"What do you mean, tribute?" Tony asked. "If he wanted only one of us to be dead, don't you think he would have so. This isn't the hunger games, you know. It may feel like the hunger games, and maybe it is a game to him, but this is our lives. What exactly are you thinking?"

Michael did not seem put off, by Tony's sudden obtrusivenes, instead, he seemed to get calmer, as if he had already resigned himself to his fate and the only thing left to do was explain the prophecy to the town children. "Say...we got him to come down here...could we take him?"

Tony gave their entire group a bewildered once over. "Does it look like we could take on a single rabid squirrel? I can't believe I'm being the voice of reason here, but I think you're going loco. What if he comes down here and starts shooting us up until two of us are dead with the rest mortally wounded? What then?"

"Shoot us up with bullets or drugs?" Ian asked helpfully, earning himself several glares and an eye roll. "Jeez.....okay....I guess it doesn't really matter. Okay...both are bad."

Mike ignored him. "We can't just sit around here. If we don't do something...." He almost seemed to be swallowing his tongue, like the words in his mind were tied down with lead weights. "....News flash, Tony. You've been out of it for most of the time we've been down here. Honestly, you don't even seem yourself now. Guess what? If we don't get out of this cell, you, you....." He took a deep breath then looked at the drummer boy sternly. "You, Abbie, and Ian will be the first to go. And what does it matter? If we don't get out. We're ALL going to die, slowly and painfully, while that guy watches us with some popcorn and a tub of ice cream."

Tony's eyes were wide and so dilated that Lisha could see them from several feet away. His fingers curled into tight fists that stretched his skin white over the bones of his knuckles. "You think I don't know that?" His voice came out thin, almost papery. His skin was beginning to lose a lot of it's sun dyed color, giving his eyes a darker, more sunken look. "What do you think calling him down here is going to accomplish? He obviously had this place bugged. He probably knows your plan already, so what's the point? He's not going to be stupid enough just to hand over our victory with a platter of gourmet poptarts. Even if he does come down, do you really think we can disarm and escape before he catches up to us? He took our shoes for a reason. We won't get very far and it'll be all the more worse for us."

Lisha swallowed hard.

"Well, if you have a better plan, then feel free to share it."

Tony nodded up at the ceiling calmly. "The ventilation shaft. If we can get one of us up there -- probably you or Lisha since the rest of us aren't really in the shape to crawl through tight spaces - then you can find a way out of here and go for help."

Michael didn't react for several seconds. "Okay," he admitted. "That's a better plan. Why didn't I think of that?" The drum major turned to Lisha who was mentally preparing to crawl through a tight heating vent so she could maybe see the sky someday soon (a rather nice improvement to killing herself, in her opinion.) "You're smaller and lighter. Are you up to it?"

It didn't really matter if she was up to it. If they could get her to the vent, their last hopes would be on her. Being up to it wasn't in the equation so she just nodded and gave a small smile. "If you can get me up there...."

Michael nodded. "I can try," he said and got to his feet unsteadily. It took him a moment for him to gain his balance, but he grinned cheekily and flashed everybody a thumbs up. "Got this."

The vent was what was holding up their lightbulb string. She would have to remove the grate before she could even think of leaving....but then again....hammers weren't just useful for goring people. They had a rather nice secondary purpose that involved prying open things that shouldn't be opened. Bank vaults. Car doors. The tab to a beer if you're that idiotic.

Mike laced his fingers together to make a little basket, causing Lisha to look at him skeptically. "I'm going to need like twenty seconds at the minimum to get the grate off the vent. And then you're going to have to boost me up. Are you sure you can do that?"

" Please, " he rolled his eyes and tossed his hair out of his face with a puff. "I'm the drum major. I'm magic like that."

"Dude, you're a clarinet player," Tony called out.

"Which is an awesomely underappreciated instrument," he scoffed back.

"Even your section admits that you're the stealth, not the brawn," Abbie pointed out.

Michael sighed and gestured at his intertwined fingers. "Just get out of here....I hear an instrument debate coming on."

"I'll help," a voice whispered behind her. In her excitement, Lisha hadn't noticed Ian getting to his feet.

"Dude, you shouldn't be --"

He cut her off with a stiff shake of his head. "He can't boost you up there on his own," he glanced over at Michael and smiled through his developing black eyes. "No offense dude, but I've known you since third grade. You can barely haul a marimba to the practice field by yourself."

There was a bit of arguing between the drum major and the trumpet veteran, but finally they agreed to let Ian help on the condition that if he felt himself dying in any form, he would say something and Mike and Lisha would work to figure it out themselves. The two of them intertwined their arms together and with some difficulty and much cussing involved, Lisha managed to climb high enough to reach the vent with one foot atop each of their shoulders.

They used a similar technique to lift up soloists during the ballad of their shows, but Lisha was usually the lifter, not the soloist and her stomach tossed in unease every time one of them wavered beneath her.

With the hammer in hand, she successfully managed to pry the vent from the ceiling. "Okay guys," she said. "Wanna a quick rest before --"

"Ahhsss," Ian yelled out and suddenly all tbe support on Lisha's left side was gone. Her heart lept into her mouth and Michael yelled out as the two of the them toppled to the ground. Lisha's hip hit hard against the cement floor. Her teeth sank down into her bottom lip as she cringed through the pain. "What," she hissed as she rollee over. "What happened?"

Ian was knelt down on the floor under the vent. The arm of his hoodie was shoved up to his elbow to reveal a mummy tornic of white gauze bandages, that were being eaten by a rapidly spreading stain of red.

A/N

So I have the ending all planned out. I don't know how many chapters are left (at least five. Minimum) but I know exactly how it's gonna go down.

I didn't do any of my homework.

Your welcome.

#OracleSaxFish

¡Hasta luego!