June 24th, 11:11 PM
Someone was tapping on her cheek. Patting it with their fingers like they were trying to wake a child.
"Come on, Blue Lynx," a voice said. "Time to get up."
Erin blinked her eyes rapidly. The light above her was harsh, and it made the face of the man above her a shadow. No-- it wasn't just that-- he was wearing a mask...
It all came back to her in a second. The writer. Zilch. His home. The loft. The net. The fight. Margot. The chloroform.
"Shit," she thought. "Shit."
The man was still touching her face, clearly enamored with it.
"Will you stop?!" she shouted. The man jumped in response, removing his hand from her cheek. He stepped away from Erin and chuckled softly.
"You're... awake," he whispered. "Finally."
How long had she been out? The light told her she wasn't in the loft anymore. The light, and the fact that she was on something soft-- a mattress.
She tried to move, and heard a metallic clatter. She glanced up at her raised arms. Handcuffs, wrapped around her wrists (what happened to her gloves?), which were then wrapped around metal bed-posts. She suddenly felt a cool sensation on her ankles, and looked down to see additional cuffs shackling her legs. They'd taken her boots, and her socks, and, she noticed now, her belt.
"Not good," Erin thought. "Not good..."
She turned to face the man next to the bed, who was hovering close to her again. She couldn't tell much about him: his mask and dark clothes obscured his features. What she knew was that he was young, white, and male, i.e. he was like the majority of people who had ever tried to put Erin in a predicament like this. The creep class.
"Who are you?" Erin asked, shaking her manacles. The handcuffs were clearly police-grade, and she'd have little luck trying to break them on her own.
"Name's not important," the guy said. "Call me HeroineHunter."
"HeroineHunter?" Erin said. "As in, you hunt heroines? Clever."
"I've already had enough of your talk."
HeroineHunter bent down toward Erin and placed his hand on her throat. Erin reflexively thrashed about, but the cuffs wouldn't budge, and the man was able to pacify her with minimal effort. Once Erin stopped fighting back, HeroineHunter picked up a rag, jammed it in her lips, and tied it in a knot around the back of her head. "MMMPH!!" Erin cried, resuming her panicked twists and turns. HeroineHunter gave the knot one last tightening tug before standing up and giving his captive the once-over.
"Much better," he said.
"Mmmph!" Erin said. She hated being gagged. Being tied up was no fun, but she could always maintain some of her superheroine spirit through a well-placed taunt or two. It was impossible not to feel humiliated when you sounded like... the way she sounded now.
"Don't look so blue... Blue Lynx," HeroineHunter said. "Mr. Zilch has ordered us to be gentle with you."
Erin raised her eyebrows. "Mmph?" she asked.
"We each get ten minutes with you to start," the goon continued. "Ten minutes, and then we alternate. Whatever we want to do to you, for ten minutes. But we agreed on strict rules. No costume destruction. No substantial injuries. And no exchanging of... bodily fluids. Yet."
Erin shook her head angrily. These vile bastards.
"Yes, we'll be gentle with you in round one," HeroineHunter said. "I doubt your friend will be so lucky."
Erin's eyes widened. "MMMPH!!" she cried, again rattling the handcuff chains against the bed-posts.
"She's upstairs now," HeroineHunter said. "Tied to the air hockey table. You should see her, Blue Lynx. It's... wow. She's freaking out. Those guys are merciless. That Venom guy, holy shit. The things he's gonna do to her..."
Erin squeezed her eyes shut and pulled her torso up as far as it could go. She wanted to rip the bed in half right now, and then do the same to this HeroineHunter, and then do even worse to those monsters hurting Margot... But she couldn't. The handcuffs only gave a few inches. She collapsed back to the mattress, hot air blasting through her nostrils.
"You're not escaping, Blue Lynx," HeroineHunter said. "You might as well try to enjoy this."
Her heart was racing, thumping against her breastbone with the combined force of anger, terror, and humiliation. How had she allowed this to happen? These men-- these boys-- these punks... they were nothing! They couldn't fight, they could barely think... And yet, they had her. They had found a way to subdue, defeat, and bind and gag the Blue Lynx.
HeroineHunter sat on the bed, enjoying the crazed look in his prisoner's eyes, drumming his fingers on the hard plain of Erin's stomach. He moved his hand up Erin's body, sliding his fingers through the canyon of her breasts, and finally rested it back on the superheroine's face. He then pinched her cheek with rough fingers and shook her head.
"Do you know what brought us all together? Hmm?"
Erin didn't want to meet his gaze, but his grip on her face gave her no choice.
"It was a message board. A forum about superheroines. A forum about superheroines being unmasked."
Erin's body started to shiver. She knew exactly where this conversation was headed: toward the very place that had brought her to Zilch's house to begin with.
"No..." she thought. "No..."
"You've been a pretty big topic there for a while, of course," HeroineHunter said. "Our city's own, home-grown superheroine. The Blue Lynx. Sexy babe in blue tights who goes out and kicks ass. We've been obsessed with you, bitch."
Erin slammed her eyelids shut. "No..."
"We've theorized about your secret identity for months. But none of us in our wildest dreams thought we'd ever get a chance to actually unmask you ourselves. So when Zilch posted tonight about how he was having you over... Well... I mean, I didn't have a choice."
He slid his thumb up Erin's cheek, poking it beneath the lower corner of her mask.
"No... No... No..."
"I had to know, Blue Lynx. I had to know."
Erin flung her body as hard as it could and screamed. But the cuffs meant she only traveled an inch, and the gag turned the shout into a high-pitched whine. None of it was enough to stop what was happening. None of it could prevent HeroineHunter from hooking his thumb around the eyehole of the Blue Lynx's mask and dragging it to her forehead, where it immediately pasted itself to sweaty skin. None of it could prevent her captor from recognizing her, instantly, as the daughter of the Mayor: Erin Steele.
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