Danny had enjoyed watching crime shows once. One episode in particular stood out in his mind.

A young woman had been dragged of somewhere and shackled. She got away by chewing her trapped hands off. In the end, the madman caught up with her; killing her and leaving her body in the desert.

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"As much as I'd like to stay around, Yassen," Alex said, walking to the net and cutting it open with the rock, something the killed killer didn't try and stop,

"We really have to get going. So, if you'll excuse us-"

Yassen suddenly lashed out at the boy, kicking him in the gut and sending him flying back. Alex slammed into a tree, and lay still. The ghost turned to Sam and Tucker, who had crawled out of the hole Alex made, and stared at them, causing them to flinch ever so slightly.

"The two of you have no business with me."

Yassen fired at a tree branch over Alex, breaking it until the entire piece fell on and around him.

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"Alex!" Sam and Tucker shouted. Yassen vanished in a plume of black smoke. Sam had somehow managed to maintain her grip on the bat during the net encounter, and decided to stand close guard as Tucker dug the other boy out.

"None of this makes any sense!" she said angrily, briefly helping Tucker move a large limb before going back to scanning the area. "If we're the ghosts of the Ghost Zone by being human, how come Alex didn't just phase through the tree?"

"This is Skulker's place, Sam. The trees must be hand made by him to keep humans from having free run around here."

"How can you tell?"

"'It's just a guess. Can you help me with this branch? It's even heavier than the other one."

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Skulker observed the small rescue of the boy with amusement. The ghost child's friends finally pulled the boy out. He was bleeding, and they had to force him to wake up.

"How is he doing?" Plasmius materialized into the room Skulker was in, which was five feet, of solid rock, under Danny.

"Which one?"

"Both, I suppose."

"The boy out in the field took a massive hit. The ghost child has tried dozens of times to get to the key, the fool."

"What key? Don't tell me you left the key up there!"

"I left a key up with him, just out of his reach. He thinks it's the key that will unlock that shackle. It's just an old key, at least for him. It will never open any lock if he is the one holding it."

Plasmius chuckled before turning invisible and fazing up to see the little badger.

Danny was standing. Every few seconds, he'd jerk his trapped leg in a vain attempt to free it. His ankle was raw and bleeding. Combined with his bloody hands and wounds received while fighting the older halfa earlier; he was a mess.

"Little badger, what on earth are you doing?"

Danny ignored him, turning his back to the older man and sitting down. His leg hurt too much.

Plasmius remained invisible, but Danny knew where he was roughly by his voice. The older man cleared his throat. Danny remained still.

"Are you giving in?" Plasmius asked, not receiving an answer. He waited a few more minutes, finally deciding to leave. A voice stopped him.

"I can't believe you." Danny muttered, "You make me sick."

"That can't be helped, little badger. It's only your opinion, after all."

"You are such a coward. You won't even show your face; are you having second thoughts over this whole thing?"

Plasmius flew out the eye socket opening at the front of the cavern, leaving Danny to his thoughts.

He, Plasmius, was having second thoughts though. He had grown tired of waiting for Maddie and Daniel. His stumbling across a teenage spy, as strong as Daniel in different ways, was more than fate; at least he had thought so. This Alex Rider, an orphan, could have been adopted by him, and they could have destroyed the Fenton's. It had seemed like a brilliant idea when it was in his head, making him want to test Alex to see how strong he really was, which brought him to the current situation. He should have known this would have never worked out.

"Skulker," he announced, phasing back beside the ghost, "I want nothing to do with this ordeal any more. Anything that happens now is on your head. Just don't kill Daniel until the time is up."

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The first thing Alex asked, or demanded, was to know how long he had been knocked out.

"A few minutes-"

"Then we need to move! Time is running out!"

Sam and Tucker nodded, and the trio set off at a dead sprint. In ten minutes time, they made it to the base of the elevation.

"It looks like a skull," Sam commented dryly. In any other situation, she would have found this discovery to be interesting. She scanned the area, looking for the Russian. Of course, if he didn't want her to see him, then she wouldn't. Alex approached the rock, trying to find a way up to the part that mimicked a skull. Tucker sucked in some air at that moment to call out Danny's name. He never made it past the first syllable. Sam had jumped on him, clamping her hand over his mouth.

"Will you shut it?" she hissed, "Skulker or that other guy could be anywhere!"

"If Yassen was going to attack again, he would have done so already." Alex said without turning around. "Shouting should be okay. I don't think Skulker will kill us until the time limit is over; which is, not counting the three minutes wasted just now, seventeen minutes."

Sam released Tucker, and they both began frantically shouting for Danny. Meanwhile, Alex had secured a way up, and was steadily climbing. He was only a dozen feet away.

"Danny!! DANNY!"

"You there, man?!"

…

"I'm up here!"

Sam, still holding the bat, and Tucker jumped at the wall, meeting Alex almost instantly. They were running on pure adrenaline.

After five minutes of climbing, they crawled into one of the eye sockets of the cave. Their bodies blocked the entrance and cut off most of the light getting in; they couldn't see much of anything. Alex and the others ran in further, stopping when Danny cried out,

"No! Stop running!"

They skidded to a halt, just in time to hear something small and metallic get kicked across the room.

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AN: HAHA! EVIL! They'll get Danny out… eventually.

Just so everyone knows, I kind of ripped off the little bit about the girl who chewed her hands off from the show CSI! It really was one of the episodes, but I don't know which one, or what season it came from. So, take this as a disclaimer for CSI! XD Believe me, if I owned the show, Greg would be on it more, and Grissom would still be on… and Warrick would be alive!