Chapter 73
Bailey and Ashley were very lucky that there was an outcropping of rock overhead when the rockslide came crashing down. They were even more lucky that it had held, creating a small cave, protecting them from a much worse outcome. As Bailey came to, what struck her immediately was the darkness. At first, she couldn’t even tell whether her eyes were open or closed. And then she remembered what had happened, and the guilt crept in. “Oh my… Ashley..” She attempted to call out to her frenemy but inhaled a lung full of dust, which sent her into a coughing fit.
“Bails? Take it easy, I’m okay, I think. Just, like, take a sec. It takes a few minutes for your eyes to adjust”
Bailey had never been so happy to hear that voice. After she adjusted to the air quality, she asked, “So, you tunneling out of here with a tree root or something?”
“Gosh no! There’s no telling what could cause these rocks to cave in and smother us. We need to keep still and wait for someone to rescue us. But, I bet resue won’t happen until the trial is over.”
This was not good news. Sure, Bailey’s guilt was currently overriding her anger, but who knew what would happen if they were trapped alone in there for too long. “Seems sensible,” she muttered. “Ok, sooo… how are things?”
Ashley started to laugh. And continued to laugh. She just couldn’t stop laughing, which in turn caused Bailey to giggle, then chuckle, and then full-on guffaw. The situation was just so damned avoidable. If Bailey had just made a different decision at one of so many points. She could have denied the birthday truce and given her team an extra day to garner their tying point. She could have allowed June to take on the offensive against Ashley’s team. She could have been more ruthless and just used her costume’s flames to cut down Ashley’s plant army instead of retreating toward the mountains. And she could even have held her cool and not called down Zeus’ wrath upon them, thereby avoiding the ensuing rockslide. But she hadn’t. So there it was; the two Challengers sat in the dark cave, laughing hysterically at their poor choices and bad luck.
Once they had laughed themselves out, they sat in silence for a while before Bailey decided to ask a question that had been bothering her since they had met. “Hey, Ash?” Bailey was thankful that Ashley had made the questionable decision of including her nickname, and part of her actual name, in her Herald Alias. Can I ask you a question that might make you angry? This could be our only chance to talk away from the cameras.”
She sighed. “Shoot me now. Do we have to? Honestly, I literally can’t think of anything worse than being stuck in here having a forced heart-to-heart with someone who hates me,” Ashley answered in an offhand manner. Her guard was clearly down.
Bailey reacted viscerally, “I don’t hate you. Look, you drive me absolutely crazy sometimes with your nagging and holier-than-thou attitude, but I don’t hate you. I just want to know why you constantly push us all away. Is it a tactic for the show– a strategy? Or do you think we don’t care?”
“I don’t do that!” Ashley paused after her own snap reaction and then softened, “I’m not trying to do that. I swear. You know, I’ve never had any real friends. Guys have pretended to like me to get with me, and some girls have decided it is better to stay on my good side. But, it seems like people look for reasons to decide I’m some sort of freak, whether it’s my powers, or being a vegan, or the way I dress, or having two moms. I think I just learned that it's better to be who I am and say what I believe since people don’t like me, even when I do try to change. You wouldn’t understand. Everyone seems to love you.”
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Bailey laughed, “Hah! Yeah, America really loves me right now. Have you seen my OnyxSocial? I had to temporarily shut it off to stop the death threats. That said, would you allow me to give you some unsolicited advice?”
Luckily, Ashley’s grimace wasn’t visible in the extreme darkness, “Doesn’t seem like I’ll be able to stop you.”
“Most people would probably tell you that ‘you catch more flies with honey.’ But, fuck that noise. What I’ve noticed is that big change only happens in two ways: by force or by persuasion. And force is easier. But persuasion can happen. And, it's much easier to change a person’s mind about something if it seems fun rather than a punishment. Sometimes, you make doing the right thing seem so fucking hard. Maybe I’m just a stubborn bitch-”
“-maybe?”
Bailey ignored the interruption but could tell by Ashley’s tone that she was at least thinking about what Bailey was saying, which was good enough for now.
“Okay, your turn. Tell me what I need to fix about myself.” You could hear the smile in Bailey’s words.
“Well, you are condescending, overly concerned about your image, messy, and stubborn.”
“Is that all?”
“No, but let's start there.” Ashley’s tone was somehow both labored and playful all of a sudden.
Bailey decided at that moment that she wanted to give her roommate another chance. They had gotten off to such a good start before their friendship train derailed. Maybe they just needed to wipe the slate clean. She reached her hand out as an olive branch, and it grazed Ashley’s shoulder. “Hi. I’m Hieroglyph. It’s nice to meet you. Let’s be friends.”
“Um…Hi! I’m Ashbury. Sounds good!” Ashley reached her hand across her body and shook Bailey’s, formalizing their fresh start.
That’s odd. Ashley’s hand was wet and sticky. Blood? Bailey had to be sure. She used her other hand to write light on her palm and then empowered it to start a subtle glow. Fuck. The red stickiness was red. Blood red. The slight glow went out before she could investigate further. “Hey Ash, how bad is it?”
Ashley answered Bailey’s question with a question.“How bad is what?”
“Your hand is covered in blood. Where’d it come from?”
“Oh, that. I’m fine,” she lied.
“That, I doubt. Okay, well, now that we are friends, I’m not letting you die in here. Even if we weren’t…” Bailey mumbled a bit as she thought through options. “There has got to be a safe way out of this death trap. I’m so sorry I made this happen.” Bailey’s mind was whirring, running through all of the words she thought might be applicable to the situation. There was a bigger problem, though – Her power was glitching. Since their fight had started, her effects were lasting a shorter and shorter duration. “Oh, shit!” she said aloud as she patted the ground around her, searching for her phone. She had forgotten that she had dropped it during the battle. “Have you seen my phone?”
“No-”
“Pat the ground around you. Try to find it,” Bailey made sure to keep any irritation out of her voice. They were making progress in their relationship, and she didn’t want to undo all the positive work by being too bossy.
“No dice,” Ash said after a minute or so.
“Okay, it was a long shot anyway.” This seemed pretty life or death, so she decided to trust Ashley with her latest secret. Luckily, there were no cameras around for this part. “So, bad news… my power is glitching out a little right now, it's unstable. I can’t seem to predict how long an effect is going to last. Some are immediately de-energizing after I empower them. So, I can’t simply make us dematerialize and walk out of here because we don’t want to rematerialize inside of a rock or something.”
“Yeah,” Ashley said. “That seems like it’d be like… bad.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be amazing. But that means we’re gonna have to risk using your power. Let me pitch you an idea and see what you think of the likelihood that it will work..”
As Bailey laid out her risky plan that would end up going un-used, unbeknownst to the two powerhouses, a singular camera drone was circling around inside the cave, capturing the whole drama, and beaming it out to The Show’s production team. The good news was that help would soon be on the way to their hidden location. The bad news was that their private moment, including Bailey’s admission of weakness, would soon be revealed and featured on next week’s episode of Top Seed. Hieroglyph just couldn’t catch a break.