"Chase," I gasped, hugging him. "Thanks a ton! I love you!"
Then, I immediately turned super red and put my hands behind my back. I looked down at the spotless tiled floor. It had a nice design, actually.
After what felt like an eternity, I sneaked a glance up at Chase. He was nowhere in sight. He must have gone downstairs. Thank goodness.
I creeped over to the "Superspider" area and searched for the last cage, where I knew that one special spider would be. I cautiously walked over. It was in there, all right. Moving and alive. Perfectly fine. Spinning a web. Fine.
Suddenly, I heard a man's scream. The intruder. My deal with Chase. Right. I took one last look at the spider -it must have been sick, I presumed- and started heading for the emergency exit door.
Suddenly, there was a huge explosion and I was driven to my knees by the sheer force of it. I grunted, shaking my head and struggling to rise to my feet. There was a really loud buzz in my ears that wouldn't go away. I stumbled to the stairway and realized how far away I was from safety. From Chase. From... Oh, no. From Uncle Ben. My heart felt like it had stopped. Frozen.
With renewed energy, I dove out through a window and into open air.
I inhaled sharply; glass shards were digging into many parts of my body. But pain was just a message sent to the brain. All I needed to do was shut out the message, to ignore it. So I did.
Heart pounding, I whipped out a web string and held on for dear life as I swung back towards the building. My newly-found "spider-senses" stopped me from smashing into the wall. Then I sent out more and more web, quickly losing altitude. Right before I crashed into the cement ground, I curled up and swung through a conveniently located floor-to-ceiling window on the first floor. I shot to my feet and assessed the situation with stunning swiftness.
I noticed two things: one, Marceline appeared to be the intruder (craps); two, she seemed to be going after Uncle Ben and Chase (double craps).
I gasped. Why was she doing this? With mind-blowing speed, I sprinted over, grabbed her shoulder, and spun her towards me.
Seeing her face, I winced. Her look was smouldering. Literally. Feeling a searing pain, I yelped and jerked my hand away from her shoulder.
"Marceline," I whispered softly, cradling my injured hand. "What happened to you?"
She smirked. "Oh, right. You don't know. You should know, you double-crossing liar."
I shook my head, still unwilling to accept this bizarre situation. "What's wrong? I'll help you, but please just tell me. I need to know."
She put her fingers to her temple and said distgustedly, "Well, I mean, if you really have no idea what you've done, I suppose I could educate you. So, yesterday I was thinking about how you always force me behind you, in your shadow, and I-"
"But Marcy," I interrupted, hands all a-flutter. "I'd never, ever even think abou-"
She silenced me with her worst glare yet. "As I was saying, I decided to take matters into my own hands. So I flew over here. Pepper, I need to show you something very important."
In shock, I let her lead me over to the middle of the first floor, where she had tied up and knocked out two groups of people. The first had nobody I knew, but by the look of them, they all appeared to be security guards. As I turned to the second group, my heart skipped a few beats. I stumbled back, my head spinning.
"M-Marceline," I stammered, leaning against the wall. "How c-cou-could you do th-this?"
"I'm so glad you asked," she said, smirking cruelly. "This is the lesson I am going to teach you today, because you need to learn it, and now."
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<·<Pepper_B_Parker*Alias:_Spyder*Position:_S.H.I.E.L.D._agent>·>
Suspenseful enough for you? I certainly hope so!
Uhm. Yeah. I'll just leave it at that.