Chapter Three
June 18th, 2:12 PM
Sunny turned her around, punched her in the stomach, kneed her in the chin. She stumbled backward, and Sunny leapt on top of her, pounding her against the floor. She struggled underneath Sunny's legs, now straddling her. She reached her hands up to fight and Sunny swatted them aside. She was punched in the face. Her head slumped. Sunny grabbed her by the chin and brought it back up. "Time to see who you really are," Sunny whispered, resting her hand on her face, and then tugging her mask off, inch by inch, until...
Erin woke up and cried out.
She stared at a concrete ceiling and a single light hanging from a small fixture.
She had been having a dream. A dream. A dream.
But this wasn't a dream.
She was on a slab, probably also concrete, some sort of bunk.
Her back ached, her legs ached, and her butt was throbbing. She sat up and rubbed the back of her neck.
She was in a cell. It was just her, sitting on this bunk jutting out from the wall, and a dingy-looking toilet, sharing a featureless room about seven or eight feet square. A gray door with a small window-cut was the only thing to distinguish the monotony of the walls.
She looked down. Her costume had been taken from her, replaced by a skimpy tunic with horizontal black and white stripes. A prisoner's outfit. She wasn't wearing underwear. She was barefoot.
Things could always, always get worse. She knew this now. Each bad night she'd had as the Blue Lynx had been gradually replaced with another memory that was even more horrific. Her first dicey mission at the Hillbilly House had been supplanted by nearly being blown up in a factory with Margot. Being poisoned by Todorov had been nothing compared to having Steve beat her up, break her arm, and unmask her. And not even the Fearsome Five could compare to the humiliation of being defeated by the Spaniel.
But this... This situation... This was surely it, right? The worst peril she had ever faced.
Unmasked. Abducted. Bound and gagged and spanked. And now... a literal prisoner of Sunny.
No one was coming to save her.
She tried to get up from the bunk, but couldn't seem to find her feet. Her thoughts were clear, but her body still felt weak, like her muscles had been baking in the sun for days. She placed her hands on the side of the bed and tried to push herself up. Her arms shook. Nothing happened.
"What was in that syringe?" Erin thought. "A goddamn elephant tranquilizer?"
She couldn't fight back in this state. She could barely even move.
She sighed.
All she could do was wait.
And so Erin sat, for maybe ten minutes, until there was a knock at the cell door.
"Good afternoon, Blue Lynx," a low male voice said. It was coming from a slit underneath the door window that Erin hadn't noticed before.
Erin didn't reply. What could she say?
"Did you have a good sleep? I hope you did," the voice intoned. "You've got a very busy day ahead of you."
Suddenly, the cell door opened. Two large men dressed in black tank tops and camo pants entered the room, one of the them dragging in a metal dolly with a tall back. Erin saw the light outside and instinctively hopped on her feet, hoping to make a break for it. But her legs were still too weak to sustain her weight and, with a small "off," she tumbled to the floor, provoking a small giggle from one of the men.
"It's just as Sunny said," the man laughed. "She's lost all of her strength."
"Don't worry, babe," the second man said. "You won't have to walk to get to where you're going."
Erin set her palms on the floor, again trying to push herself into fighting condition. Before she could even make much of an effort, the men bent down and pick her up by the arms, pulling her effortlessly to her feet. With next to no resistance, they dragged Erin over to the dolly, placing her feet in its base, and pulling her arms behind the back. Erin could only moan quietly as the men wrapped her wrists together and then put additional rope around her torso, securing her tightly to the metal cart.
"These probably aren't even necessary given your condition," one the henchmen said, binding her legs with even more rope, and making huge knots around Erin's ankles. "But the boss told us to take every precaution."
One of the men moved around to face Erin. She glared at him, and the man chuckled.
"This bitch probably doesn't even remember us," he said.
"Yeah," said the second man, holding the metal handle of the dolly and tipping Erin backward. "She has no idea we've met before."
Erin stared at the man in front of her. It was true: she didn't recognize his face.
The man stepped toward her and placed a meaty hand on her exposed thigh, squeezing it just below the hem of Erin's prisoner tunic.
"We were just a couple of thugs for the Blue Lynx to dispose of, that night," he growled, pushing his face to close to Erin's and letting her smell his foul breath. "I wonder if she'll remember us now..."
The man smirked, and then slowly slid his fingers up Erin's thigh, pinching her skin the whole way, and letting the edge of the skirt gradually ride up on his wrist. Erin shook her head and squealed-- it was all she could do-- which only made her attacker laugh. He pushed up her tunic just millimeters away from her private parts...
The other man swatted away her groper's hand.
"Hey man, not now. We gotta job to do."
The groper stepped back. The hem of Erin's tunic resumed its place against the middle of her upper leg.
"Remember what Sunny said," the swatting man said. "We can have her if we do these tasks correctly."
"Yeah, I remember," the second man replied. He once again stepped toward Erin and leered. "I just really want her right now."
"Eww," Erin said, tossing her head around. It was the first thing she'd managed to say since they'd come in.
The second man winked at her. "Oh, you'll learn to love me in time, Blue Lynx."
"Enough of this. Let's go," the first man said, rolling his eyes. He tipped the dolly back further, wheeled it around, and pushed it and its scantily clad freight out of the cell door.
They were in a hallway now, brightly lit like a clinic. As the thugs pushed Erin down the way, she could see doors like the one in her cell passing by on either side. This was not a normal abandoned warehouse. This was some kind of facility, a base even.
