The Awakening

Joy

Fintan's POV

"Are you sure this'll work?" Brant asked cautiously, after we had watched Sophie plummet directly into our trap.

"Of course it'll work," I snapped, turning around and making long strides toward the 'base'.

I heard Brant stumble to keep up with my pace, tripping over himself like he had two left feet.

I rolled my eyes. Pathetic.

"Sophie will go through the whole maze, no doubt," I started to explain, somewhat annoyed. "Then, she'll 'escape' and return to her friends, thinking she knows our plans. We'll stay in hiding and capture the list of elves, until the Peace Summit where we reveal our actual plans."

"What about . . ?" Brant trailed off, obviously not sure if he should finish his sentence.

I halted and spun around to face him just as we reached the entrance to the fake base. "What about . . . who?"

Brant gulped and stared down at his feet as he mumbled something incoherently.

"If you don't answer me this instant, I'll put you back on kitchen duty," I seethed.

His head shot up, his wide eyes staring at me with disbelief. "You wouldn't .  . ."

"Oh," I smirked, "I would."

"What about . . . Jolie?" Brant finally questioned, his gaze looking more distant at the last word.

I stepped closer to him, "Has someone developed some feelings for his assignment?"

"N-no," he stuttered, suddenly straightening up and narrowing his eyes at me. "I just meant that it's going to be a hassle to deal with her and all of our plans, so we should just . . . get rid of her."

I eyed him carefully, analyzing his fidgeting hands, shuffling feet, and wary eyes. Something wasn't adding up, and I intended to find out what. So, a little test wouldn't hurt . . .

"Fine, I'll get one of the goblin guards to kill her," I waved him off and began turning around to enter again.

"No," Brant said, with a suddenly cold tone. "I'll do it."

I faced him again, simply to say, "Make sure you get the job done this time."

With that, I entered the base and initiated our plans to move before Sophie could finish the maze.

We'll see how much of a coward Brant really is.

Sophie's POV

The moment I saw the huge spider falling from the ceiling, I froze and my blood ran cold.

I wasn't one to be afraid of spiders. I was always around relatively scary animals at Havenfield, so I'd gotten used to them.

But, this was a whole different thing.

In the midst of my trepidation, I hadn't realized that said spider was wrapped a tight, intricate ball of spider webs around me. I shot my hands out instinctively to push it away as soon as I realized what was happening.

Bad idea.

My hands got stuck on the strangely soft string at the top of the trap.

Joy.

Suddenly I was being flipped upside down, my legs awkwardly folding and hanging toward the ground where my hands were stuck to the web.

Then, the ball made mother rotation and my legs connected with the newly made bottom strings of the web.