Miss Quick

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Stuck

"You bastard!" I scream at Josh, wishing more than anything I could kick the smug look off his face. Why didn't I figure it out? Why hadn't I guessed?

"Goodnight," he laughs, and his face blurs into that of a monster. I wince and close my eyes, but behind my eyelids I still see him. I'm falling down the face of a cliff, through bright yellow fog. I spin, and above me is Carlos's face, looking stern, straight at me. He dissolves in a puff of smoke, and I hit the bottom.

***

This time when I wake up,  I can't feel anything, just my pounding headache. I can see, kind of, but I don't know what I'm looking at. It looks like a robot.

A few good blinks does the trick, and what I'm looking at is not actually a robot, but Carlos.

He's sitting in a shiny aluminum chair, his hands shackled together in front of him. A thick metal band stretches just above his stomach, holding him to the chair, and his bare feet are shackled in front to the legs. There's blood smeared on his cheek, and his long dark hair hangs in his eyes.

This vision shocks me into reality. I try to move, but I can't. Upon looking down I see that I am also trapped, but instead of a giant metal ability-proof chair, I'm in a regular wooden one. Ropes bind my hands behind me, as well as looping around my chest, securing me to the back of the chair. My feet are free, however.

I struggle against the ropes, but whoever put me here did their job well. I can barely budge. All I manage to do is scoot the chair a few inches forward and kick my legs wildly. It's almost humiliating, how much is necessary to keep Carlos trapped, and all that's necessary to stop me is a wooden chair and regular rope.

"Don't bother, you'll just wear yourself out," Carlos says finally. It's the first time I've heard his voice, and it's surprisingly soft and clear.

"Yeah, well, you're strapped down with titanium. I just have ropes," I say, and continue to wiggle.

Carlos sighs and looks pointedly away from me.

After a few minutes, it's evident that I won't be able to get out. "Finally done?" Carlos asks.

I glare at him. "I'm not going to give up, I just need to try something else." I look around the room, but there's not much to work with. In fact, there's literally nothing to work with. It's not a cell like before, just a room. It's dimly lit, so I can barely see the gray cinderblock walls. The floor is cement, and there's a single door, white, with no knob. There are no windows, no tools lying around in corners, no convenient hooks with our backpacks hanging on them. Not that we had backpacks in the first place. Just my chair with me tied to it, and Carlos's chair with him shackled in it.

"Do you think you could get me out if I got over there?" I ask.

"I don't know."

"Well, I might as well try." I scoot as far forward in the chair as I can, which isn't very far. I reach out with a foot and try to pull myself forward. Nothing happens.

I try a different strategy. I wiggle my hips, like I'd been doing before, trying to pop the chair legs up and forward. This is slightly effective, and I manage to get about five feet closer. Halfway. Carlos is watching me with a slightly amused look on his face.

There was a time when I may have been intimidated by him, but I called Jared a dick not long ago. I also had three people I knew die. Carlos doesn't seem at all scary by comparison.

I thrash more vigorously, the chair scraping the ground with a creak in cadence. Soon I'm about as close as I can get without my knees bumping his.