Chapter Five
January 5th, 9:48 PM
Erin sat in the room, tied and gagged, cold and shivering in her underwear, with only the small, mysterious old woman keeping watch. She had already been there, practically still, and definitely silent, for at least two hours. The five villains had been alternating shifts with her ever since they put the finishing touches on their video; this was the old woman's first time with Erin, and Erin wanted to make it count. She started "mmphing" into her gag. She blinked her eyes rapidly. She stared at the woman with a broad, helpless expression.
The old woman just nodded at her and smiled.
"MMMPHHH!!!" Erin cried, pulling at the chair, pushing her chest into the open air, shaking her head. She rubbed her thighs together with the small bit of slack she had to use. Again, she stared at the woman, hoping her eyes expressed the longing and desperation that she had to convey.
The old woman looked at her, sighed lightly, and hopped out of her chair. She wandered over to Erin with patient steps, and then placed her bony, wrinkled hands around the back of Erin's head. Seconds later, she held the gag in her hand, and Erin coughed as she sucked air in and out, unimpeded, for the first time in days.
"What is it, child?" the old woman asked, holding onto a lock of Erin's hair.
Erin looked up at her. "I... I have to go."
"Go? Where?"
Erin rubbed her thighs together for emphasis. "To the bathroom!"
It was true. Erin hadn't peed since the morning she had been abducted. Since that point, they'd barely given her anything to eat or drink, and going to the bathroom wasn't exactly the first thing on her mind after being kidnapped, tied up, and held for ransom. But she felt an urge. More than that, she saw an opportunity. Of her five captors, this old woman was clearly the weakest, and probably the easiest to take advantage of. If she was willing to loosen Erin's bonds just a little bit, it wouldn't be to hard for Erin to knock her out and escape.
Relief, and release. It was a great plan.
The old woman nodded, seeming to consider deeply the consequences of letting Erin use the bathroom. "Why don't you just go right here?"
Erin shook her head. "No! I couldn't! That'd be so embarrassing! And the smell! No one wants to smell that! Do you?"
The old woman smiled. "No, I don't, I guess you're right." She gingerly bent down to Erin's ankles and gripped the ropes binding her to the chair's legs. Erin watched as she patiently unknotted the ropes, never turning back in her work, seeming to know exactly which way to twist each rope.
"I can't just kick her, can I?" Erin thought. "She's just an old woman. For all I know, she's Sunny's grandmother or something. She probably has nothing to do with this."
She'd let the old woman untie her legs, and then, once she got out of the room, she'd make a break for it. There was no way the old woman would be able to keep up.
Erin felt the ropes drop from her ankles, felt the cool air soothing her sore, reddened skin. The old woman had crept around to her back. Erin could feel her fingers lightly brush against her back, and figured the woman was undoing some of the ropes holding her to the chair. This was too good to be true. This senile old thing was practically letting her walk out the door. It almost didn't feel fair.
More ropes fell. "Okay, now, up," the old woman said, holding on to Erin's wrists.
Erin smiled, and used to her legs to push herself up onto her feet. She hadn't moved in at least a day, and the ropes had left her body weak and sore. But being upright sent a shot of adrenaline through Erin's bloodstream. Her heart began to pump. It was time to be a superheroine, again.
The old woman still held onto her bound wrists. Erin could feel her breath against the middle of her back; she was barely four feet tall. "Okay, march," she said, giving Erin a small push from behind.
They walked through the cracked-open door and into a narrow hallway. Erin saw Sunny standing at the other end. She cradled a beer with one hand, and propped herself against a dirty white wall with other. She took a swig of the drink, watching the pair of oddly-matched women step in her direction.
"Damn," Erin thought. "I can't take off with her right there. There's no way I could beat her with my hands tied."
"Where's she going?" Sunny said, her speech somewhat slurred.
"She has to use the restroom," the old woman responded.
"Figures," Sunny said. She took a long pull from the beer. "Whose turn is next, by the way?"
"The kid," the old woman said.
"Oh yeah."
The old woman increased her grip on Erin's wrists. "We're here."
There was an old wooden door to Erin's right. The old woman booted it open with a soft kick. Erin looked inside to see a dingy scene: a jack-and-jill bathtub with no curtain, just hooks, a sink encrusted with brown and gray filth, and a toilet with a cracked seat and no lid on the tank. There were broken tiles and peeling wallpaper and a rank odor masking it all. Erin shuddered.
