Supervillain Girlfriend!

Chapter 13: Trust Exercises

        For the rest of the day Beatrice acted like nothing had happened. Her talkative mood had vanished, but she did ask Charlie a few questions every now and then, though they were always simple.

      Charlie almost wished she would act weird about it instead.

       Charlie ended up being the one to make dinner, although it was just a frozen pizza. It was the one thing she bought that required refrigeration, and, as it turned out, the fridge was one of the appliances that wasn't working.

      Now, as they sat at the table, eating quietly, Charlie couldn't stop fidgeting. As Beatrice took another bite of her cheese pizza, she glanced warily at Charlie.

       "So What was the last part of your plan, again?" She asked.

       "Uh, oh, yeah!" Charlie snapped out of her awkward daze. She dug the burner phone out of her bag and passed it to Beatrice across the table. "Do you think you could rig this up so that the phone calls aren't traceable?"

        Beatrice sat her pizza slice down and looked over the phone. "I can certainly try. I don't have a lot of my tools here, but it shouldn't take too much work. What are you planning on doing with it?"

        "I wanted to try and get in touch with my friend Harleigh. She works in the IT department at Del—"

        "What?!" Beatrice's voice jumped up an octave. "Why would you want to do that?"

         Charlie frowned. "You said if the ransom didn't work out we'd have to break in and take the super secret thing ourselves. Harleigh works with security technology, so I figured she could help us get in without raising any alarms."

       Beatrice crossed her arms. "Well I don't like this plan. I don't know this girl. How can you be sure she won't tell the authorities everything?"

       "That's why I wanted to talk to her a little bit first." Charlie said. "You know, warm her up to the idea."

        "I don't trust this girl, Charlie."

        "But—"

         "I know it's not a big deal to you. I know this seems like a fun little adventure in your mind, but I'm probably going to a high security prison for the rest of my life, no matter what the outcome is. I want to make this count."

         For once, Beatrice had an actual look of fear in her eyes when she talked about going to prison. It put a bad taste in Charlie's mouth. She wanted to reassure Beatrice that she would do anything she could to keep her out of prison. After all, she had enough money to hire the best lawyers in the entire country—hell, in the world, to keep her out of jail.

        But she knew Beatrice hated hearing things like that. She didn't like hearing about how rich people could use their money to get away with anything. So she didn't bring it up.

       Instead, she tried to reason with her.

      "What else can we do, B?" Charlie said.

        Beatrice shook her head. "I, I don't know. I can think of something. Another plan. I just need some time..."

         "B—"

         "I don't trust her, Charlie."

         "But do you trust me?" Charlie asked.  

           "I—" Beatrice paused, blinking at her with wide eyes. "No. No I don't."

          A pang of sandess cut through Charlie's core. Although she tried not to look hurt, she couldn't help the sour look  that crept into her face.