Eru lay there on a bed. He was still handcuffed and now his feet were also tied to a pole near the bed. They were in a makeshift cell with no windows. Charmalina was tied to another pole away from Eru. Slowly breathing Eru urged himself to calm his mind and body. They were slightly beaten as they made their way to the council’s retreat. They were so close to the council and yet could have been on the opposite side of the planet.

“Hey how you doing?” Charmalina asked Eru. There was still time to get to the council if they could find a way out of here. There was no one else in the room but Eru wasn’t sure if someone was listening to them or even guarding them.

“I could use a good beer or that water that seemed to get left at our campsite”, Eru laughed.

Charmalina made a groan, “Heh, Do you think the council knows we are here?”

“Probably not all of them, probably only the ones that we don’t want to know. I’ve been beaten much worse before and survived we should be able to get out of this”, Eru sat up and leaned against his pole. They were here sooner then they had planned on arriving there should still be time to get to them he thought to himself.

“Someone should be coming soon and we need to be ready for when they do come”, Charmalina tried to stretch her shoulders out. They were tight and her arms were stuck behind her body.

Eru looked at his feet again. They were still tied to the pole. “Do you think you could get your feet untied?”, he asked Charmalina, “Mine are too well done.”

“I’ll try”, she said. They hadn’t been in the room too long yet. She positioned the chain on the corner of her bed. Stretching her legs out she pulled at the chains. Her ankles started to hurt and the chains were drawing blood. Charmalina ignored the pain and continued to pull and fell back. The chain had broke. Her feet were still tied together but she was free from the pole.

“Ya good work”, Eru exclaimed quietly, “You OK?”

“Yes I’m ok”, she smiled as she wiped the blood from her ankles onto the bed, “I’ll be able to walk fine.”

Footsteps were heard coming down a hall. Charmalina put the chain so it looked they were still tied together.

The door unlocked and slowly opened. Two guards entered the room and looked around. “It’s safe”, one of them said and a council member walked in.

“Well hello, you two seem to keep causing problems for us. Why did we have to pick people that do their job too well and don’t know when to stop? You could have been rewarded nicely. Now I guess you will be rewarded in another way, a less costly one for us”, The council member paced around the room as the guards followed him.

One of the guards got close to Charmalina. Without warning Eru saw her launch her legs at his head. The guard didn’t even see it coming and was knocked down and hit the ground hard with his head hitting first.

The other guard quickly grabbed the council member and pulled him outside of the room. He locked the door and they heard footsteps running away.

“Nice kick, I guess we got the break that we needed”, Eru laughed.

“We need a much longer one I think, but I will take what we can get. We need to hurry and get out of this room.” Charmalina stood up and hopped her way towards the unconscious guard. She checked his pockets and quickly found some keys and deftly managed to unlock her hands with it. None of the keys seemed to work on her feet though. She got up and unlocked Eru’s hands.

The guard had a gun and she gave it Eru, “Here, break my lock with the gun.”

“Shoot it?”

“No, unless you can figure out how the bullet is going to bounce. Bash it.”

Eru picked the gun above his head, checked the safety and smashed the gun down on the lock. Charmalina winced in pain. He smacked the lock again this time the locking mechanism broke and she pulled her feet out of the chains. Eru smiled pointed his feet towards her and said, “My turn?”

It took her a few more tries than Eru did. His ankles made it difficult to get the lock on the ground for maximum power. Finally the lock broke and she could see blood soaking through his socks, “Sorry.”

Eru stood up and tested his ankles. They were fine just cut, “No worries just a little blood nothing else.”

Charmalina took the keys and unlocked the door and they ran out of the room.