallway to the bathroom and was forced into it.
"Slade was kidding when he told you guys to let me take a shower," Abe said to the robots as he stumbled into the shower with a small wince. "Don't you guys know the difference between being serious and sardonic humor?" The robots only turned on the cold water, which was brownish, and made him stand under it.
"Curse that man!" Abe yelled while shivering in the ice cold water poring down on his head and slowly covering his muddy body. The boy was now angry at himself for getting in a position like this. One big rule when working for the CIA was never, ever get caught. So far Abe had obeyed the rule. This was his first time getting caught and he was scared to death. He could get killed, tortured, or kept in captivity till who knows when! The thought was freaking him out.
The shower didn't last long. The robots were smart enough to do a few things on their own and obey their creator's commands perfectly, but they didn't get it like humans did. As gentle as a chain saw, Abe was dragged out of the bathroom with his clothes soaking wet and hair hanging in his face. He was still a bit muddy, but the cold shower had helped his appearance somewhat.
A loud yell escaped the boy's mouth as he was simply thrown into the same room as Valentine with his hands still tied behind him. Val was already sitting in a corner looking depressed and hopeless. Just one look at her and anybody would cry.
Abe stood in the middle of the room with his body still shaking from the extremely cold shower. He closed his eyes as hot tears threatened to escape his eyes. He bit his lower lip to try and stop himself from breaking down and crying a second time that night. Everything just seemed so hopeless and bleak. His family, Val, the Titans, and even himself were going to die in the hands of Slade. The only one who would be left living would be Robin, but Abe knew that after this was over and Slade won, the teen would rather be dead than alive. Abe couldn't help but think that Slade had already won. It was finished.
"Help, Lord," he whispered while hanging his head. He felt no comfort at first and finally just leaned against the wall a few feet away from Val. He slid down the wall and sat on the stained carpet in the nearly black room with a sad sigh. Then the help came.
He wasn't alone! He had Valentine right here sitting next to him! A determined smile came to his lips as he thought over what to say to her quickly in his mind. He pieced together a few good theories of what she would say and how to answer her. In no time at all he had a pretty good plan forming in his head. Absentmindedly he prayed a small thanks before opening his mouth to ask Val a question.
"Where do you stand in this mess Slade has made?" he asked her while making eye contact in the darkness of the room. She stared silently at him for a few seconds then looked back down at her feet with a look of thought in her eyes.
"Jake promised me that we would both be okay," Val finally said quietly. "For a long time I thought I would just be sitting here till he got the job done. But now I know that Slade will kill me at any time now." Abe's face softened as he heard a quiet sob from her as she said, "I don't want to die!"
Abe didn't know who this Jake guy was. Maybe it was a friend, father, or older brother working for Slade because the man had captured her as blackmail. But these thoughts were only simple hypothesizes. He couldn't be sure about them.
"We will be fine," Abe said quickly to her before she totally broke down before him. He needed her to be strong and have faith in him for his plan to work. "If you can pull yourself together and listen to me, we might have a chance of living this ordeal."
Surprisingly, Valentine dried up her tears quickly and looked at him thoughtfully. "You have a plan?" she asked him hopefully.
Abe smiled slightly before answering, "You beat. But some of the stuff I want to do will be dangerous. Are you willing to go through with it?"
Val actually smiled as hope filled her empty heart for the first time in weeks. "I'll try," she said with a nod.
"Good!" Abe said with his grin widening. "First, let's get out of these ropes!"
-Robin-
The boy paced the alleyway with his eyes narrowed. His brain was focused on the things and options before him as Sam rambled on about what they had packed in their bags before fleeing the hotel room so suddenly. Robin knew that he had to get back home, but he couldn't and wouldn't do that till he knew others would be okay with him going. Val would be one of them.
He wanted to think through things before blindly doing stuff. He hadn't forgotten that day Jessica had killed everyone in that airport because of his selfish thoughts. Think first, actions later. That concept of thinking had to be put into use at this point or innocent people might get killed because of him.
"And we don't have enough money," Sam said with a frustrated sigh as she had finished dumping all the contents of the bags out on the ground. "Crap," she added while staring at the things.
"You mean I didn't grab the money before we left?" Robin asked her with a look of confusion on his face. "I could have sworn I had."
"No, you got it all," Sam said with her voice having a bitter tone in it. "It's just that Pucallpa only has one airport, and one ticket is a hundred dollars to get to Lima. We don't have much because Abe has most of it, and we spent a lot getting here and on other things. So we only have enough for maybe one person getting over there."
"We're not splitting up," Robin said quickly while going back to his pacing.
"I know," Sam said. "And we are not going to take the bus to Lima. I refuse to do that! It would take three or five days to get there anyways. I just don't see any other way to get to Lima. What do we do?"
Robin stopped pacing and rubbed his forehead as he suddenly had a few memory flashes of his team asking him that same question. Why do they have to be so painful? He thought to himself before going back to normal. Sam was looking at him with concern in her eyes. She was worried about him.
"I'm fine," he said to her quickly. "Do you know any local pilot who could fly us there for cheap?" he asked her with a shrug. He really didn't know what to do. She had been the one who had traveled all over the place and would know what to do. He didn't understand why she was asking him for help.
It was like in the movies when light bulbs turn on above someone's head when he said that to Sam. He let himself express something like a grin when seeing her brighten up suddenly with her eyes lighting up as the thought came to her. "The missionaries!"
"The who?" Robin asked with a puzzled look planted on his face. "Please explain."
"No time!" Sam said in a rush as she stuffed the food and things back into the backpacks. "Let me just show you!" And they were off!
- ? -
Greg Horwitz slowly and calmly walked out onto his screen porch with a small smile on his lips. He silently watched the beautiful sunrise unfold before him on the horizon of the lake. A light mist was coming off the lake and making the air around him cool. The frogs and bugs were calming down for the day and would go back to sleeping till the next night.