"Having second thoughts, princess?" Sunny said.
Erin turned her head to face Sunny and glared, eliciting a chuckle from the blonde-haired woman.
"Don't worry," Sunny continued, "It won't be like this for long. The mayor's people have already gotten in touch. They say they'll try to get the Blue Lynx to us in the next twenty-four hours."
Erin blinked. Her father was working with the kidnappers? "I guess he has no other choice," Erin thought. But how did he plan to ensnare the Blue Lynx? And what would he do if the Blue Lynx was nowhere to be found?
"Go on," the old woman said, giving her a small nudge. "Do your thing."
"But," Erin said, looking back at the old woman, "I can't. Not with my hands tied."
"I'll help you," the old woman said, exerting more pressure on Erin's back, and forcing her to step into the bathroom. Erin shuddered. The tiles were cold and grimy, and the smell was making it hard to focus on anything else... Like just how she was going to escape, with these two women both watching her so intently?
She walked toward the toilet and stood facing away from the bowl. "So what do I do now?" Erin said.
And Erin yelped as the old woman grabbed hold of the sides of her panties and, with one quick motion, pulled them down her thighs.
"Sit," the old woman said.
"How dare you!" Erin yelled, her face flushing with color.
"Sit," the old woman repeated, more firmly. She placed her hands on Erin's chest and applied pressure, forcing Erin to squat down and set her naked bottom on the toilet seat.
Laughter came from the hallway. Erin turned her head to see Sunny leaning on the doorframe of the bathroom, taking in the scene and sipping from her bottle. She was lingering on Erin's bare buttocks and thighs, which she could only see in profile but was nonetheless clearly enjoying. Erin bared her teeth. "Get out!" she snapped. Sunny laughed.
"What? Can't go with me watching?"
Erin's face felt hot. Her head was spinning from some combination of embarrassment, pain, hunger, and the rank odor of the bathroom. Her panties had bunched up around her ankles; her forehead had broken out in a sweat. The old woman still stood just inches in front of her, still gazed at her intently. Erin hadn't expected her to be so persistent. She hadn't expected her to pull down her underwear, either, like a mother attending to a child. It was all so humiliating.
"At least I'm not the Blue Lynx," Erin told herself, silently. "These idiots can laugh at Erin Steele all they want. To them, I'm just a spoiled rich girl." She tried to cheer herself up thinking about what the Blue Lynx what do to them once she got free, but her meditations were interrupted by the old woman's voice.
"Go," she said. "Go."
Her mind suddenly vacant, suddenly unable to think of anything else to do, Erin peed. Half a minute later, the old woman pulled her to her feet. She tugged Erin's panties up her legs and snapped the elastic around her waist. She then turned Erin around to face the hallway and once again placed her hands on Erin's wrists.
"March," she said.
With an increasingly more-drunk Sunny cackling the whole way, the old woman pushed Erin into the hallway and back toward the chair where she had already sat for so many hours. Thoroughly humbled and unwilling to fight back, Erin simply shut her eyes and whimpered as the old woman lashed her legs to the chair-legs, tied her arms behind the back-rest, and re-gagged her. The old woman crackled her knuckles as she examined her work.
"My shift is over," she said, content with the truss job. "It's the kid's turn now."
When Erin next opened her eyes, the old woman had left. In her place was Jeremy, who studied Erin with a mix of puzzlement and romantic interest.
"Wow," he said. "I guess it's just you and me now, huh."
Erin shook her head. Jeremy. This... boy. She couldn't believe he was part of this. She had hoped, was sure, that she was done with him. Throughout college he had been nothing but a nuisance to both Erin Steele and the Blue Lynx. Always going on and on in class about the "meaning" of a campus superheroine. And always trying after class to beat her up, to tie her up, to unmask her. He never seemed particularly evil at that time: just misguided, obsessed, pathetic. But now he had shown his true colors. He was no better than Sunny, or Todorov, or any of these creeps.
Still, he was much younger than the others. And Erin had a past with him she could drawn on. If any one of these goons was planning on letting her escape, it was probably Jeremy. She just had to persuade him. Which meant getting this gag off.
