Chapter 2
When Caitlyn wakes up again, she’s no longer tied to a chair. She’s still tied up, but at least she has a bit more movement. The softer feeling beneath her bottom lets her make the connection; she’s on some sort of couch.
It’s not exactly comfortable, with the ropes still burrowing deep into her skin and all, but it’s better than stiff wooden chair she has previously been stuck on.
She almost jumps out of her skin when her arm brushes against something beside her, a figure that out of the corner of her eye looks like a human. It’s too still to be a person, and for a second she fears it’s a corpse, but she turns to see it’s just a humanoid doll.
How odd. And creepy. And very, very fitting for the evil lair of a disturbed girl who was currently…nowhere in sight.
Caitlyn shifts herself over, trying to move herself off the couch without falling flat on her face. Maybe she can get the ropes off, or just hop out of…whatever this place is. Before she can even attempt to stand, she hears the rattle of metal near her right foot.
Shit. She’s chained to the wall.
Cait groans quietly. Back to square one.
“Didn’t think you’d get away that easily, did you now, sweetheart?” The voice comes out of nowhere, increasing the speed of her already fast beating heart.
She doesn’t respond, instead choosing to look out over the room around her. It’s only then that she realizes it’s not really a room so much as it is a…structure. There’s drop offs on the sides and 4 platforms hanging out from the middle of the structure. It looks like some sort of fan; and it looks like a place that would be very hard to escape.
“Where am I?” She asks the girl beside her, still avoiding her face.
“Zaun.” J answers plainly, sounding closer to her now.
Cait grits her teeth. “What is this place?”
“My secret evil hideout lair where I do secret evil things.” J giggles to herself. “Don’t worry, ain’t nobody going to find you here, princess.”
She clenches her fist, mind still racing through ways that she can escape. The ropes are tight, tied good, and the chain around her ankle is…much more of an issue. Even if she did manage to escape her bonds, getting off this fan like structure seemed like an impossible task, one that would probably end with her taking a tumble into the abyss below.
“Are you going to kill me?” Cait asks bluntly, slightly angling her body to the blue haired girl beside her.
J shrugs. “I’m deciding. Silco wanted to kill you, y’know…but I think that was more about Vi.”
The pained expression on J’s face momentarily distracts Caitlyn from the name she just mentioned, before her mind rapidly latches onto it.
“Silco?” Her voice is higher, louder. “You work for him?” Disgust hides behind her words.
J glances at her out of the corner of her eye. “What would you even know about him, Piltie?”
Cait digs her nails into her palms, hard enough to draw out dripping redness. “He’s why I’m down here.”
J’s eyebrows knit together, looking at her in an almost angry way. “To arrest more people? Silco is helping the undercity, unlike you enforcers ever did.”
Cait looks away. She isn’t sure what to say to this girl, what to do in this situation. Argue with her kidnapper about politics? Beg for her life?
The couch shifts as her captor plops herself down into the farthest cushion away from her, lounging with her legs spread open and arms thrown up.
Even with the chain on her leg, Caitlyn is pretty sure she lunge forward and attack, bash her with her head or bite with her teeth. It would be easy to, feel good to, at least make her feel like she was doing something to defend herself.
For some reason, she didn’t.
Her own shaky breathing was the only thing that filled the space in the stale air for awhile. Even after being knocked out twice, she was so very tired. She just wanted to sleep in her own bed, to forget about all this, to be safe.
“You wanna know something, Caitie?” J says suddenly, tapping her slim fingers along the back of the couch.
Caitlyn’s stomach drops at the dangerous undertone to the girl’s voice. Her breathing stills, just for a few moments.
“She’s my sister.” J’s voice is terrifyingly vulnerable. “She was my sister.” She corrects.
Cait stares, trying to decipher who she could possibly be talking about. She feels like her heart has stopped altogether when she realizes, right before J tells her.
“Vi was my sister.”
She can’t help the loud gasp that she sucks in at J’s confession. This was Vi’s sister? Who she’d been looking for all that time?
Even through it all, Caitlyn was overwhelmed by a consuming curiosity. How could it have turned out this way? For either of them?
“She was looking for you.” Cait blurts out finally. “Vi was…looking for you.”
J breathes deeply, clenches her fist like she’s steadying herself, and closes her eyes tight.
Cait watches the rise and fall of her chest, the tiny flutter of her eyelids, the furrow of her brows and the curve of her nose. She waits for a response, for anything, but J simply sits there.
“Are you hungry?” J whispers, so quiet she wonders if she simply imagined it.
“I-yes.” Cait responds, going back to digging her nails into her palm and fiddling with her fingers.
J doesn’t respond, she just stands and walks away. Cait watches her disappear, watches the way she walks, doesn’t blink until she disappears behind the clutter of the middle of the fan. Even before her footsteps have faded, Caitlyn has started working.
Pull. Strain. Push. Try again. Keep trying.
It’s like she can already see the crimson that will be dripping from her wrists by the time she’s finished trying to get these ropes off.