Merrin was at a loss of what to do. After two towns, there had still been no communication attempts from anyone to return Chuck to her. Didn’t they realize that she wouldn’t stop until Chuck was back? Did they somehow think she wasn’t serious yet?

  She let the message play on loop in the third town, but was growing restless. What if Chuck managed to escape? She knew he would likely leave her behind, so there was a good chance he made it out okay, but she wasn’t going to take any chances if he was captured.

  Merrin shook her head at the thought. He would send her a message if he escaped. It was not like she was making it hard to figure out what town she was in. If she got a message from Chuck, she would stop. Otherwise, she needed to assume the worst and do anything necessary to get him back.

  The fact that she hadn’t received a line of negotiation yet meant nobody was taking her seriously enough right now. That meant she needed to be more aggressive. Merrin shrugged and pressed the button two hours early. If the situation wasn’t serious enough for them, then she would make it worse. After hey experienced the effects of this version of hypnosite integrations, they would wish they contacted her sooner. All she wanted was one man in exchange for several towns, nothing else.

  Merrin jumped at a pounding on the door behind her. Without hesitation, she leapt to rip the vent in the wall open using her simian strength. She could easily navigate through the vents to the surface via a pre-meditated route. Once on the surface, she could change and fly away.

  “We have Chuck,” A man’s voice shouted from the other side of the door.

  Merrin froze. That was the one phrase that could have stopped her in her tracks. She looked to the door, still hanging from the partially ripped out vent and called out, “I’m listening. Try to break in and I run.”

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  ”Understood. We will remain in the hall, but is there any way to talk so we don’t have to shout through a door?” The man on the other side asked.

  Merrin hopped down and flipped on the intercom to the hallway and said, “You can speak normally now. Is Chuck in the hallway with you?”

  “No ma’am, we detained Chuck and he is safely back at HQ. My name is Special Agent Dice. I have been granted clearance to negotiate with you and have been assigned to extract you and bring you directly to Chuck if you are willing.” Special agent Dice said.

  “Why? What about the changed people?” Merrin asked. This sounded different than what she expected. The way Dice said hings made her think they didn’t even care about her threats.

  Dice said in a calm voice, “The only concern I’ve been ordered to have is you. Anything else is a distraction, nothing more.”

  ”What makes me so important to you then?” Merrin still felt like she was missing something. She’d never been a big deal.

  “Chuck has been unconscious and unresponsive since the moment he’s been in our custody and you are the most likely person to know what’s happened and how to help him since you worked so closely together.”

  Merrin’s eyes went wide at the news. She smiled slowly as she realized what that meant. Chuck pulled it off. He managed to finally escape his body. That meant that the FBI didn’t capture Chuck, they merely had his discarded, useless body. “I’m going to turn the intercom off and then open the door. Please stand back and wait.”

  ”Yes, ma-“ Dice was cut off when Merrin turned the intercom off.

  Merrin hopped back up to the vent and ripped it back far enough to crawl through. She wasn’t sure how long they would wait before realizing she was never going to open the door, so she hurried through her memorized escape route. She changed into a raven and was airborne long before she saw any commotion below.

  Merrin bee-lined it back to their original base where Chuck would be in his new Hypnosite form. He wouldn’t know himself at first, but if Merrin could find him, she could protect him while he regained his consciousness and memories. Then they could finally be together, no longer restrained by their human shackles.