The Past.

Tanner's heart raced as she grasped the edges of the hole's rim. To her surprise, a carefully woven net of camouflage covered the top, casting a patchy, dim light into the deep abyss below. She also noted the added effect the netting would have, in that no one would be able to discover such a hole or its occupant, leaving them horrifyingly alone.

Moving aside the netting enough, Tanner rolled out of the hole, ending up on her back in the rain and mud from the storm. Her body lit up by the surrounding lightning as she raised her toned, yet feminine, arms in triumph...

The Present.

Gale quickly turned her emerald eyes to King and with a flutter of her eyelashes commanded him. "Cover it."

Serghei Bystrolyotov was aghast, as the muscular, well-dressed King flicked his finished cigar into the night and prepared a covering of camouflage netting.

"Wait, wait! We had a deal!" Serghei blustered, searching around the hole for something, anything to turn the tide of his capture. "You said I would be free to leave!"

"You are." Gale said with an eerie calmness.

Gone were her honey-drenched flirtations, her singsong voice. Gale's bright emerald eyes seem to fade into a shade of hazel, as she opened them to a normal shape, letting the ambient light strike her full iris for the first time that evening.

"The main road is 10 kliks south of here." Gale explained, dusting off the legs and curves of her combat leotard as she arose from the ground.

"30 kliks in either direction leads to civilization." Gale gestured, as King completed his preparations of the netting and moved into position alongside Gale.

"All you need to do is climb out of that hole." Gale finished, with a seriousness that froze Serghei at his core.

The moonlight faded under thick clouds, the rain starting again as the earlier storm rolled back in. "Something that, speaking from experience, gets a lot harder when it's raining." Gale said as she leaned in with a wink and whispered, "So I would hustle."

"Tootles!" Gale taunted, her eyes strikingly emerald again and her voice singsong for full effect.

As Serghei's furious words echoed through the air, King skillfully concealed the deep hole with a cleverly woven camouflage net. Giving some distance to the pit, Gale walked a few steps forward, extending her arm.

With the hole now securely concealed, King hastened his steps, closing the distance between him and Gale. Extending his arm gallantly, he graciously offered it to her, a true embodiment of chivalry, which she accepted.

As the couple walked away from the flurry of obscenities hurled by Serghei, King couldn't help but take note of the evil that he had just witnessed.

"Cripes, Red!" King began, laughing in disbelief, "Do I even want to know where you learned that little slice of Hell?"

Gale was back to her serious self, "Not Hell big guy, it's just a hole." she stated, hugging onto his oversized bicep. "When you're in one, you learn things about yourself." She explained, looking off into the distance.

King, noting that Gale's mind had wandered into her past, leaned in and asked, "Yeah? So, what did you learn?"