Welcome to Almusilaa

Chapter Twenty-One

Last  chapter guys here we go!

Eleanor came back in with her escort after we had finalized everything. Grace and Eleanor had immediately been whisked away to begin reversing what she did to us. Meanwhile, Charlie had put in the number from the business card for me before laying the phone on the ground for me.

The phone rang. And rang. The quiet sound was louder in the quiet room than I had expected, making me jump a little. Just as the third tone began, it was picked up on the other end.

"Hello?" Ai's voice came through the speaker.

"Hi Ai, it's me. Remember that favour you promised me?" I asked.

"Ash? Yes, of course. What do you need?" Ai asked.

"Can you hide..." I paused to count, "9 fugitives from the council by any chance?" I asked. There was silence for a few seconds.

"For how long?" Ai asked.

"Indefinitely." More silence. A worrying amount of silence. Just when I thought she was going to say no, she surprised me.

"Is the council angry?"

"Uh... yeah, they're going to be pretty royally pissed at us once they find out what we did."

"Excellent. How about you meet me in Broome?" Broome? Now that I thought about it, I didn't even know what state I had been in for the past few weeks. I covered the receiver with my paw.

"Exactly where are we? Can you point it out on a map for me?" I asked. Charlie asked opened up the map feature on her phone. A little satellite image of Australia appeared on the screen. Charlie pointed to a blank spot on the map.

"Somewhere in here."

"And where is Broome?"

The answer to that was about six-hundred kilometres from here. About a seven-hour drive. I got back on the phone with Ai.

"Sure, we'll call you when we get close." I said. I ended the call by tapping the screen with my paw. Great, another problem.

"How exactly do you expect to get us to Broome? Let alone how you, Charlie and Eleanor are going to get to London." Cooper asked. I grimaced.

"Could we... steal a car?" Charlie asked. "I mean... we already kidnapped a child..." I thought about other options but that sounded like the best option.

"As long as it can fit that many people. We'ed need something like a van or a bus..." I trailed off. "What about a council van?" I asked.

"I might know where they store the keys..." Charlie blushed. Since we weren't really needed, we slipped off to go get them.

Charlie led me back the way we came until we came to a door that had a little plaque that said 'Staff' on it. The door was unlocked so Charlie just pushed it open. Inside was dark since there were no windows. Charlie turned on the light and illuminated the room.

It was obviously a break room, there was a kitchenette and a bunch of chairs and small tables. We crossed the room, going up to the bench of the kitchenette. I jumped up on the bench to see better.

Above the microwave was a corkboard filled with hooks and on most of the hooks was a key. A small label sat above each hook, a small laminated rectangle that described the vehicle.

Charlie grabbed the key under the label 'Mercedes van' before she paused, arm still outstretched.

"What's wrong?" I asked her. Charlie's lip trembled.

"It's nothing." Charlie said, quickly grabbing the keys. She turned towards the door but I stopped her.

"It's not nothing. What's wrong?" She paused before sitting down on a faded olive chair at one of the tables.