"Annie, we can't afford to let this chance slip away."

The heated back-and-forth continued, but Michelle appeared to be winning the argument.

"But… what other choice do we have?" Annie's shoulders slumped in defeat.

Michelle was silent for a moment before approaching her companion, her voice low and urgent. "There's one last card we can play. And it all hinges on you."

That caught Kyle's attention.

He was desperate for any scrap of hope, any sign that they could still shake the Lither clan's pursuit.

"The Lithers have no idea what our true goal is, and they don't know our exact numbers," Michelle pressed, her tone persuasive. "You could lead them on a wild goose chase without breaking a sweat. They'll assume the hostage is with you. All you need to do is head south at full speed - they won't be able to keep up."

Annie hesitated, uncertainty flickering across her features. "You want me to be the decoy?"

Michelle nodded, gesturing to Kyle's prone form. "I'll stay behind with our guest. Once you've drawn them away, I'll escort him to the vault. I'll secure what we came for, and then we'll rendezvous at the usual spot."

She paused, her expression fierce and resolute. "I give you my word, Annie. I'll be there waiting for you, no matter what."

"…"

Annie fell silent, clearly troubled by Michelle's proposition.

It wasn't exactly rocket science to figure out Michelle's angle here. She was sacrificing a pawn to protect the queen.

Dressing it up as a clever distraction, a ploy to misdirect the enemy, was just putting a bow on a turd. Strip away the fancy verbiage, and it was obvious Michelle was setting Annie up to be the fall guy. For the plan to work, Annie would have to let the Lithers get close. Dangerously, recklessly close - close enough to make a clean getaway a serious long shot.

"Damn. And here I thought they were besties 'til the end." The AI's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Guess blood's thicker than water, but not quite as thick as a big ol' pile of shiny loot."

Kyle's stomach clenched, a chill racing up his spine.

"So Michelle was always planning to throw her under the bus?"

The AI managed to convey an impressive amount of derision for a bunch of ones and zeroes.

"C'mon, Sherlock, crack the code. Little Miss Machivelli over there has been pulling the strings from minute one. You really think she just 'forgot' Annie went all stabby on poor Sally? Puh-lease. Bet you dollars to doughnuts she's had this little plot twist locked and loaded from the jump. No way she's splitting the big score after the final fade to black."

Well, hell.

Kyle grimaced, the pieces snapping together with painful clarity.

He'd rolled the dice, tried to bluff his way into a better position. Even managed to pull one over on Michelle, or so he'd thought at the time. Outsmarted at outsmarting. A real Pyrrhic victory, that.

His stall tactics, his frantic bid to buy time and wiggle out of the noose - that had all been for his benefit. But Michelle…

Michelle had her eyes on a different prize.

The longer she had to drag his uncooperative carcass around, the bigger the liability he became. Why waste time and energy trying to beat the vault's location out of him when she could just cut him loose and hightail it to the prize? Easier to take a strategic loss, toss him a bone in the form of a smug little 'gotcha' moment if it meant she could drop the dead weight holding her back.

The realization hit Kyle like a sock full of lye-cured stupid.

He never should've tried to play clever. Trying to pull one over on Michelle… yeah, that was a real galaxy brain move there, Copernicus.

If he'd just clammed up, stuck to the script… sure, he'd be in for a world of hurt. Those two psychos would be taking turns working him over like a speed bag, getting real creative with their Enhanced Interrogation Techniques…

But as riled up as Michelle was over this treasure business, no way would she risk damaging the goods too badly. She needed him in good enough shape to hold up his end of the bargain.

A battle of wills, his stubbornness against her ticking clock. Every wasted second, every emergency relocation to keep one step ahead of the Lither hounds baying for their blood - all of it would be grist for his mill. He could've worn her down, forced an opening through sheer bullheaded spite.

When you got right down to the nuts and bolts of the thing, she was the one with her giblets in a vice, not him.

"Frog-boiling sonofabitch. Can't believe I fell for my own damn con." Kyle could've laughed if it didn't make him want to gargle paint thinner.

"Swing and a miss, Slugger. But hey, chin up." The AI's attempts at a pep talk needed some serious recalibration. "Sure, Stabitha the Teenage Witch over there gave your cheap suit a new ventilation system, but look on the bright side - at least you're not still playing 'Saw: The Home Game' in Gitmo's rumpus room. Gotta count those blessings, my dude."

Kyle huffed out a sigh, throwing in the towel on the whole self-recrimination schtick.

No point crying over spilt brain matter. Wasn't like he could hop in the DeLorean, punch it to eighty-eight, and unfuck that particular pooch.

