Frigid Revenge: Day 16

Word Count: 96,355

Summary of Events:

Oakley was visited by his coach, Siggy, who exhorted him to not give up and told him to call a meeting of all the people he knew were willing to fight their way out to brainstorm ideas together. Charlie watched a press conference in which the military revealed that they knew of all the deaths since the first one, as well as giving updates on the negotiation process, which continued to go poorly; she, Chrissa, and Orelia were then summoned to the meeting. Not being fond of talking to crowds of people, Oakley couldn't make himself address the group, so Siggy tried to help . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

"Slowing it down and emphasising the mouth movements, Siggy mouthed it again: "Talk to me."

Oakley stared at him. The silence was deafening. He wanted to get out of here. It was too many people.

"Like we talked before," Siggy mouthed. "Talk to me. Ignore them."

Oakley shook his head.

"Why not?" Siggy mouthed. 

It took some effort for Oakley to pull his tongue out of the clutches of his teeth and pry his jaw open enough to lick his lips before mouthing back: "Laryngitis."

Looking exasperated, Siggy rolled his eyes.

Oakley wanted to look down, but that would only mean more people looking at him, so he looked at the ceiling. He couldn't do this. He hated himself for that thought. Yes, he had tried, but Siggy was disappointed that it wasn't more, and surely he could say something without sounding like he actually had laryngitis.

He leaned back against the wall, pinning his tongue to the roof of his mouth so hard that his throat muscles were straining. He closed his eyes. He was sure everyone thought that this was the weirdest thing they'd ever been a part of.

Oakley opened his eyes, pushed off the wall, and opened his mouth, but his tense jaw muscles refused to allow him to do more than desperately breathe.

"We're here for a Council of War," someone said who wasn't Siggy. "All of us are gathered here because we are united by the intention to do something ourselves to get out of here. We know that the military out there need our help to get in and bring this all to an end."

Sagging back against the wall, Oakley didn't bother scanning the crowd to identify who was saying what he should've been saying. He knew who it was.

"As we initially told you when we canvassed for support, our original plan was to hopefully find one whole floor that was game to help us ambush Mr. Meyer and relieve him of his weapons so that we could subdue him, break a window, and get the military personnel inside to deactivate all the bombs and get us out of this," Trey said. "Unfortunately, we hardly got half a hotel floor, even though we have enough supporters to easily fill a floor. So we are gathered for this Council of War to come up with a new plan with the same objective: to disarm Mr. Meyer and subdue him so that help can get in and get us out of here for good."

Oakley slid down the wall until he was completely gathered on the seat of the chair.

"With that said, let's have five minutes of personal thinking, and then we'll discuss ideas," Trey said.

There was a little bit of murmuring that rippled through the room, but otherwise the room remained silent. Oakley didn't know that he'd felt so horrible in his life. Here he was, supposedly the leader, and he hadn't had the guts to address his troops."