Continuing from the last installment of the Borrower Chase & Minnie AU, Minnie has come to a decision. It isn't an easy one, but then again when one is extremely small most decisions are difficult. Continues directly after the previous one.
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Borrower Chase and Minnie Masterpost
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Minnie ran towards danger. Despite the terror clawing at her in the dark space in the walls, she ran. Plans came together and unraveled in quick succession like a spool of thread caught in a fan. She was all tangled up in fear, but there was nothing for it. She had to get into that room where an enormous human interrogated Chase.
Her often annoying, hasty, and deeply unserious brother was in trouble. As much as she griped at him in both languages they knew, as often as she warned him she wouldn’t save his stupid butt from everything, it wasn’t true. He was all she had. When they first found themselves this way, reduced to tiny size in a new country where they barely understood the language all the giants spoke, she had been terrified. They were so small and fragile.
But Chase had held her, only a few years older and not any bigger, and told her they’d be fine. They couldn’t know they were stuck like this forever. They barely understood how they’d survived the ordeal originally. Over a decade later, they owed each other their survival many times over.
She had to go get him back. If it meant capture … her heart fluttered. If it meant capture then hopefully that human would be kind to them.
She reached a support beam that extended from the floor below; she could almost see its base, even from so high up, with the low light vision they had adapted after so long at this scale. They’d fixed a series of rungs to that beam over the years, improvised from nails and pins and the like, to make the climb to other levels of the apartment building easier. Minnie hung over that abyss and hurried down, her sense always on the two life signatures she felt on the other side of that wall. The human’s voice rumbled in the air like a storm, but though she strained she couldn’t make out Chase’s replies if he was talking. She couldn’t imagine him not talking, but if he’d already been threatened …
He was still alive, at least. His life signature remained bright as ever.
She shook away the gloomy thoughts and resumed her climb, quicker than she usually deemed safe but desperate to get there. At length, her feet hit the dusty floor below and she hurried off again, her bag bouncing against her side. The human’s cajoling rumbles went on unheeded.
She reached a spot where the drywall had crumbled under a power outlet, the damage concealed by wallpaper. The struts for the outlet made for a tight squeeze, if one was more than a sparse few inches tall. Minnie, not even three and a half inches tall, easily fit in the space and put her hands on the wallpaper.
If she went out there, she’d surely be captured too. She could stay hidden and hope for a chance to free Chase later. That’d be a wise thing: keeping herself safe with an actual plan.
She muttered a curse under her breath. They were too small. A grand rescue might never work even if the opportunity arose, and in the meantime she couldn’t leave him alone.
She feared being alone herself, too tiny in a giant world.
Minnie took a breath and shoved the wallpaper door open. The light of the room burst into the walls as if reaching in to grab her, but she went quietly into its grasp.
She had to stop to blink at the room. She’d seen it many times before, even since this latest human moved in and arranged his plain furniture. The view from down on the floor always warped the lines to her, as if those cliffs would lean towards her and lose her in their shadows. This time, though, the room was different. As she’d seen from above, the coffee table was pushed back to give the human room to sit on the floor in front of the couch. It hardly diminished how intimidating and huge he was, but it was odd. The human wore a frown on his face, staring at something she couldn’t see.
Standing only feet away against the wall, Minnie couldn’t see the top of the couch. If she didn’t know with her odd sense of him, she’d never realize Chase was up there. They had climbed up onto the couch before; it was easy, after they’d figured out that just about anything made of fabric offered no obstacle. Still, Chase wouldn’t have the time to climb down with a human looking right at him, ready to grab him at any second.
She nearly faltered again, but instead strode forward, her face set in a disapproving frown as she looked up at the man before her. Her cheeks warmed with how silly and futile this all was, but Minnie told herself she could do this. She had to.
Until he noticed her. He glanced to the side after his latest attempt to get Chase talking failed, and then they both froze. Daggers of ice ran up Minnie’s spine as she met the gaze of a giant, one who loomed overhead even seated on the floor. His mouth opened slightly in shock, and his eyes hardly blinked as they looked her over.
Minnie’s heart thrashed like a caged animal and she forgot anything she might have said to the man. Her feet rooted to the spot, hardly making a difference on the gently worn carpet. He was unfairly big; his smallest finger outsized her. She and her brother could completely hide from sight in his wavy hair and no one would notice. The pockets of his hoodie would hide them both with room to spare. And there he was, zeroed in on her with the look of shock she might expect from a human spotting her.