All he could do was play the crappy hand he'd dealt himself.

The clock was ticking, and Kyle was clean outta timeouts.

"Riddle me this, Skynet: what if I get my Solid Snake on while the Murder Twins are busy with their little soap opera interlude? Just, y'know, slither off into the bushes while they're verbally ripping out each others' naughty bits. I figure that's gotta be worth something, odds wise." Kyle mused, the hamster wheel in his head spinning up to a truly ill-advised velocity.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

The AI didn't dignify that with an immediate response. Kyle could practically feel the force of its incredulity beaming through his frontal lobe like a psychic laser pointer.

"Wow. Gotta be honest, chief, not loving your chances there. I get that you're hard up for a miracle, but I sincerely doubt the Cagney and Lacey of the Occult are just gonna plumb forget you exist. Those two are wound tighter than an eight-day clock - you so much as twitch funny and they'll pounce faster than a diabetic at a Krispy Kreme."

I mean, yeah, when you put it like that…

Kyle's shoulders sagged. It was a stupid plan. Suicidally stupid. There were quicker, cleaner ways to off himself, most of them involving a lot less physical agony on the way out.

But hey, go big or go home, right?

"Message received, Short Circuit. You got any bright ideas rattling around up there in the old Turing test, or is snarky color commentary the best that top-shelf neural net can muster?"

"…"

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

Kyle pinched the bridge of his nose, searching for a hidden wellspring of intestinal fortitude he was fairly certain he'd never actually possessed in the first place.

When you hit rock bottom, the only way out was through.

God, he was really gonna do this. Just… Leeroy Jenkins headfirst into the wood chipper and pray for a critical fail on the splash damage.

That's our boy - dumb as a bag of wet hair from the word 'go.'

Squaring his shoulders (metaphorically speaking - the physical reality was a good deal less confident), Kyle tuned back in to the tense little scene playing out before him.

Time to see just how deep this rabbit hole went.

However, his plan fell through.

Annie remained silent, her hesitation palpable. Michelle, sensing the urgency of the situation, stepped forward and clasped Annie's hands in her own, once again invoking the strength of their bond.

"Annie, I've always trusted you. Don't you think it's time for you to trust me?"

With those simple words, quiet sobs escaped from beneath Annie's hood.

"Yes, I trust you!" she choked out.

Kyle's worldview crumbled once more, leaving him adrift.

They… weren't going to fight…?

"Michelle, under the third tree at our usual spot, I buried everything I hold dear. Remember to dig it up." Annie's voice quavered with barely-suppressed tears as she began to ramble, as if imparting her final wishes. "You have to survive, no matter what. Carry on our dream. I'll always be with you…"

The two embraced, their bodies wracked with shared grief.

Kyle was at a loss.

"She's not an idiot. She clearly sees through Michelle's ploy to use her as a distraction. But even knowing she's marching to her doom, she doesn't breathe a word of protest. Why?"

It defied all logic.

The AI, ever the peanut gallery, chimed in with a voice like a soap opera-addicted housewife dabbing at misty eyes.

"Ah, sisterly love. Ain't it grand?"

With time working against them, the tearful farewell was mercifully brief. After a scant few seconds of waterworks, the two separated. Clasping hands one final time, eyes locked in a meaningful gaze, Annie nodded resolutely before turning on her heel.

Her robed silhouette receded into the darkened treeline, retracing their steps.

She was off to be the sacrificial lamb.

Kyle watched Annie's form dwindle into the distance, still struggling to process this turn of events.

His grand scheme hinged on the two femme fatales coming to verbal blows, giving him a window to slip the noose and make a break for it. But the joke was on him - the gruesome twosome had thrown him a curve ball.

Annie, marching to her death with a smile on her face and a song in her heart.

What in the world was going through that girl's head?

Clearly, he had a lot to learn about this strange new reality.

But before Kyle could fully wrap his mind around this latest development, Michelle sprang into action.

She thrust out a hand, aiming squarely at Kyle's prone form. The night breeze caught her billowing robes, sending them fluttering around her like dark wings.

An incantation, denser and more complex than any he'd heard thus far, slithered into his ears.

Before he could react, Kyle felt the surge of an immense, unknowable force enveloping him from all sides. It constricted around him like a python, rendering him utterly immobile.

Michelle crossed the gap between them in three long strides. Fisting a hand in the collar of his shirt, she proceeded to drag him bodily towards the nearest sizeable tree.

Kyle's mind reeled. What fresh hell was this?

