CH2b

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JULY 10TH, 2011

Knowing a little more about Jed made Seline so comfortable, she thought she'd get cozy in her seat and take a nap. Jed had no destination plans anyway, and she figured it'd be a while until they'd touch down. She sighed out happily, closing her eyes and resting her head against her own arms sideways in her seat.

Just as her muscles relaxed and her thoughts stopped all trying to bubble to the top at once, a sudden jolt of pain shot through her body. If she hadn't been buckled down tightly to her seat, she would've flown right out and hit the windshield. She shot up and let out an ugly hiss.

"What's wrong, Seline?"

Seline panted, the pain was excruciating—like somebody took a cattle prod and jabbed her in the leg several times with it. "My ankle monitor!" she gasped, "Oh God, no!"

The buzzing, stinging, bone-rattling pain shot through her body once more and she couldn't help but let out a weak cry of pain. Her eyes watered. "Nnnn." She reached down to her leg and clawed at the confounded device, but there was no way she was going to get it off with her bare hands. The big hunk of metal and wiring expanded from her deformed ankle all the way to her deformed knee. It'd been attached to her ankle years ago, before her bones morphed from humanoid to animal, so it wouldn't slip off, even with tremendous amounts of her own effort.

Jed closed his eyes for just a moment, then took a deep breath, as if he was formulating a plan. "You're probably going too far out of range. If it's anything like what they use for house arrest in the U.S., then you're probably real screwed now."

"YA THINK?!" Seline growled at him for being so subtle. Her hair was starting to frizz from the jolts of electricity. "IT HURTS! MAKE IT STOP!"

"I can't really do much while I'm flying my plane, woman!"

Seline whimpered, knowing it'd probably go off again, and it did. She grit her teeth and dug her claws so deep into her chair that she tore the leather. She couldn't really feel her poor foot anymore. "I don't think this can wait until we land!"

"Fine. I'll help you. But I need you to promise you won't kill me once we get out of the plane."

"What?! What are you going to do?!" she asked, feeling miserable and taken advantage of.

"You have to promise me. Now, get me my gun."

"WHAT?!" Seline glanced from Jed to the gun laying on top of the luggage behind their seats. "You're going to shoot my leg…?" She sounded so upset.

"I'm not gonna shoot you. Don't you trust me?"

Zzzzzt! Seline's tears streamed down her face. Her basic instincts were telling her now would be a good time to curl up into a ball. "Oh God, it hurts…" she whimpered. She looked back at the gun and reached out to get it. "I…I guess I trust you."

"Good. We need to get a little more altitude before I do anything. We might drop too far if it takes too long and then we'll both die!" he laughed, as if the situation was funny. He took the two-handled steering 'wheel' and yanked it downward. The plane quickly zoomed upward through the clouds. After a few seconds, Jed grabbed his gun from Seline's hand. He looked into her eyes as she glowered and sniffled from the immense pain. "I'm sorry. You might wanna close your eyes."

Seline nodded and looked away from him, closing her eyes. She then took a second measure, covering her face with her arm. The next round of pain she felt wasn't the jolt or buzz from the ankle monitor, but it was from the blunt end of Jed's AK-47 being jabbed into the metal. The force of the blow dented the ankle monitor slightly, knocking off a cover layer of metal onto the floor of the flight deck. Seline's leg was pressed against the inside of the door on her side of the plane. …At least the fact that her foot was already slightly numbed helped. But the blow to the ankle monitor wasn't enough. Another jolt of electricity shot through her and she yelped.

"Bite onto your sleeve!" Jed ordered. "Or it's gonna be real difficult for me to do this!"

Seline did as she was told. Jed pulled his gun back and struck the ankle monitor again, this time with a more forceful blow. It sparked, which definitely looked to him like 'is that all you got?' He glared and bashed it with one final attack, to which he definitely could hear Seline's bones crack in response.

The monitor fell off, smoke puffing out of its uncovered, ripped wires.