He moved first.
A hand lifted from where it rested on his knee and moved towards her, a massive, powerful, dangerous thing looming closer and closer in a matter of seconds. Minnie let out a squeak of fear and, despite her determination to get to her brother, backpedaled several steps.
It wasn’t enough. Humans were too fast, and this one was no exception. His palm eclipsed her vision as the hand reached her. Fingers and a thumb thicker around than her body flanked her and then slipped behind her. Another thrum of terror raced up her back as the pads of those fingers shoved at her back and swept her against the palm, an inexorable and inescapable grasp solidifying as her feet left the ground. The skin, pliant in the way leather was pliant, cocooned her and cut her off from the light in the room.
LunaArgj did this amazing sketch of the end of Epidemic of the Mannequins with all the boys together! I'll be putting it in the deviantart and archive chapters as well, to make sure everyone sees ^^
On a walk down memory lane I remembered how much fun I had writing Epidemic of the Mannequins (AO3) (DA) with @nightmares06. This little story is inspired by scenes in that story, but isn't necessarily canon to it. Just a fun little What If. You don't even need to have read it to read this one, instead, go into it with the question:
What should a tiny person do when someone is filming them and they need to discredit the film?
~~~
Take 3
Chase stumbled back, as overwhelmed as ever by the size of the hands that kept moving him around. Especially now, after his captors had returned to find him alone in the cage. He’d denied them any explanation, partly to keep them guessing and partly out of a strong desire to not think about the zhi ren any more than he had to. His heart had pounded, though, with Ed’s rants and gestures over his head like a thunderstorm. He wasn’t the scariest human around, but with Chase standing so small, he didn’t have to be. It was only Harry gently suggesting that they try to get more on film that had gotten Ed to focus on something besides arguing with their tiny captive.
This time, Ed herded him with the back of his hand, giant knuckles occasionally nudging him until he backed up into the newest “proof” of his tiny stature. He fell to a seat with a faint huff on an old gameboy, one hand falling on the worn-out A button. Beneath him, the dusty screen was cold; everything was cold since he decided to shrink down.
Ed’s hand retreated again, returning to that bus-sized D-SLR camera, and Chase had to swallow his resentment and his fascination for the gaming relic he’d landed on.
He couldn’t let this shot prove anything more than the others had.
The red light was his cue to shrug and stretch his legs out, crossing them at the ankles. Casual and unbothered, he shook his head at the camera. “It’s fake, you know. It’s all movie magic. You’re fake, I’m fake, the camera’s fake too!” He laughed a bit and gestured at his shoes, worn out high top converse. “This isn’t even a dress rehearsal, I’m wearing All Stars! You think they make All Stars smaller than a gameboy? Fake fake FAKE—”
Take 6
Chase flinched as the pencil landed right in front of him. Normally such a quiet sound, it nearly hurt his ears with the familiar but amplified hollow clatter as it bounced a few times before settling at his feet. The red eye of the camera already blinked a warning at him and he had to suppress a glare at the man behind it.
Instead, he dramatically held out his hands to gesture at the pencil, a classic yellow No. 2 with a dull point and a lopsided eraser. His eyes found dents and scratches in the wood that he hoped the camera couldn’t pick up, because it’d make the damn thing look as real as it was. He had to convince any viewer of the opposite.
“Wow, wowee, look at this very real giant pencil! Why, I couldn’t even lift it for it is so very big!” he declared, keeping his delivery as wooden as the pencil before him. “What. Could. Have. Caused this?”
Then, the awkward demeanor fell away as he looked up, right at the camera, and pointed confidently at his own faint reflection in the lens above. “Want more like this hand crafted, one of a kind novelty prop? Ed and Harry’s Really Big Prop Emporium is coming soon! Keep an eye out for our website with more details on how to order custom giant props! Making a movie? Doing a play? Just a little bit freaky? Call Ed and Harry—”
Take 8
Something about being dropped unceremoniously on a paper plate made Chase want to curl up into a ball and tune out the whole world. The fact that there was a whole goddamn twinkie next to him, bigger than him, only sharpened that desire. The unnaturally yellow sponge smelled like oil and sugar and he thought that if he touched it, his hand might get stuck. He could only thank his luck that he wasn’t sharing the plate with a Hostess snack for any food related reason, because at his size he’d be an easier morsel than the stupid twinkie.