She was in the heart of Sunny's operation. Wherever that was.
The dolly stopped. One of the men opened a door, and Erin was turned ninety degrees, pushed into a room several times bigger than her previous enclosure. This one had more furniture: a desk with a laptop, a file cabinet, a few chairs. It also had Sunny, dressed in her classic all-leather ensemble, her bleached blonde hair a blinding yellow in the fluorescent light.
"There she is," Sunny said, staring at Erin as the men rolled her against a wall. They set the dolly down, allowing the two female foes to lock eyes.
"I hope my boys were gentle with you," the villainess said, crossing her arms in front of her. "I told them you're our most valuable possession, at the moment."
"If by gentle you mean they groped me, then they did just fine," Erin coughed. She had to find a way to restore her confidence.
Sunny laughed. "Well, boys will be boys." She glared at the thugs. "You may leave now."
The henchmen shrugged and exited the room, shutting the door behind them.
"Idiots," Sunny said. "They really don't understand how crucial you are to the plan."
Erin blinked. "And neither do I." She made her first attempt to pull at the bonds on her wrists. They didn't budge. She sighed. "Perhaps you should enlighten me, now that you've got me here."
"Perhaps I will," Sunny said. She pulled a chair over to within a few feet of Erin and took a seat. Her eyes were level with the hem of Erin's tunic. Sunny didn't seem to mind.
"I've got two things going now, Erin. Wait. Should I call you Blue Lynx? I haven't decided myself. What do you think?"
Erin groaned. "Well, you have no proof that I'm the Blue Lynx, so why don't you stick with my name."
"Still playing that game, eh?" Sunny said, grinning. "I think I have more than enough proof at this point. I have you entering that apartment. I have your mask and costume. And now, I have you."
"I'm not sure what any of that proves," Erin said. "Just because you caught me in a Blue Lynx costume doesn't mean I'm the Blue Lynx."
"Rightttt," Sunny said. "You just have the exact same face, hair, and build. The exact same speech patterns. The exact same arrogant attitude. And you just happen to wear the exact same spandex outfit."
Erin rolled her eyes. "That's circumstantial evidence, at best."
"Okay, then, it's settled. You're the Blue Lynx. I'm calling you the Blue Lynx," Sunny said. Her face was turning red. It was the first time Erin had seen her lose her cool since she'd encountered her in Brian's apartment. It was a small thing, but a encouraging one.
"So listen up, Blue Lynx," Sunny continued. "Last night I gave you a drug I tested on our friend, the Spaniard. It looks like it's work as well on you as it did on him. Which is great for me and maybe not so good for you. Because there's a whole lot more where that came from."
Erin felt a twinge in her muscles. One more of those injections might turn her into soup. A terrifying prospect.
"I'm testing all kinds of cocktails on him," Sunny said. "And I'm going to give all the good ones to you."
"You've made him into a labrat," Erin said. "You're sick."
"I won't deny it!" Sunny exclaimed. "But sometimes you've got to do things for the good of science. Which brings me to my second project, one in which you have the starring role."
"Let me guess," Erin said. "You're going to reveal my identity-- what you think it is, anyway-- on TV. Very original."
Sunny chuckled. "What a quaint thought, Blue Lynx. On TV? Wow. You think this is 1990? TV. Ha. No. What I have planned for you is much more interesting... More interactive, I think. A plan fit for our contemporary moment. Though you're correct in assuming it involves your secret."
Erin nodded. "Of course."
"You see, Blue Lynx, my dear friend Brent Hammerson's recovery isn't coming along quite as quickly as we thought it would. Our research has stagnated. He's still deep in a coma, and there's nothing we can do about it."
"Oh no," Erin deadpanned. "That sounds awful."
"I'm glad you think so," Sunny replied. "Because you're going to help him get better. We're about to make a fortune off of your secret identity."
"What are you gonna do? Blackmail my dad?" Erin said. "The cops would find you. You'd be finished in seconds."
"I doubt that," Sunny said. "But again, you're not thinking imaginatively enough, Blue Lynx. What we're going to do with you is much more... Participatory, than that."
"Enough dancing around, Sunny," Erin said. "Just tell me what the hell is going on."
Sunny laughed. "We're going to crowdfund Brett's recovery. By auctioning off little pieces of you."
"What?"
"Yes, yes, yes," Sunny said, standing up from her chair and clapping. "We're setting up a Donator page. And the prize is whatever you want to know about the Blue Lynx."
Erin could feel her heartbeat accelerate. So this was Sunny's plan: to not only make a fool of her in public, but to use her humiliation in order to pay for Hammerson's well-being.
"You've got to be kidding me," Erin spat. "It won't work."
"We'll see what the people think about that," Sunny said. She walked back to the desk and two items. The first was a phone. The second was... Something small. And blue. Erin couldn't tell yet.
Sunny strutted back over to where Erin stood. "You can have this back, for now," Sunny said. And with that, she pushed the Blue Lynx mask back onto the bridge of Erin's nose, patting it down around her eyes. Erin struggled in her foe's grasp, but the rope and the drug made sure she could only defend herself with a grimace.
"Perfect fit," Sunny giggled, stepping back from Erin. She held the phone out in front of her.
"Here's a good first pic for the small fry donations," Sunny said. She pushed a button on the camera.
"Smile, Blue Lynx."
On to Chapter Four
No comments:
Post a Comment