the next dark age: book two insanity

chapter 16 meeting Charlie

Angel was kneeling behind the counter of the shop. She did not dare to look outside, for fear that one of the cultist members would see her. She also could stand the sight of all those people being burned alive.

The door jingled open, and Angel poked her head out from beneath the counter and looked to see if Trisha had finally come back for her. Instead Charlie entered, and Angel ducked back down.

Her heart sped up, and she prayed that Charlie hadn't seen her.

"Come out from behind there." Charlie seemed to croak, as if his voice was incredibly sore from a cold.

Angel stood up and put her hands up, "please, don't hurt me." Angel also coraked, "I don't want any trouble."

Charlie took off his sunglasses to reveal bloodshots eyes with tears in them, "I'm sorry about all this." Charlie said, wiping his eyes, "I never intended for all of this, and I don't think I can do this anymore. At one point we were so noble, and true. And Dawn" Charlie laughed, "Dawn wasn't always like he was. To finally meet someone who never lied, it was such a blessing. I believed I could trust him. And originally we could trust him. We set out to cure world hunger, and get revenge on Tim." Charlie sniffed, "today was the first time in a long time i've been out in the field. I told myself that what Dawn did wasn't that bad, but looking back on this day, I was wrong. And I'm sorry. I don't know if you believe me, or accept my apology, but do know I truly am sorry. Anyways, I can safely lead you out of here if you want."

Angel knew trusting this man was a bad idea, but she was so desperate for someone to protect her, that she accepted.

As soon as Angel walked outside she could see Mia in the distance, with two other figures. One was Lizzy, who was handcuffed, and the other was someone she did not recognize, but as he got closer, Angel saw the beast's tattoo on him.

"Just follow my lead." Charlie whispered to Angel before coughing.

"I found a prisoner." Mia said, while approaching Charlie "I believe she is working with Tim on something. I am going to take her back to the prison nearby. If you want, I can take your prisoner and you can head with Dawn."

"I would suggest this." the other person said, "I just found out where one of the boxes is that contains the virus, and we are going to tell Dawn."

"Really" Charlie said, "well where is it?"

"I've written the coordinates down here" the man handed Charlie a slip of paper.

Charlie smiled at the man and said, "thank you, unfortunately I plan on betraying Dawn, so you have to die." Charlie punched the man squarely in the face with enough force to shatter the man's skull.

Charlie turned to Mia, who shouted, "wait, I'm with Tim!" Lizzy undid her handcuffs by pressing a button, revealing the handcuffs to be fake.

"I'm going to find Dawn," Charlie said "and tell him the reverse of where the coordinates actually are. Hopefully that grunt didn't tell anyone else besides me. You lead these two back to safety. You also need to find anyone else you can and go to this location and destroy that box. In order to not contract the virus yourself I would suggest throwing it off a high building."

"Okay, should we wait for Tim to get here?" Lizzy asked.

"No," Mia said, "when I was inducted to become one of the council members of the new government they showed me a room that apparently could show where Tim and Dawn are through GPS." Mia pulled something out of her pocket. It was a small rectangular device with a screen on it. The screen showed a series of numbers. "Do you know how to use one of these?" Mia asked.

Lizzy shook her head.

"Okay, well the first series of numbers is how far north you are. The bigger the number, the more north you are. The other series of numbers is how east you are from some location in Europe. The closer to zero you get, the closer to Europe you are. You got all that?"

Lizzy nodded, "so this could show me where Tim is?"

"no, sorry. that portable one only has enough power to track you. in the central council area we can track all of these those. any other questions?"

"no."

 "Great, you two find others who can help you. I have to return to my seat on the council. See you guys."