"MMMPH!" Erin said. "MMMMPH! MMMPH!"
"Whoa," Jeremy said. "You alright?"
Erin opened her eyes as wide as she could. "MMMMMPH!"
"You're pretty hot when you do that, you know," Jeremy said.
Erin furrowed her brow. What a neanderthal.
"MMPH! MMPH! MMPH!"
"You want me to take the gag off?"
Erin nodded. "MMPH! MMPH!"
"They really don't want me doing that."
Erin kept nodding. "MMPH! MMPH!"
"But I guess we can let you breathe for a second."
Jeremy bent over and, after a great deal of struggling, unknotted the gag. Erin coughed as the cloth left her lips. "Perfect," she thought. "Now I've just got to think of something..."
"So?" Jeremy said, sticking the gag in his back pocket, folding his arms. "What's up?"
"Jeremy," Erin muttered. "You've got to get me out of here."
Jeremy giggled. "I can't do that, Erin! You're our hostage!"
"You know it's the right thing to do," Erin said. "You know this-- kidnapping me, keeping me here-- is wrong."
Jeremy scratched the back of his head. "I know, I know," he said. "But we've got to do something. We want to unmask the Blue Lynx, you know?"
Erin rolled her eyes. "Come on, Jeremy. Do you really think this plan is going to work?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, you remember the Blue Lynx from college. You think she's dumb enough to fall into a trap like this?"
Jeremy chuckled. "Ha, well I figure, you know, I almost unmasked her once, so she can't be too smart."
Erin frowned. "Well, you probably got lucky. And besides, that was years ago, right? She's gotten faster and smarter and stronger. And do you think my father would really be willing to work with you?"
"Apparently he's already gotten in touch."
"Well, have you heard his voice yourself?"
Jeremy shrugged. "That's just what Sunny said."
"Exactly," Erin said. "Sunny's a liar. My dad wouldn't do that. He's not going to work with kidnappers, even if it's me who's the hostage."
"So why would Sunny lie to me?"
"To keep you in line. To make it seem like the plan is working. Even if it isn't."
Jeremy began to pace in a circle around Erin's chair. "But... Wait," he said. "If..."
Erin felt her confidence surging. She'd even started pulling at her bonds again, and though they weren't budging, it felt good to fight back. "Listen, Jeremy, can I tell you a secret?"
Jeremy paused behind Erin's back. "What?"
"I know who the Blue Lynx is," she whispered.
Jeremy scrambled back in front of Erin. "Really?" he said, his eyes shining, his mouth hanging partly open.
"If you get me out of here, I can take you to her," Erin said.
"But, how do you know?"
"Process of elimination," Erin said. "I figured it out in college."
"So, you'll take me to the Blue Lynx," Jeremy said. "And then what?"
"Well, we'll unmask her."
"REALLY?" Jeremy said, taking a step back.
Erin nodded. "Just set me free."
Jeremy stood up straight and became silent. He seemed to weigh his options, even placing his hands in the air in front of him, palms up, like scales. "But what about the money?"
"The money?"
"Yeah, the boss is promising a lot of money if we can take the Blue Lynx out."
"Okay," Erin said, "So you do it. On your own. I'll even help you."
An idea had taken root in Erin's brain. It was a longshot, but what wasn't when you were tied in your underwear after being abducted by five supervillains?
She watched Jeremy nod to himself. "Okay," he said.
"And how much do you care about money, anyway? I remember you in college. You don't want money. The only thing you want is to end the Blue Lynx. The only thing you want is to unmask her."
Jeremy looked at her. His face was beaming. "Yeah, you're right."
"So get me out of here, okay?"
Jeremy looked back at the door, still partially open, and moved to shut it. He delicately pushed it back into the frame and gestured behind Erin. "We'll go out the back," he said. "We'll take my car."
"Alright!" Erin said.
"I'll untie you from the chair, but I won't untie your ankles and wrists," Jeremy said. "Not until the Blue Lynx is mine."
"Fair enough," Erin said.
Jeremy stepped to the ground and began undoing the old woman's handiwork. "Oh God," he mumbled, mostly to himself. "I can't believe this is happening."
"Oh, it's happening," Erin said, grinning. "Believe it."
On to Chapter Six
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