A Spy's Life: Part Two

White Mage slung the teen easily over her shoulder, though he had to be twice her weight. The two trod the path lightly, heading for the waterfall behind which was concealed an elevator to the agency. Twist relaxed, and thought of YKW's expression when he would try to apologize.

They reached the cliff and put him down to rest a bit. White Mage whisked off her mask-cap, bouncing black hair to her shoulders. Finally. A rest. Twist smiled. "Did you ever think we would get this far?"

"Yes," winked White Mage. "It was destined. We fixed our necklaces - " she stroked the purple heart charm on the chain around her neck "- and stayed friends. Our games were prophetic."

The next thing Twist knew, she was opening her eyes slowly and dimly to the warm sunlight. She sat up, rubbed her eyes and glanced around. Her friend was gone.

Twist's reaction was so quick, she herself was surprised and shocked at where she ended up one second later. She back sprung powerfully to swing on a vine around a tree and grab another branch; from where she climbed up to observe the cliff where she had, stupidly, fallen asleep. Their prisoner was nowhere to be seen.

She cursed herself and slowly observed the perimeter.

No one.

Twist was not fooled.

She swung from vine to vine, never remaining on one for more than a second, momentum keeping the thin plant from snapping under her weight. She landed near the cliff and started to run. Run. Run. Run.

She could see an aircraft overhead - the fast and loud kind, not the regular planes that brought people to vacation. A war plane. Something dropped, a dot in the sky growing slightly larger by the half heartbeat and Twist ran even faster, feet rolling off the ground, pounding, running. When she was four feet away from the cliff face and the thundering white water, she pushed off into the air.

For a moment, she fell, flew. It was nothing like she'd ever felt - stomach dropping, falling like a rock. She had never fallen this far before, the beautiful water behind her, the crystal pool before her, who knew how deep.

And then she felt the explosion rock her world, releasing fire and smoke and ash. She turned her face up to see an orange cloud building up and growing, raining bits of matter. Twist remembered who she was and where she was going to end up in half a second. She twisted around and tensed into a rigid dive (a maneuver that would amaze Houdini at her speed) in the nick of time. She literally did this at the last possible sixty-fourth of a second that would have left her alive.

She let go of all her air and fumbled in her pocket for a metal key, and swam under; shoulders and waist aching from the jerk that she felt when in water. She found the rock face, where a seemingly random crack hid away. Twist slipped inside the key and pulled with all her might at the rock. She never had the least bit tolerance for deprivance of air, and she was running out. She slipped inside the rock when possible, into the cavern, and swam up gasping for air.