The red eye watched him, always. He couldn’t run out of improvisations while that D-SLR had any battery. He couldn’t let his horror show.
He scrambled to his feet and grinned off to the side as if talking to someone his own height. “Wow, Harry, your papier mache skills are incredible! You could put this fucking thing on a billboard!”
“But I didn’t—”
“Shut UP, Harry—”
Take 11
With the simple comparisons not working and a lot more unfinished commercials for Ed and Harry’s Really Big Prop Emporium behind them, Chase’s would be nemeses decided to go hands-on again. Despite himself, Chase turned to run from Harry’s next reach after Ed directed another try. This time, he only made it a few steps before his run came to a halt and he yanked back. The back of his jacket, caught in a pinch between a finger and a thumb that outmatched him, hauled him backwards.
Chase grimaced in spite of himself as the jacket dug under his arms and he swept into the air, coming to a stop maybe a foot off the table again, maybe more. It was hard to tell with his head swimming from the quick, lurching movements. Harry held him up and Chase saw a glimpse of a smug look from Ed before he lifted the camera again.
He flipped the old reliable double birds again, just before the sound of a shutter clicked in the camera. Chase forced a grin onto his face despite the worry that he’d slip right out of his jacket. He couldn’t put his arms down, though, not without risking everything.
There was an annoyed sigh, and a setting changed on the camera in Ed’s hands. The hand swayed, though Chase couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or just a fidget from Harry. Either way, he had to draw his arms back to himself or really risk being jostled out of his jacket. No matter. The camera switched back to video and he smiled right at it again.
“Harnesses working alright,” he said. He took a risk and kicked his legs a few times, making himself sway and wishing he hadn’t. But the fucking show must go on. “Could we do something about the chafing though? Feels like it’s gonna cut off my circ—”
Take 16
Harry got the camera next. Ed had to get up and pace in his frustration, and as he did he remembered all the fast food they’d gone to get. He was preparing that while Harry fiddled with the camera, trying to figure out what sort of scene to create with it.
Chase realized a few seconds too late that Harry had already started filming, but it didn’t seem to matter. He lay flat on his back on the table, some mix of bored and scared, so when the red eye blinked on he heaved a sigh and held both hands aloft, this time making a lewd gesture with them. He hummed an off-key tune like some kind of elevator music as he did so. This one might not work as well, but then again Ed was ruining the audio with all the sound of the food wrappings. No one was at their best after a long day of filming.
“Oh the camera’s on—”
Take 20
Chase’s shoulders were up to his ears after the loud, oppressive sound of a thick glass tumbler landed over where he sat. The glass was a bit dusty but otherwise clear, and he stared with wide eyes out at the two that loomed over the table just by sitting there. He stared up at a golden round shape of a tater tot, pinched in two fingers overhead. The ultimatum hung overhead too, and he wondered if it was true.
Harry didn’t seem convinced, but Ed was sure Chase would let them get one good shot for a chance at that deep fried potato. Surely, he had to be hungry after all his antics.
Whether he was or not, Chase wasn’t that stupid. But he eventually got over the shock of being trapped under a glass. There were a lot more people at stake than just himself, and he could hold out for them. Ed might think he had him all figured out, just because Chase was small enough to trap under a small glass.
He lifted a hand and beckoned with it. “Alright, Eddie, gimme a fucking close up,” he said, almost faltering at the way his voice echoed back at him under the glass.
That smug look returned, one that Chase wished Jacob or Sam or Dean or anyone was around to punch. But Ed complied, moving the camera closer to the glass. It was inches away, but out of reach. Chase saw the reflection of himself under the glass in that warped lens, and shifted so he sat on his knees instead, since he couldn’t stand up. “Ready?” rumbled overhead. He nodded.
The light turned on and, like so many times before, Chase’s reliable standby worked just fine. He flipped the double bird again and leaned his face close enough to the glass that his breath fogged it a bit. “Fuck you. Fuck this. I’m gonna call my agent and tell them to never send anyone your way again, you freak ass losers—”
Prompt challenges mainly spawned this AU, in which Chase and his younger sister Minnie are borrower sized - specifically, I borrowed the curse portrayed quite often over at @brothersapart, leaving someone small but also granting them some benefits in return. In this AU, Chase and Minnie are simply trying to live their lives in the walls of an apartment, where a familiar character happens to live ...
