Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Hanna wasn’t sure how much time passed in the cage. She paced around the cube. She looked for weak points in the glass and secret panels in the floor. Tap. Tap. Tap. Still being spent from using so much ice energy earlier in the castle, she ended up taking another nap. More prepackaged food was set out for her when she woke up. Hanna opened a bag of chips and munched on them in thought. When her energy finally returned, Hanna attempted to send an icicle through the glass wall. It smashed against the wall and ended up in chunks all over the ground. Hanna tried to send a massive icicle spike through the ceiling, but the results were the same. She took the phone out of her pocket. Maybe at the very least she could talk EDJ into letting her out or giving something away. He certainly talked enough for the latter. It couldn’t hurt to try, right? Hanna dialed the only number in the phone and let it ring. 

It rang three times before EDJ finally answered. “Ah, I’m so glad you decided to take up my offer.” 

“What makes you so sure I was going to call you in the first place?” Hanna asked, sitting in front of the plexiglass wall, still trying to think of a way out. 

“I told you, they always break. So, are you ready to surrender?” EDJ asked. 

Not wanting to dive straight into the topic of giving up, but not great at small talk either, Hanna answered, “No, but hang on! Don’t… don’t hang up yet. Um… What have you been up to?” she asked innocently. It was a cringeworthy and disastrous attempt at casual conversation. But it was the best idea she had so far. 

“I did not realize we were on such friendly terms already.” EDJ’s voice sounded pleasantly surprised. He, of course, could tell what she was doing by her odd tone, but decided to play along anyway. 

“We’re not friends,” Hanna clarified. “I’m just curious what else could be more important to you than the only living person in this dungeon cell. Didn’t want to get forgotten and left to die of starvation. That’s all.” 

“That wouldn’t have happened,” EDJ reassured her with a laugh. “But since you so politely asked instead of screeching at me like a banshee, I might as well tell you…” EDJ spun his chair to the schematics on his desk and sifted through them as he answered. “I’m designing the new traps I’m going to build in some of the empty rooms in my castle! Maybe I’ll even let you out of your cage and have you run through them like a little guinea pig! Heh, how does that sound?”

“Lame,” Hanna answered honestly, her idea to pull information out of him already abandoned. “I couldn’t care less.” She wasn’t even really listening at this point anyway. Hanna absently froze a small patch of the glass and scratched it with her nails, but stopped when she heard a tiny crack in the wall. She stood up and began to freeze the entire side of the cage.

“That’s fair,” EDJ answered with a smile. “I don’t really care what you think either, but it’s nice to know it’s about me.”

“Misery loves company,” Hanna muttered without thinking. She paused with a frown, shook her head, and kept freezing the glass. “Well, aren’t you going to ask what I’ve been up to?” Hanna asked, trying to sound as bored as possible. “It’s only polite to return the question.” 

“If you insist.” EDJ pretended to think for a second, and then asked, “What have you been doing? Making a movie, perhaps?” A couple of the techs in the control room with EDJ snickered, but he was listening to the ever growing crackling noise in the background. 

Hanna snorted. “A movie?! I’m in a plexiglass cage, remember?” She drew her sword and started scoring the glass in a criss-cross pattern. 

“Fine, keep your secrets,” EDJ answered, turning back to the screens. The cameras in the dungeon had been focused on the entry points, but now he turned them to the cage to see what she was doing. He could see her score the glass, but he was not terribly concerned about it. “I have a hypothetical question for you, if you don’t mind,” EDJ said. “One of my traps is… not normal, let’s just say that.”

Hanna paused and frowned again, turning to the phone this time. “What do you mean not normal?” 

“I mean ‘not normal’ as in it’s a wall of frozen peanut butter,” EDJ mocked. “If you were to get out and come across this trap, I’m wondering how you would escape it. Hypothetically, of course.” EDJ added with a smile. 

“Peanut butter… that’s your ultimate plan?” Hanna rolled her eyes and continued scratching up the glass wall. “Peanut butter,” she muttered, still in disbelief. “How in the world is that supposed to stop me?” Hanna continued scoring the glass, weakening it with each blow.

EDJ flipped a few switches and buttons on the control panel, activating a drone in the dungeon as he answered. “Heh, it was originally intended for people with nut allergies, but still…You don’t happen to be allergic, do you?”

Hanna snickered. “Nope. You're out of luck on that one.” She almost recalled someone somewhere being allergic, but couldn’t remember who. Figuring it wasn’t important, she dismissed the thought and kept working on weakening the glass. 

“Say, what have you been doing down there anyway?” EDJ asked curiously, mostly to see how she would answer. 

“Oh, you know, different things. Sleeping, eating.” Hanna smirked. “Scratching up your precious glass box.” 

“Ah, of course.” EDJ laughed. “Are you enjoying making pretty patterns in the glass, princess?” 

“Nope, I’ve got a plan,” Hanna said with a smirk. She stopped and frowned for a second. “And quit calling me that.” 

EDJ laughed. “You started it.” 

Hanna finished up the last gorge in the glass and looked at the wall in triumph. She started laughing to herself. Finally, she was getting somewhere. Finally, things were going to go her way. EDJ was going to get what was coming to him and Hanna was more than happy to deliver. “Did you seriously think this cage was indestructible?” Hanna asked, the arrogance in her tone unmistakable. 

“Nah, but I had hoped it would have kept you in there a little longer than that,” EDJ admitted with a shrug. “Ah well, just one of the risks you take with these things. Do you even have any idea how long you’ve been in there?” In truth, Hanna did not. She could have checked the time and date on the phone several times throughout her stay, but that wasn’t a bit of information that stuck with her. She was far too focused on other things, vengeance being one of them. 

“Far too long when my world is at stake,” Hanna whispered, ending the call and staring at the cracked and shredded plexiglass wall in front of her.