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.

"I trust you." She said quietly.

"That's because you have the personality of a golden retriever." Beatrice said.

"Why don't you trust me? I could have went home with Linton, but I decided to help you." Charlie said.

Beatrice looked to the side. "You only did that so you could try and have sex with me."

"Wh— I did not!" Charlie said. "I mean, I'm not saying I don't want to sleep with you, because I do, but— I would never go on the run just as a means to an end—That would be such a waste of my time and not to mention—I'm not, I'm not sleazy like that!"

Beatrice didn't say anything, she just looked at the ground with a half guilty half pained expression.

"I don't understand why you came with me. You should have just went with Linton."

Just be honest with her. Charlie told herself.

"Listen, B." She said. "You said if you don't take this thing and get rid of it, it'll fall into the wrong hands?"

"Yes that's right,"

"And you think someone is after as we speak, and if they do get it, a lot of people will suffer?"

"Yes. They ultimately want to take over the government." Beatrice said.

"That's why I wanted to help you. I wanted to do something." Charlie said.

"It's not your responsibility to do something, Charlie. Why do you think it is?"

Charlie sighed and pushed her plate away, feeling a little sick. Despite the unease in her stomach, she decided to just get it over with and tell Beatrice what she was thinking.

"I was there for the Citi Bank bombing, back when I was twelve. My mom... she actually died in the bombing."

"Oh.." Beatrice said. "Uh—"

"I just remember, standing there behind a desk, my mom laying beside me, not moving. Bill Gadget was standing on the counter, talking about bringing in a new era while people were dying. All I could think was ...'why doesn't somebody do something?'"

Charlie sighed and ran her hand through her hair, which was beginning to get a bit too long and unkempt.

"I guess when you said back at your apartment that it could happen again I just realized that I am somebody. If I could help at all in stopping something like that from happening, and I chose not to help—well. It would make me feel like I was just as bad as the villains."

Beatrice chewed on her bottom lip as she glowered down at the floor.

"I'll see what I can do."

It was still awkwardly quiet after dinner. Charlie wanted to ask her if she was angry about the kiss. She wanted to ask her if she had gotten the wrong idea, and Beatrice hadn't been interested all along. In the end, she couldn't get the courage to do it.

Instead, she awkwardly watched as Beatrice worked on the phone.

Eventually, Beatrice got up and walked over to Charlie and pressed the phone into her palm.

"You should be good to go." Beatrice said.

Charlie smiled at her. "Thank you for trusting me. You won't regret it."

Charlie shut herself in her old bedroom so she could have some privacy while she made the call. As she tapped the keyboard, she thought about her best friend.

One thing Harleigh had always liked to do was collect phones. She had been like that ever since they were teenagers in private school together. Charlie remembered Harleigh opening her backpack in class one day and showing her the massive pile of flip phones inside.

Charlie knew all five of Harleigh's phone numbers by heart. She called the first two without an answer, and nervously chewed her fingernails as she rang the third.

There was an answer after the first ring.

"Hello? Who is this?"

Charlie cleared her throat. "Hey. It's me."

"Charlie!? Holy shit! Where are you? Hold on, just give me a second. I'm going to call the police and—"

"Wait, Harleigh, no! Don't call the police!" Charlie rushed to say.

"What? Why the hell not!? Charlie, we haven't even heard if you were okay or not! There was a raid at this hotel, and some sources were saying you got shot and—"

"It was just a rubber bullet."

"Still!" Harleigh yelled. "They can kill you! What if it went into your eye or something?!"

"That's beside the point." Charlie said. "I called you to see if you would help me."

"That's what I'm trying to do! Call the police so I can get you help!"

"No! It's not—I'm safe, Harleigh." Charlie said. "I need your help breaking into the Delacqua Tech Building."

There was a thick silence over the phone.

"Oh my God." Harleigh eventually said.

"What?" Charlie said defensively.

"Copper Knight was right. You have Stockholm syndrome."

"Wha—!" Charlie choked her words off into a garbled string of disbelieving sounds. "I do not have Stockholm syndrome!"

"What would you call it, then?" Harleigh countered flatly.

Charlie pouted at the wall for a moment.

"Character development."

"Oh my god."

"You really won't help me?" Charlie whined. "You're my best friend!"

"Yes. I am. And that's exactly why I'm not going to help you help a  criminal break into your very rich, very powerful father's company, to steal a very powerful compound from him!" Harleigh shouted.

Charlie froze.

"Wait. You know what's in the vault?"

"...you don't?"

"No." Charlie said.

There was a sigh on the line, followed by some shuffling.

"If I tell you, will you at least consider my point of view?" Harleigh said.

Even though Charlie was dead set on her current decision, she said: "Of course."

"The vial in that vault contains a chemical compound of the original Shadow Witch's powers. Anyone with access to it could potentially use it to give themselves those same powers, or strengthen their existing powers. It absolutely cannot fall into the wrong hands."

Charlie bit her lip. Did she think Beatrice's hands were the wrong hands? Clearly not. They had made it this far together, and aside from the whole kidnapping thing, Charlie hadn't seen Beatrice do very many villainous things.

Or maybe I'm just the villain. Charlie thought pensively. Uhh. I don't like this. Maybe Beatrice is right. Maybe I did make a mistake coming with her.

"Are you sure you still want to help her steal it? She could be some kind of crazy fan girl villain who wants to be just like her evil idol."

Charlie took a deep breath.

"Yes, Harleigh. I trust her."

"I'm really not going to change your mind, am I?" Harleigh sighed.

"Absolutely not." Charlie agreed.

"Fine. I'll look into it tonight and see what I can do to help, but no promises, Okay?"

Charlie squealed into the phone.

"Yes! Thank you so much! I really owe you this time!"

"Yeah you do." Harleigh grumbled. "I'll call you first thing tomorrow and let you know what I figured out."

"Sure! Talk to you then." Charlie said.

"Yeah. Talk to you then."