Sparks and a Girl (Rewritten to publish)

12. Brunch

Jeisa woke up with a splitting headache. For a few minutes, she could only feel her throbbing head, but those few precious minutes were heavenly compared to what came next. She began to feel the rest of her body. A red-hot branding iron pressed against her flesh would have felt like bliss compared to the agony that ripped through her right arm. The memories rushed back into her accompanied by a flood of frustration and humiliation.

She sighed.

This plan had disintegrated in the worst way possible.

At least she remembered why she was in such pain. For one, she'd thrown herself off that battered SUV like some foreign-named masked wrestler in an underground fight club. And then she'd been shot. She wondered if this, added to the fact that she was kidnapped, was a good enough excuse to miss her dojo training with Coach. He didn't appreciate it when she skipped classes. She'd trained through a broken leg once.

To distract her from the pain, Jeisa focussed on trying to feel her surroundings. Feel, because there was no way she was opening her eyes. Even her eyelids were aching. The information came in slow, but she was soon forming a picture of her situation. She was on something plush. A bed. Larger than her twin bed. Likely a queen. Holy Moses, the sheets felt awesome. It was like the best button-down shirt she owned had been turned into bed sheets. She nuzzled them. This was exactly what she'd meant when she'd asked her dad for "grownup Manchester". She finally decided to crack open an eyelid, if only to find the sheets' label and make a note of it.

The room was bathed in late afternoon sun. If she wasn't dead, then she was inside a lifestyle themed magazine. Or one of those shop displays that you had to consciously resist trying out at the furniture store. She lay on a cream coloured, four poster bed, with white drapes pulled back against the posts. The dresser, the mirror, the side tables, the lampshades on the side tables, the walls were all cream coloured. The duvet on top of her was a pale green. There was wood smoke coloured, wall to wall carpeting on the floor, with most of it covered in a fluffy rug streaked in various shades of soft brown. Everything in this room also smelt new.

Jeisa felt like she was in a doll house. She suddenly grabbed the sheets in a panic and threw them off her, hoping against all hope that she didn't find herself dressed up in some pastel-coloured dress that cinched at the waist and flared outwards to her knees in several layers of tule. Because, if this is the room the kidnapper had put her in, that wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. It would completely and truly traumatise her to find that someone had stripped her naked and dolled her up. She sighed in relief when she found herself still dressed in the bloody Adventure Time T-shirt, black skinny jeans, and a pair of mismatched socks.

Finally freaked out enough, Jeisa jumped off the bed and walked to the door. She listened for sounds past the door, but it was quiet. She didn't have her lockpicks with her, so she'd have to find another way to open the door. Or maybe not? She turned the knob and the door opened without resistance. She slipped into the empty hallway. It was all white, with a beautiful, multicoloured, striped rug that ran along it. Just as it was in the room, everything had that scent that told you it was brand new. It all seemed way too dreamlike. Way too perfect. Way too creepy. Way too wrong. Even Jeisa's penchant for perfection wasn't enough for her to not find this disturbing.

There were four other doors down the hallway from hers. Jeisa opened the first three doors and found rooms similar to hers, filled with just as perfect, brand-new furniture, although the colour schemes changed room after room. The last door, the one farthest from hers, had a definite masculine feel to it. It was still doll-house perfect, but there was no poster bed, just a standard queen bed, and the colour scheme was darker, looking gorgeous in shades of soft red and black. Cass was lying casually on the bed in the room, hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling.