Authors note: Thanks for reading my story, also if you want to please leave reviews! But I will only accept CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM AND ADVICE, not harassment!
"How many people do you have looking for you?!" Annabelle yelled at Adelyn, while pointing her wand at her broken ankle to heal it instantly, allowing her to stand again. "First your kids, now whoever this guy is! Is this going to be a daily occurrence?"
"When one lives a thousand years, one tends to leave an impression on the world - whether one wants to or not!" Adelyn retorted, engaging the assailant. She was going full out with her magic, as was her opponent. Neither of them seemed to have any regard for the nonmagical people who were quickly gathering around them to witness the impossible - one of them, some young university student, had a camera trained on the flashing lights and raging streaks of energy shooting off in all directions. "Whoever this is, I've no idea! Perhaps I slighted an ancestor of his at some point, and now here he is to exact a late revenge upon recognizing me from some old photo!"
"That's very specific, Adelyn!" Hermione yelled, frustration in her voice as she created a wide magical shield to protect as many nonmagical people behind her as possible. "I wonder how many times this exact scenario has happened to you before, I mean really!"
"Oh, I'm in quite a number of photographs - some of them taken during great and historic moments!" Adelyn flourished her wand and sent a parked car flipping sideways across the street; her opponent disapparated, and reappeared safely out of harm's way to cast a deadly curse that looked like purple lightning right back at her. "It's the curious cat in me, you know? I never could resist the urge to personally witness a changing of the guard, a revolution of a time, a first meeting between two interesting peoples, or the formation of an intriguing new nation! I figured something had to keep me occupied over the endless millenium, so why not go and see history in the making? I just crave the unexpected!" She blocked and reflected a flurry of spells from her opponent, and took pause to cast a look at Annabelle and bark out, "By the by, did I not already tell you to get my fucking kids out of the line of fire?"
"I would have-" Annabelle ducked under a curse and threw herself at Erika, grabbing her arm in a not-at-all gentle way. "-if you hadn't stopped me-" She dragged Erika along like a helpless rag doll as she lunged for Jack's arm next. "-in the first place!" Shutting her eyes and focusing as best she could amid all the screams and shooting spells, she disapparated with Adelyn's children. The three of them reappeared in Annabelle's hotel room. Annabelle let them go and stepped away. She took a breath and snapped out a stern, "Don't go anywhere," and then she apparated right back into the chaotic scene of battle.
"If you're a thousand years old, why don't you kill this guy already and be done with it?" Annabelle asked Adelyn as she threw herself forward and joined the duel. "Shouldn't you be-?"
"Some sort of ultimate badass, are you on verge of saying? I haven't spent a thousand years fighting wars, or whatever else you'd imagine from me!" Adelyn gritted her teeth as she took a terrible curse in the leg, that shredded her pants and caused the exposed skin to turn black. Her veins shifted into a deep blue color, and seemed to thrum and pulse violently, casting off light each time they did. "In fact, I've sort of made it a point to live as peacefully as possible, and to stay out of as many conflicts and battlefields as I can! So forgive me for not being an almighty goddess capable of ravaging entire armies with a flick of my finger!"
"Would you two grab whoever this is and just take them somewhere more private, please?!" Hermione shouted urgently, as a lamppost began to move and twist like a serpent, sweeping left and right, dealing horrific blunt force trauma to nearby people. "I don't care where you go, just get out of the goddamn city, would you?"
"Okay!" Annabelle acknowledged. She glanced at Adelyn and gave her a nod, then she apparated directly behind their attacker. She grabbed the man in a choke-hold, and apparated. At the very moment of apparition, two things happened: the man she was holding twisted an arm and jabbed his wand into her stomach, and Adelyn came flying forward with her enhanced speed to grab his shoulders and drive a knee into his gut.
The three of them disapparated, and they all reappeared deep in the swamp forest where Annabelle had first reunited with Norberta here in the States.
"Smart move!" the man finally spoke to them, gasping from Adelyn's blow to his stomach. He cast a quick, nonverbal curse that sent Annabelle flying backwards a dozen feet, and then he was engaged with Adelyn exclusively - again. Annabelle felt every muscle in her midsection start to vibrate, and then they felt like they were snapping, one by one. She thrashed and screamed in the swamp waters as she realized that, oh god yes, they were very literally snapping. "I should have thought of it, myself, but you know, orders are orders!"
"What the hell are you on about?!" Annabelle screamed, trying to sit up through the agony - and falling back to the dirty water with a splash as a result. From stomach to back, all of those muscles had been snapped in two by this point, putting her into a very targeted sort of paralysis. Resigning herself to laying there, she thrust her wand out at the furious combatants and cast a charm on the man's clothes; his robes began exuding a hissing acid that poured down him like a waterfall. The man reacted instantly, magically reversing the charm and vanishing his robes and the acid away inside of a second. Another second, and he had healed himself of truly horrific wounds, and gone right back to fighting Adelyn. That was the point at which Annabelle realized that both she and Adelyn were really, really out of their league.
"Do you want to tell us who you are? Why you're here? Give us some answers before you kill us?" Annabelle called out, letting her wand hand drop down and disappear under the water - there was really nothing she was going to be able to do here.
The man, deprived of concealing robes, was revealed to Annabelle to be...a very fit young man around her own age - he had an eight pack, she couldn't help but note, when his simple black shirt rode up during a dodge. Long dark hair, green eyes that were a lighter shade than even her own, and a nose that was a bit off center, like he had taken a hard punch and then never bothered to magically fix the damage.
Oh, Annabelle thought, her mind blanking out on her for just a second. Then she cast a Cutting Curse, almost on a whim; both Adelyn and the man threw themselves out of the way before springing back at each other again.
"You could have hit your friend with that!" the man shouted at her, sounding genuinely shocked, and indignant on Adelyn's behalf.
"Yeah, okay, good point, but - and try to listen to me on this one - who the hell are you again?" Annabelle retorted, shaking her head to get swamp water out of her ears.
"Well, if you're going to just keep being annoying and asking - the name is Kyle - and now, if we can all agree to lower our wands, I'll be happy to talk things out with you two!"
"If you're serious, then you first," Adelyn spoke, even as she redirected a recognizable Blasting Curse up into the sky.
"You outnumber me!" Kyle refuted, gritting his teeth and dodging out of the way of Adelyn's returning volley. "What assurance do I have that the moment I let my wand drop, the two of you won't hit me from both sides?"
"You're the assassin here, you don't get to whine about unfair play," Annabelle argued. "So: you first!"
"I'm not an assassin, I'm- oh, all right, all right! Three, two, one..." True to the truce, Kyle immediately stopped fighting, and even took several steps back until he made contact with a tree. "See? I can keep my word. Now I just hope the two of you can keep yours."
Adelyn slid her wand into her belt, then pulled her firearm from its holster. She waved it at Kyle with her usual dramatic flair, and sloshed through the swamp water over to Annabelle's side. "With my speed, I can guarantee you I can put one of these bullets in your head before you can get a shield up or apparate away - just something to keep in mind while we have our little chat, yes? A little bit of insurance for us, seeing as Annabelle here is so wounded. Speaking of which," she added, lowering her eyes to Annabelle's stomach. "let's see what I can do for you, shall we? I do believe I've seen something like this before..."
"You attacked us in the middle of a crowded street while we were just going about our business," Annabelle directed at Kyle, trying to take calming breaths. "How can you call that anything but an assassination attempt?"
"Assassins have to be trying to kill you?" Kyle challenged, with a feeble, friendly grin.
"Is this all a joke to you or something?" Annabelle said, frowning; Kyle's grin slipped off his face immediately.
"No joke," he said seriously. He eyed Adelyn's healing attempts, a conflicted look on his face. "I can fix that," he offered up, hesitant.
"I'd hope so," Annabelle said humorlessly.
"Would you trust me to?" Kyle said, voice quiet. "We're talking things out, remember? If I wanted to keep fighting, I'd have kept fighting," he added, in a voice of pure reason. Annabelle liked reason.
"Okay," she agreed. "Get over here and fix this for me, and let's keep talking." Kyle slowly approached her, dropped to his knees beside her, and then even more slowly reached out and pulled her shirt up to expose her bare stomach. He pointed his wand at the affected area, and a look of total focus came over his face. After a few minutes, Annabelle felt her muscles squirming inside her body, reattaching and healing, slowly but surely. Finally, Kyle sat back and casually slipped his wand into his waistband.
"Alright, you're good to go," he told her, running a hand through sweat-soaked hair and slicking it back. "You might need to take at least a strength potion once a week over the course of the next month, but otherwise...good to go. I think. We'll have to see?"
"That's the most uncertain medical recommendation I've ever heard," Annabelle groaned. She carefully pushed herself up off the ground and straightened up. Immediately her midsection was wracked with intense, burning spasms, and she fell to her knees with a sharp cry. "Shit!"
"Shit," Kyle agreed, shaking his head at her and pulling out his wand again. "Sorry - I must have hit you with that curse a lot harder than I thought I did."
"If we weren't on a truce right now, you could be proud of yourself for that," Annabelle gasped, slamming her fist into the water (and splashing Kyle and Adelyn with murky waters). She lay back down again, flat on her back, and put a hand over her screaming stomach.
"If we weren't on a truce right now, I'd be paying for it," Kyle said, pointing his wand at her and furrowing his eyebrows in concentration again.
"You know you're shredded," blurted Annabelle, her eyes drifting to the very well-defined stomach that was so close to her now.
"You're not focusing," Kyle murmured, giving her a look that was almost disapproving.
"What am I supposed to be focusing on?" Annabelle responded.
Kyle paused in his work, and looked her full on in the face. "You had questions for me?"
Oh, right. I did. "Why did you attack us?"
"I was ordered to."
"By who?"
"By one of many organizations across the world who have a growing interest in having you on their side."
"How does attacking me make me want to help you?" said Annabelle in confusion.
"That was a test," Kyle refuted, shaking his head at her. "One I didn't agree with; I'm not a fan of collateral."
Fucking human illogic, Annabelle thought. Out loud she said, "Okay, so you tested me - good for you - now, ask me to join your organization."
"Will you join my organization?"
"No."
Kyle let out an exasperated sigh. "Why not?"
"Collateral."
"I didn't-" Kyle began.
"You're still working for them," Annabelle cut across, calm and collected. "You still did it - 'Orders are orders,' I think you said - so, I refuse. Fix me up, pack up, and head back wherever you came from and tell your organization that I'm not interested."
Kyle's face was swirling with doubt. "The people I work for might not take no for an answer."
"Even more reason not to say yes," Adelyn interrupted, pacing back and forth behind Kyle with firearm in hand - she was ready to push it against the back of his head and execute him at a moment's notice, if he tried to do anything still that would hurt Annabelle.
"More reason you shouldn't be working for them," Annabelle said, catching Kyle's eye and holding it. "You don't like collateral, but they told you to take the risk anyway? You come here to test me, and now you're healing me. You seem like a really nice person, a good guy, so...why are you in with a group that seems already to be a really-"
"You should be able to stand now." With a stony look on his face, Kyle put his wand away and stood. "Next time my organization extends an invitation to you, it won't be me."
"Great," Annabelle replied, a rare sarcasm escaping from her brain into her mouth. "I have so many people and groups after me already, what's one more?"
"Mine is one of the most dangerous," Kyle warned. "Look up the definition of the word mortifer the next time you're in a library." He paused, and gave her an odd look. His blank face of a mask vanished for a moment. "If we ever do meet again...don't look at me the way you were this time - it's very uncomfortable." He disapparated almost as soon as those words had finished leaving his mouth.
Adelyn looked at Annabelle; Annabelle looked at a distant tree.
"Sorry," Annabelle said sincerely - but too late to matter now.
August 26, 1998 - Black Desert, Utah
"We all did the research, we all came to the same conclusion: This is the place - so let's get inside and see what we can learn about Confiance."
"Ah, perhaps I should take the lead in negotiations, as the risks to me are nonexistent when compared with the risks to the two of you?" Adelyn suggested. Annabelle and Hermione looked at each other.
"I wouldn't want to use you as a human shield," said Hermione, with an earnest shake of her head.
"If you want to take the lead, you can take it," Annabelle said simply.
Adelyn raised an absent hand and gave her hat a tip. "Hermione, how sweet your concern is - yet Annabelle has the right of things; I'm quite the big girl, aren't I? So, shall we proceed?"
"Fucking lava..." Annabelle muttered to herself as she peered into the glowing, hazy, shifting tunnel interior of red and orange. Even she had her limits in life, and walking through a mountain tunnel whose walls were literally molten magma was really pushing her toward that limit.
Adelyn strolled right on in with all her usual swagger, arms swinging carelessly about despite the threat of brushing up with liquid magma. Annabelle followed, but only after applying a static shield charm to her clothes - just in case whatever magic was holding the magma in place decided to spontaneously fail to work, due to a really bad case of Adelyn. Hermione took her cue from Annabelle, and cast the same spell on her own outfit, though hers was significantly stronger than Annabelle's.
Even with the shield charms, and even with the fact that the tunnel wasn't filled with smoke and ash, and even with the fact that the heat of proximity wasn't burning them alive because of the tunnel's magic itself...even with all that, it was still way too hot for Annabelle to handle after just a couple minutes of moving along the tunnel. She found herself sweating, her breath catching short, and her head becoming a throbbing mess of dizziness and nausea. Finally reaching a breaking point, she fell to her knees, coughing and holding her head as her body dripped sweat like rainfall.
"Annabelle?" Hermione dropped down next to her, looking only a little bit better than Annabelle felt. "We should...go back..." she heaved. "There's not even any...end in sight, anyway..."
"Trap of the tunnel," Adelyn spoke, striding over to Annabelle and Hermione without a care in the world - she was still entirely unaffected by the environment. She wasn't even sweating (Annabelle wondered whether or not vampires even could sweat). "Perfectly designed to slow down and eventually incapacitate anyone trying to sneak their way into the fortress. At this point, I don't think that going back is an option - you'd likely find it just the same as the way ahead: an endless walk."
"Okay," Annabelle choked, lifting her head as best she could and pulling her hair off her face. "So what do we do now? Are there any spells, anything we could do to get out of this?"
"Perhaps," Adelyn mused, turning her gaze to the ceiling, then shifting on her hips to examine the walls. "If we can't go forward, and we can't go back the way we came, then I suppose we could try breaking out of the trap by way of magical blunt force to the only edges we can see here. Yes, I do think that these walls, this floor we stand on, and the ceiling above all would count as borders of the trap. If we're successful, that should allow us to press on ahead into the fortress proper."
Annabelle nodded. "We'll try that, then." She sucked in a harsh breath and straightened up again. She pointed her wand at herself and vanished away her clothes - including undergarments. She used a charm for generating cool air and directed it over her body, then used the simple Aguamenti spell to get some much-needed water in her.
"Oh, Annabelle. Ego aside, you can be smart when you want to be," Hermione laughed dryly, averting her gaze. Still, she did the same thing in the next moment, though she kept her undergarments on.
"Blasting Curses, then, for this?" Annabelle questioned Adelyn, who had casually seemed to have turned her back to Hermione and her for the foreseeable future.
"I would say that would do it best, yes," Adelyn answered. She pointed her wand at the ceiling, at a point a dozen feet ahead of them. She hesitated, and added, "A quick word of warning: if we happen to fail at punching through the trap completely, we might find ourselves swimming in this magma in an endless tunnel. If we are to do this, we need to breach it in very nearly one shot."
Annabelle walked to stand beside Adelyn, and pointed her wand at precisely the same point that Adelyn was hers. Hermione joined them, swiftly positioning herself to the right of Adelyn.
"On three, shall we?" Adelyn spoke softly. "One...two..." Three voices yelled the same incantation; three simultaneous explosions detonated above their heads. There was a hole ten feet deep and twice that wide where there spells had struck. The magma coating the ceiling and the walls vanished, and the hazy air around them began to crackle and shimmer in a complete rainbow of color. The darkness ahead and behind them in the tunnel popped out of existence, flooding the tunnel with firelight from ahead and daylight from behind. The tunnel itself literally shrunk around them, becoming shorter and shorter, until it was just a very plain, very short corridor of jagged rock and dripping water.
Immediately, from the chamber ahead, there came the stomping footsteps of dozens, and the yells of some very alarmed people.
Annabelle twitched her wand to swathe herself in a thick, hooded black robe, then did the same for Hermione. Annabelle, Hermione and Adelyn all three holstered their wands. Not a few seconds later and the firelight ahead was blocked out by a large and diverse group of Ransus's...underlings, Annabelle thought kindly.
"Hi." Annabelle waved to the greeting party, and took a step forward with all the composure she could muster. "Have any of you seen a fairy fly through here lately?"
A big, dark green ogre (over eight feet tall) lumbered forward with a huge broadsword held easily in one great hand. He could have swung once and cut Annabelle in half at the waist. His pointed ears twitched, and his snout opened wide to show off six underbite fangs - almost a reversal of the vampire's teeth layout. "Confiance," he growled out the name. "Did she steal from you too?"
"A couple years ago, and a few times, yes," Annabelle admitted easily. "But we aren't here to take anything back from her - we just want her."
The ogre stared down at her, and then shook his head. "Get in line, humans, because the next time she shows her glitter trail around here she's going to be ours."
"Oh, come now," Adelyn began, waltzing past Annabelle and getting right up into the ogre's personal space. "Surely a great fellow such as yourself would be very much open to the idea of a negotiation? After all, what would have you to lose?"
The ogre slowly raised a huge hand, placed his palm on Adelyn's chest, and shoved her back with an offended snort. "Who are you to break into our home, destroy our entrance security measures, and then ask for negotiations to be held?"
"Well, that's-" Adelyn cut herself off, an idle hand raised. She looked to Annabelle and Hermione, then shrugged and lowered her hand as she turned back to the ogre. "That is an excellent question. Who are we? Annabelle, do we even have a name for this rights movement of ours at this point?"
"I'd have thought it was still a bit too early for that," Annabelle responded, frowning to herself. "But, I guess I was wrong on that, if we're finding ourselves needing one already now? Hermione, do you have any ideas for a movement name?"
"Sentient Rights Movement? SRM?" Hermione suggested instantly.
"Simple, but comprehensive," said Adelyn.
"Unless anyone comes up with something better down the line, it'll do," Annabelle decided.
"Enough!" the ogre shouted, glaring at them. "I'll only give you humans one more chance to explain yourselves before I decide to throw you all in a cell, and get the answers out of you in a much less pleasant way!"
"We're just here for Confiance," Annabelle said calmly, tilting her head back to meet the ogre's gaze directly. "And, about why we destroyed your trap - you didn't exactly have a doorbell to ring. But we only did what we had to do to get out of the trap; other than that, I can assure you that we're not going to be any threat, or harm to you, or to anyone else here, or to Ransus. All we want is to be allowed to have an audience with your leader, and to propose a mutually beneficial plan to him."
"Tell me this plan of yours first," the ogre said lowly, staring down at her with a glitter of consideration. "If I judge it to be something the boss would be interested in hearing, then I'll let you tell it to him - but only under guard."
Suddenly, Adelyn broke into soft chuckles. "Have you so little faith in your esteemed and experienced leader that you would believe he could not handle making a little deal with us - and not only that he could not handle it, but that he could not unless we were under guard? Do you not trust in his capabilities to defend himself from two soft little humans should it prove necessary? Do you not trust him to judge a plan, approve or disapprove on his own, without your little gatekeeping routine here first? And furthermore, would you really be so stupid as to deprive him of an offer made solely in good faith, from us to him, that would only benefit him? We could have returned to him all his little blades and toys, would only you allow us to-"
The ogre moved toward Adelyn faster than Annabelle would have expected someone of such size to be able to. He picked Adelyn up by the throat like she was a toy doll and slammed her up against the wall. He held her there effortlessly, and he pushed his face close to hers and snarled at her. Adelyn's boots idly swung in the air, as if she didn't mind at all being suspended several feet up off the floor by her neck alone.
"You really need to learn to shut your mouth, human!" the ogre shouted in Adelyn's face. "It will get you into even more trouble than you already are."
"You really do," Annabelle agreed, shaking her head at Adelyn.
"Shut up!" the ogre spat at her. He returned his attentions to Adelyn, and tightened his hold on her neck. "You're lucky today's been a fine day for me, or I wouldn't even be entertaining you all to this point. I would have had you all killed on sight for breaching our fortress, any other time."
Adelyn turned her head as best she could to look at Hermione, a smile on her lips. "Hear that, my dear, dear friend? We'd have been killed on sight, were it any other day! What luck! Indeed, should we take this as conclusive proof of the Felicis doing its work on me?"
"Arrrgh!" The ogre whirled around and hurled Adelyn clear across the room - she hit the far wall with a loud crack, and slid to the floor in a heap. "No wonder we've never let any of your kind into our family, if all of you are so irritating! You aren't even threats, oh no, you're just infuriating to even deal with!"
Adelyn rose to her feet in a single, effortless motion that looked to Annabelle as if she had hovered. And then she started to laugh again. "Ahhh, but you see, I'm no human: not anymore." Her vampire features revealed themselves, and an amused grin came over her face.
"Not really much better..." the ogre muttered, taking her true form in with a sweeping, up and down look. He sighed, dropped his head, and went on with, "Sorry for the trouble, all the same. I'm Vagirras, by the way. Would you tell me what you're here for? And, while you're here, I'd ask you to keep your human pets under control - tell them to keep that talking to a minimum."
"Human pets?!" Hermione burst out, fury and indignation burning in her eyes. Her lips twisted, and her cheeks paled. "Excuse me, but I'm-"
"Quiet, pet," Adelyn interrupted lazily, shooting her an amused look. "Your behavior has just been atrocious lately, I tell you..."
"Enough," Annabelle spoke up, unable to keep the anger she felt then out of her voice. "Adelyn, really, please shut up - and Hermione, shut up too. I'll talk to everyone, I'll handle this - I'll handle everything and everyone in this goddamn place. Do you hear me?"
"You'll handle us?" Vagirras growled dangerously, lifting his broadsword and taking several threatening steps toward Annabelle. "You humans really should be taught when to keep your tongue!"
Annabelle sighed, and looked to Hermione. "Okay, you were right when you said that trying to make something work here would be wrong for the movement. Let's just go."
"You're not going anywhere!" said Vagirras, raising his sword over his head in preparation for a strike. "You break in here, you demand of us, you insult us, and now you think you can just walk out when you feel like it?"
"Pretty much," Adelyn said, throwing up her hands in a fabulous shrug. "Bye now - won't be seeing you." She sped over to Hermione and took her hand, then dragged her over to Annabelle. Annabelle made to disapparate the three of them from the fortress, but found herself unable to do so.
Shit, Annabelle thought, raising her wand and preparing for a fight.
Not an hour after they had returned to their hotel, Hermione approached Annabelle, looking exhausted, sickly, and anxious. Annabelle diverted her attention away from the shiny black shape under the nightstand she had been watching for the past several minutes, and gave Hermione her focus.
"I can't stay with you on this any more," Hermione started, in a shaky tone. Her cheeks flushed, and she seemed to be doing her best to hold Annabelle's gaze. "I can't do it, Annabelle - I don't know how you can. But you can, and you do, and it's amazing, and I admire you for it...but that's you. Not me. It's never going to be me. I'm sorry, but if this is the pace you set, hopping all around the globe, and getting yourself into and out of so much trouble with so many people, then it's a pace I'm not going to be able to keep up with. I can't match you, I can't have your back, and all the stress is eating me up inside...so I have to leave. I'm going to go back to Britain, and go back to what I know I can handle." Hermione touched Annabelle's hand, and smiled uncertainly as she added, "But if you ever need research done, or some information, I'll be happy to do my best on that for you in my spare hours."
Annabelle just nodded. "I understand - thank you."
"I'll just go now, then." Hermione waved her wand, gathering her bag and packing her things into it, and then she very promptly disapparated.
Annabelle glanced back at the base of the nightstand, letting out a breath and putting her hands flat on her knees. *I know you're there. Do you want to talk, or do you want us to leave your territory - if it is, and you aren't just exploring?*
The glossy black shape did not emerge from its hiding place. But they did respond to Annabelle's arachnatongue words. *You're the Speaker.*
*Yes, I am,* Annabelle confirmed. *And you are?*
*Listening to you.*
*I meant, do you have a name?*
There was a long silence. *I can't tell you. The other Speaker told me not to.*
*The other Speaker?* Annabelle repeated, grasping her knees tightly. She'd known arachnamouths, like parselmouths and drakemouths, were one in a million, and she had known there had to be others out there like herself, and even had been others before her, but to hear it said to her so clearly...that was something else. It made her feel something else. *Did this other Speaker tell you to hide out in my territory and listen to me, too?*
*Yes,* came the response, calm and measured, with only the barest hint of anxiety.
*Can you tell me why?* Annabelle asked, as calm as she could be, herself; she'd never once not trusted spiders - in fact, for most of her life, they had been the only people she could trust in - but if she was forced to distrust them now, because of some other arachnamouth and whatever it was they had planned for her that required them to enlist spiders to spy on her wherever she went... If that was going to be how things were now, Annabelle wasn't sure how she would handle it.
*No.*
*Okay,* Annabelle sighed. She lay back on her bed and stared at the ceiling. *You stay under there and you just keep listening to us here, then, okay? I don't mind, for right now. But if someone I know gets hurt because of you, because of what you're relaying back to this other Speaker, I'm going to have to imprison you for a while. Understand?*
*I understand.* There was a note of real fear in their voice now, at the thought of being captured. Caught. Stuck.
Annabelle could relate.