1 Forbidden Fruit Snacks
2 Fried Potatoes
3 Minnie’s Supply Run
4 Nailed It
5 Orange You Glad
6 Almost a Thief
7 Lies Under Duress
8 Shoot the Breeze
9 Difficult on Purpose
10 Minnie Dilemma
11 Rescue Mission
I'm making this one up as I go along. It's fairly open ended and we'll see where it goes! It needed its own masterpost as the main post was getting too unwieldy. Soon I'll update the individual story posts with a link to this post as well.
The second prompt is "secure", and that word shows up once in this story, so I'm going to go ahead and count it. Welcome back to the world of Borrower!Chase, who has been left in limbo for two years waiting to find out if he'd be freed from under that strainer. Takes place directly after Shoot the Breeze, and also, sorry little dude for the long wait under there.
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Borrower Chase and Minnie Masterpost
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It felt like years. Okay, months. Weeks. Days.
Chase lay on his back, forlorn as could be, and stared up at a dome of evenly-spaced holes and lamented that he’d been stuck for so long. An agonizing amount of time that a part of him knew had probably only been less than two hours. A larger part of him, though, refused to acknowledge it. It indulged in the drama of it all, fully and unapologetically moping on the countertop where a human had so easily trapped him. Drama might be warranted. His life as he knew it was over.
A human had found him, caught him, trapped him. It was all frighteningly easy for him to do, and it contrasted keenly with Chase’s long, arduous efforts to open a bag of produce. The human, Jacob, barely needed to think about it before he could make something a reality. He could go and run his errands out of the apartment, secure in the knowledge that his captive would still be right where he left him.
Chase had tried pushing the strainer. He thought that, if he could get it to the edge of the counter, he could slip out and maybe clamber up the side using the holes for easy grip. But even with his best effort, it wouldn’t budge. He was too small.
The next step, naturally, was wallowing. He didn’t see a point in pushing himself to exhaustion. The human would come back eventually, and the situation would change again at his whim. Then Chase could see if there was a plan worth making.
It definitely wasn’t laziness or a fit of pique keeping him from getting up and trying again to move his prison.
Not laziness. His frown deepened and he put an arm over his eyes. It blocked the dismal view over and around him in a way he told himself was perfect for strategizing.
He stayed like that for a while, ears perking at the occasional noise somewhere beyond the apartment door, distant footsteps or rustling bags as humans passed by. At some point, even that stopped catching his attention. Until, at last, he heard a few heavy footfalls and the jingle of keys, closer and lingering near outside the door. It was as if the world closed in again, these sounds heralding Jacob’s return. That massive human was back, probably ready to interrogate Chase some more and maybe lock him up forever. Chase couldn’t resist a full body shudder in time with the loud echo of the lock shifting back.
Any minute now. He had the opportunity to look nonchalant, or feisty, or maybe even try to pull at the human’s heartstrings somehow. The door creaked open, and Chase thought about which angle he could try, which one might work best. The human mostly seemed relaxed and friendly, but that was when other humans were involved. He might not respond well to insults or anger. Those options were out.
Trying to appeal to his better nature could work. Jacob might be the kind to stop and think if he saw something too pathetic to keep messing with. Chase pursed his lips and discarded that option too, even as those footsteps entered the apartment fully and the seconds dwindled away. He wasn’t sure he could cry on cue, and even if he could, he wasn’t sure he could live with making that kind of impression on someone if it didn’t work.
He left himself with very little. Judging by the sound, Jacob was back in the kitchen again. Chase remained lying on the counter, an arm over his eyes, and ran out of ideas. He didn’t want to look but he could swear he felt that shadow fall over him and the strainer.
The metal moved. The edge scraped against the surface faintly as the human lifted it up, so easily compared to how much Chase struggled with it earlier. Still, Chase remained where he lay, arm over his eyes so he couldn’t see a single scary thing as it happened. The strainer touched the counter again, further away, so he could only assume he was exposed to the room with a human looming menacingly over him.
“Uh,” the human’s voice rumbled, noticeably not as menacing as Chase imagined. “You okay?”
Chase had his opportunity. Nonchalant was his best bet. Nonchalant enough to not even care that a human was looming over him while he was vulnerable. Whatever, giant. You don’t scare me a single teeny tiny bit.
There was a pause. Jacob could have a giant neon question mark over his head for all Chase knew. This pretending not to care thing was a great idea.