Greg loved his life as a missionary in Peru. He had been a kid growing up here and loved it all his life. His wife and own two kids were in love with the country as well. Most of the time everything around them was at peace. Sure, they had their problems, but right now everything was tranquil for Greg and his life.
BAM!
The man gave a short gasp and jump from the sound of his front door being busted open so suddenly. He rushed back into the living room to see two confused kids in his kitchen looking around for someone frantically. They looked American, so they were not robbers. He wondered why they were here.
"Can I help you two intruders?" Greg asked them with a wry smile.
They both looked his way before the boy with the strange mask over his eyes said quickly, "We need a cheap flight to Lima…now!"
-Robin-
He stared at himself in the lightened up mirror with a mix of sadness and disgust on his face. Greg's wife, Heather, stood behind him with the bottle of very cheap blonde die in one hand and his used towel in the other. She smiled at him while her two daughters giggled in the doorway at his new look.
"I look like an oblivious freaking tourist!" he said with a deep sigh. He ran a hand through his now spiky blonde hair with a wince at his new appearance. The drastic change was for when Sam and Robin arrived in Lima and when they went looking for Slade. They wanted to see him but not for him to see them. And that was the reason why Robin's hair was now blonde…or an attempt at blondeness. His hair had been too dark for the cheap die to really work.
"You will have to get ride of the mask as well," Heather told him like she was already his mother.
"Yeah, I know," Robin sighed while walking off to a bedroom and getting dressed into some shorts and T-shirt that said in bold letters "I love llamas!" Robin could only shake his head while pulling the fabric over his head. He then slipped on some flip flips while taking off his mask. He stuck it into his pocket and then put on some big, dark sunglasses so no one could see his eyes. He was ready.
The two daughters that were around his age were still giggling and laughing at him as he walked out of the house and up to where Sam and Greg were by the small airplane they were getting ready. Sam hadn't had to change her appearance like Robin because she could always use her morphing powers to easily do so.
Robin felt his cheeks turning a bit red when Sam looked up and stared at him with a wide grin on her face as she summed him up. Greg actually gave a small laugh and yelled over to him, "You sure do look like someone who knows absolutely no Spanish and came out here looking for llamas."
The teen stuffed his hands into his pockets with another sigh. By this time both Greg and Sam where laughing at him. Robin just rolled his eyes and kept telling himself that it would be worth it in the end. Plus, the die would come out in the shower…he hoped.
"Nice hair, Boy Wonder," Sam said while flicking the top of it with a smug smile coming to her lips.
"Thanks," Robin responded nonchalantly with a smooth nod. Sam gave him a small giggle as her cheeks turned red for a second.
"We better get going, kids," Greg said to them while hopping into his side of the small plane. The two looked up to him and then gave each other smiles of hope. They were on their way to Lima!
-A Few Hours Later-
"Here are a few extra soles to get you around by taxi," Greg said to Sam while giving her a few coins and dollars in Peru's currency, which was called soles. The three had just landed on the airport strip and were talking for a few minutes in the plane before Greg flew back to his family in Pucallpa.
"Thank you so much for flying us here for free," Sam said to Greg with a giant smile on her face.
"Yes," Robin added with a steady nod. "I wish we could repay your kindness somehow."
"How 'bout you get back to the States and your team safely," Greg said. Sam jumped out of her side of the plane and out into the hot air of the South American country with another thank you to the man. Robin slid over to her side to use her door until Greg put a hand on his shoulder.
"You need something?" Robin asked him.
There was a deep seriousness on Greg's face and in his voice as he told Robin, "Things are going to get real hard for you soon. And I know you don't have the same belief system as I do, so trying to shove some message about God won't do any help to you right now. But I want to give you one piece of advice before you leave, Robin."
"I'm listening," Robin said quietly with a slight nod. The trip to Lima let the two talk for a few hours. Over that two hour period, Robin had started to respect the man greatly. He was kind and seemed to know everything even though Robin knew that Greg didn't. But whatever he said, Robin would take very serious.
"This might sound really stupid to you," Greg said. "But, Robin, never EVER give up! Don't say that you'll try. Just don't give up. I just thought that was what you needed to hear for some reason. Remember it!"
"I will," Robin said with another nod. "It was kind of random. You never know, I might just remember your words and stick to them sometime soon," Robin said in a half joking matter. He then gave Greg a warm smile and said, "But thanks."
"Now, go!" Greg said while pushing Robin out of his plane. "Sam is waiting for you. Keep a sharp eye on her. Girls always like to do things themselves."
Robin let himself give a small laugh as he walked away from the plane and over to where Sam was waiting for him by the doors of the airport. "What did he say that made you laugh for the first time in forever?" she asked him with her hands on her hips.
"Does it really matter?" he asked her with a wry smile. She gave him a look while following him into the airport. The joking and light mood they were enjoying quickly disintegrated as they came into the big room that led to the outside of the airport. Both stopped in their tracks while trying to keep down gasps of the horror before them.
Dozens of Slade-bots swarmed the place with papers all showing the one face Slade wanted to see most…Robin's.
A/N: I wanted to leave you guys at a cliffhanger. I know this chapter was a bit boring, but it was a bit important…somehow. Oh! And Greg and his family are real except for that last name I put in there. I stayed at their house in Pucallpa when I went to Peru a few weeks ago. And I'm sorry if Robin has been acting a little different lately. This was the last chapter of him really acting that strange way. That is all I need to say except that if you didn't see the beginning author's note at the top, I have changed my email address. Check it out on my bio! Don't send anything else to my old address! My parents are getting sick of seeing all my updates and junk from this site. But please give a review! Thanks!