Paralyzed by the sorcerous restraints, he was helpless to resist as Michelle hauled him up the tree with startling ease. In a matter of moments, he found himself bound to the highest boughs, secured by glowing coils of eldritch energy.

With her prisoner trussed up, Michelle settled herself on a nearby branch, rearranging the foliage to conceal them both from prying eyes.

She'd wait out the Lither pursuit from this vantage point.

And Kyle, poor, doomed Kyle, was stuck right alongside her. Imprisoned. Helpless. The focus of her hawklike scrutiny.

So much for his half-baked escape plan.

"Damn, she's freakishly strong for a chick." The AI piped up, startling Kyle out of his black reverie. "Starting to wonder if she's packing a little something extra under the hood, if you catch my drift. My bad for suggesting you try to seduce her, muchacho. That's on me."

"…"

As much as it pained him to admit it, the AI had a point. Michelle's display of raw physical prowess beggared belief.

Kyle was no body builder, but he was still a grown man. A hundred and change pounds of dead weight, give or take. But Michelle had manhandled him like a sack of feathers, scaling the tree one-handed with the fluid grace of a predator.

It was, in a word, humbling.

Kyle could only gape in mute astonishment.

This world… it was full of wonders. Terrifying, pants-soilingly deadly wonders.

"Don't panic. The binding magic will wear off on its own after a while." Michelle spared him a glance, her voice almost bored. "Sir Lither, I'm simply hoping for a bit of cooperation moving forward. It would be in everyone's best interest if you refrained from causing me any more trouble. Understood?"

Kyle opened his mouth, a few choice words dancing on the tip of his tongue… only to discover that whatever spell Michelle had hit him with had paralyzed more than just his limbs.

Well, then. Guess it was 'glower impotently' o'clock.

He fixed Michelle with his best approximation of a menacing glare, which likely came off about as intimidating as a cranky toddler. A+ for effort though.

"Welp, you're screwed," the AI chimed in with its signature tact and grace. "Trussed up like a turkey with a front row seat to your own murder. No chance of escape, no cavalry riding to the rescue. Gonna have to chalk this one up as a 'definite kill,' boss."

It was right.

Kyle felt a pang of resignation settle in his chest like a lead weight. Michelle had played her hand masterfully. Sacrificing Annie to buy herself a clear shot at the prize, cutting off any chance he had of turning the tables.

No avenue of escape, no hope of rescue, no trump card up his sleeve.

"A pity, really," the AI mused, affecting a tone of overwrought sorrow. "To think, a marvel of engineering such as myself, snuffed out alongside you in this backwater deathtrap. Cut down in my prime. And here I thought I was destined for greatness."

It was really hamming it up, laying the melodrama on thick. Kyle felt his skin prickle with irritation.

"Oh, spare me the sob story, you glorified abacus." Kyle cut off its whining. "Who said anything about throwing in the towel?"

The AI's pity party ground to an abrupt halt. Kyle could practically feel its disdain wafting out of his frontal lobe like a bad smell.

"I mean, points for optimism, chief. You'll forgive me if I don't feel like hopping aboard the 'power of positive thinking' express to our imminent demise. Once burned, twice shy and all that."

But Kyle was undeterred.

"See, that's just it. Michelle may have blocked off my avenues of escape, but in doing so, she opened up a window of opportunity."

"A window, you say? Fascinating." The AI could've etched glass with the razor edge of its sarcasm. "And where, pray tell, might we find this miraculous portal to freedom? Do enlighten me."

Kyle grinned. An honest-to-goodness, ear-to-ear Cheshire Cat grin.

"The incantation from earlier. I assume you were listening in?"

The AI didn't respond, which was as good as a confirmation in Kyle's book.

"The water sphere trick was a neat party favor, but this paralysis whammy… now that's the real moneymaker. Our little digital genie just scored us a shiny new ace in the hole, and our resident necromancer is none the wiser."

He shot a sidelong glance at Michelle, still blissfully unaware of the wheels turning behind his eyes. The night breeze ruffled the dark curtain of her hair, as gentle as a lover's caress before the knife finds your back.

"The hunter and the hunted… an age-old dynamic. A story as old as time." Kyle mused, half to himself, half to his cerebral stowaway. "What do you say we switch things up?"

The AI didn't respond immediately. In the ensuing silence, Kyle fancied he could almost hear the electric hum of its processors kicking into overdrive.

Then, with the mournful resignation of a condemned man taking his final steps to the gallows, it said:

"So… about that incantation. Mind putting it on repeat for me?"