“Um, little—what was it, Chase? Are you alive?” Jacob’s voice rumbled again, a quieter, more concerned murmur this time.
Chase almost wanted to smirk, to laugh in a triumphant aha! at the human’s gullible response. Instead, he let out an ungainly noise something like a yelp when something suddenly touched either side of his waist. His arms flailed and his legs kicked and he opened his eyes to find the human’s finger and thumb pinching him around the middle, though the hand startled away in time with his own movement.
“Fuckdammit, dude, what the hell was that all about?!” Jacob blurted, keeping his hand hovering near, almost as if shielding a candle from the breeze. He looked as shocked as Chase felt.
Chase, his face burning, scrambled to sit up and then leap to his feet. “I could ask you that!” he shot back, blinking quickly in all the confusion and the light after covering his eyes for so long. “Can’t a man just lie around and contemplate his life under a strainer without someone coming along and plucking him up?”
“I—come on, dude,” Jacob sputtered. He looked confused and caught off guard, which Chase accepted as a tiny victory. “You looked … I thought you fell over and died or something, the way you weren’t moving!”
Chase barked out a laugh before he could stop himself. The absurdity really came as a slap in the face, but definitely the funny kind. “You thought I died?! And here I thought I was the one being dramatic today. I’m not made of paper or anything.”
Jacob sighed. “Well that’s one more thing I know about you than I did before,” he mumbled, not so amused to be the source of the joke. “How would I know? I don’t even know what you are made of.”
Chase held up his hands in exasperation. “I can’t tell you.” He paused, long enough for Jacob to open his mouth for another question, and then went on. “Because I’m not an expert in, what, biology? But I’m made of the same stuff you are, Jacob, give or take a bit.”
The human paused. Standing in his shadow, Chase felt very small indeed, but he didn’t back down or look away. Nonchalant, he told himself. That was the route he’d chosen and he was going to stick to it.
That didn’t work very well when Jacob’s hand approached again, a living wall slowly and inexorably closing the distance despite Chase’s attempts to backpedal away from it. It simply moved behind him, blocking his retreat while the thumb also moved down to block his way forward. He put his own hands up in meager defense, but soon enough found himself gathered up in a fist again. “W-wait, wait, what are you doing?”
Jacob moved slowly as he lifted Chase off the counter, but he didn’t stop. “This conversation isn’t getting anywhere fast, so I figured we might as well sit somewhere and get comfortable.”
Chase tried and failed to twist around and watch where Jacob was taking him. It wasn’t as though he had many paths anyway. “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s a great idea, you know what makes me the most comfortable? When the nearest human is at least a full room’s length away from me and can’t see me. What are the chances of that happening?”
Jacob continued into the living room, a faint smile playing over his face as he walked. “Let’s work up to that, maybe.”
Chase had seen the living room many times, through many tenants. There were only so many ways to arrange furniture in the space, with the doors and windows being where they were. Jacob had a fairly sparse but typical setup, with a couch facing away from the kitchen archway and a TV on a stand opposite from it with a plain coffee table in between. A couple bookshelves flanked the TV, floor to ceiling packed with a few DVDs but mostly paperback novels, the smaller kind that always looked ridiculously tiny in Jacob’s massive hands.
Seeing the room from this new angle almost made it look normal. Carried at Jacob’s chest height, Chase was nearly the height he assumed he’d be if his life had gone very differently. It was a weird glimpse into that lost possibility, and then things felt warped and wrong again. He shouldn’t see the room from this angle, he should see it from a well hidden spot behind or under some furniture, or from the openings in the vent high in the wall. Not from a human’s hand as he casually stepped around a couch that may as well be a building in itself as far as Chase was concerned.
And then, to Chase’s surprise, Jacob nudged the coffee table away from the couch, pushing it along with his shin. He forgot to be afraid of what was happening in the midst of his confusion over what the human was doing. The coffee table nearly bumped against the TV stand before Jacob stopped.
Then, everything dropped suddenly as Jacob lowered Chase to the couch. Chase flinched as the hand around him opened again, this time with a much nicer short fall to the cushioned surface waiting below. Even then, he didn’t manage to keep his feet as the hand retreated, and he flopped onto his back for a moment.
When he looked up, the situation didn’t feel any less strange. Jacob, a six-foot-something human, sat on the floor in front of the couch. He didn’t loom overhead as much, though looming was unavoidable with bulk like his. Closer to eye level, at least, Chase could look right at him.
And tell him his thoughts. “This might be a little overkill, man. A whole couch?”
Jacob shrugged. “You’re not about to dash off of it without me noticing. It’s comfortable. We can talk without me being all …” he trailed off, only to awkwardly lift his arm over his head, hand held flat as if to indicate height, far above where Chase sat.
“I don’t mean to alarm you, Jacob, but you’re stupid big no matter where you’re sitting. I know this might be tough to hear but someone’s gotta tell you. Sorry.”
Jacob shrugged. Even that motion, so casual to him, was so magnified and nearly intimidating to Chase’s view. “Okay. Fair enough. Are you ready to chat?”
Chase tried a confused smile, though he doubted it would work. “Chat about what? Are we not chatting right now? Lovely weather over here in the living room, isn’t it?”
Jacob sighed. “Man … come on, Chase. What’s going on here? You can call me ‘stupid big’ all you want but you’re tiny. What’s that about?”
Confused didn’t work. Unamused wouldn’t either, but this time Chase wasn’t pretending. “Yeah, I noticed. I notice it all the time. Not your business, though, is it, Jake?”
“I mean. It might be my business a little bit. Since you were about to steal something right off my counter.” Jacob didn’t seem bothered by it. He remained casual, relaxed. He wasn’t the one stuck in view of a giant that could catch him in one hand.
“Like you’d have missed one orange,” Chase shot back, more barbed than he’d expected from himself. “Is me being small all you wanted to talk about? Because I don’t want to talk about it, so if the conversation is over … do whatever it was you planned to do with me.”
And then, to punctuate his stance, Chase shifted where he sat, turning around so he faced the back of the couch. Then, he crossed his arms, resolute in not looking at the human that had caught him. All the uncertainty was giving him a rapidly-growing headache. His heart pounded, but he stared away from Jacob and waited for his coming fate.
The next prompt is "Test", and I again went with a kind of loose connection to it. Testing one's weird psychic abilities counts, right?
We're back in the Borrower Chase & Minnie AU. Chase is still in trouble, and that's finally also Minnie's problem. She deserves a break, but will she get one? Probably not.
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Borrower Chase and Minnie Masterpost
~~~
Minnie had a headache.
Not the worst one she’d ever had, perhaps, but it sat high on the list and deep in her skull. Her disbelief meant nothing for the situation she found herself in, nor the situation her stupid idiot brother had gotten into. Truly, she could not fathom the steps Chase must have taken to wind up trapped on the couch with an enormous human watching, blocking his exit with nothing more than his undivided attention.
She hadn’t suspected much when he was gone for a few hours. They didn’t always relay their plans to each other. However, this time, when the human came home and eventually raised his voice in alarm, it didn’t sound like a phone conversation. It could have been nothing, but she had been suspicious enough to focus on that odd sense she had. She had to test a theory she still wished was outrageous.
Her sense, her knack, let her find where other living things were in relation to herself. Ever since discovering it, she’d spent a lot of time practicing it, honing it to tune out roughly a million bugs and to learn the unique signatures of certain beings. Residents in the building, their pets, frequent visitors … and also her brother. It had saved them from discovery plenty of times over the years.
The shock of finding her brother’s signature in the kitchen with the human’s signature had almost knocked her senseless. And then, they’d both moved to the living room while she had scrambled to grab her bag and dashed out of their makeshift home in the walls. A human had her brother. Her knack clung to her sense of Chase as she ran through dim passages to find a place where she could see what was happening.
And now, standing at a vent opening near the ceiling, Minnie had a headache from the run and the fear. And her stupid idiot brother sat stubbornly facing away from the human. As if that little show of defiance meant anything to a man who outsized either of them with a single finger.
She hesitated for a long time. The silence drew out for several seconds, between the two in the room and the one watching from outside of it. The human waited awkwardly, maybe hopefully, for Chase to relent. Minnie scanned the room for something, anything, she could use to help. Some way to get him out of this problem. Then they could go back to their house, pack up all their belongings, and move to a new apartment. Maybe a new building.
Her resolve faltered when, in the room below, that human reached for Chase again, this time nudging at his side with one fingertip. Minnie’s shoulders hitched up almost to her ears at the sight of her brother nearly toppled by a simple touch. She couldn’t find a way out, but she also couldn’t leave him alone.
If she had to get captured, too, at least she wouldn’t be leaving him all alone with a giant of a man.
