My face hurt. Also other parts. Mostly just the face. Had I hit my face when I fell? I tried to avoid that. My head was sluggish. It ached. Then again, being tazed at all shouldn’t have knocked me out. My body was still weak from traveling earlier in the week. That must be it.
Dammit, my body hurts.
My silence hadn’t pleased Chamberlain. He tried torturing the answers out of me. Again, I said he tried. Others have done much worse to me. He realized that quickly.
Chamberlain left me alone in the room. Classic mistake- expecting me to stay quiet and die. I kept myself calm, taking slow and steady breaths. Panicking wouldn’t get me out of here.
The handcuffs were tight. They dug into my skin, actually hurting. Still. Easy enough to break out. I’ve gotten myself out of worse restraints.
The handcuffs weren’t my only issue. As I checked around the chair, I spotted a small cord around the bottom chair leg. A simple wire? Meant for decoration? No, because I could feel more there beneath my thighs. A shape to bump into.
Dominic took great care to not jostle me during the interrogation. The thing below me needed to stay precisely in place. Handled with care.
Explosives were the most logical conclusion. A gun left too many chances for me to duck/dodge.
Dominic wanted to make sure I couldn’t leave. Not before he was done with me.
I gave him no names. There wasn’t a chance that I would give up those kids and the ponies. There was a chance that Dominic could find them. He could track them on traffic cameras, or cameras from the security parking lot.
But he wouldn’t get the information from me! I’ll die first.
This was my mess. None of my friends deserved to pay because of it. Human or pony, they were innocent in this.
He said he would get rid of the characters. That meant the Mane 6 plus Spike were in danger. If the girls took them back to their house, they were all in danger.
Dominic wanted me dead. He would need to put in a lot more work.
The cuffs were the first thing to go. These were indeed the good cuffs, meant to stay locked completely. If I recalled it right, they were meant to be unpickable. My favorite lockpick kit was stuck in my bag, which was out of reach. But lucky for everyone, there was a spare hidden in my shirt.
I shuffled my shoulders around. The constant movement jostled something hidden there. Carefully, I slipped my hands under the back of my shirt. The clip could drop anywhere, and I needed to be ready to catch it. Another jostle made something slip.
Once more.
The clip fell.
I caught it, letting out a relieved breath. The day wasn’t over. It took some more work to get the clip in the shape I wanted. As I slipped it in, it became very clear that this lock required a bit more work. Work that I wasn’t in a place to attempt.
The door handle started to move. I locked up, eyeing the door. Dominic locked it when he left, so it stood to reason the door needed to be unlocked. Also, very few people would come this way.
Dominic hadn’t been gone long enough to want to come back...did he send guards to watch me? Keep me from escaping? A smart move, if a bit naive. I could take down a guard. My earlier fight with that officer was a fluke.
The door knob shook again.
Huh. Weird.
Then the tell-tale signs of a key being slid into a lock. I eyed the door, my fingers still twisting the paperclip between my fingers. An advanced lock, yes, but nothing to write home about. The thing could be opened with a bit of force, if you used the proper methods.
The knob turned again, failing.
Now I was excited. Someone trying to break in? Somebody doing what they weren’t supposed to? Oh I love this. This could be fun.
“Do you have a credit card?” I called out.
The doorknob stopped moving.
“The door’s locked. You’ll need a card to pick it.” I supplied.
“...that really works?” A young female voice asked.
A teen, around here? Huh. Interesting. Another prisoner like me? No, then she would know about the card thing really working. Or maybe they were a first offender. It’s unclear. Or worst case: Dominic trying to be a rude bastard, and trick me into thinking I could escape. As soon as this girl broke it, Dominic would reveal himself behind her and step in for a new round of interrogation.
Still. This was my best shot of an escape. The girl would be better help than no help at all.
“Yeah. You would need to jimmy it in the gap between the door and the wall, then bend it to the knob, and the door should pop open.” I explained.
Silence.
“Do you have a card?” I asked again.
“I have Mom’s credit.” The girl replied.
I nodded. “That should be fine.”
“Why can’t you just open it?”
I glanced down at the chair. With my hands still locked, I couldn’t lean forward enough. The device beneath my chair also was still there.
“Seriously, why can’t you do it?” The girl asked.
“I don’t have a card. Or a key.” I answered.
“You could turn the lock on your side. If it locks on mine, it should unlock on your’s.” The girl pointed out.
“True.” I hummed. “Except I am..kinda stuck. And I...can’t move.” Revealing details made my skin crawl. If this was a trap made by Dominic, then I just admitted a weakness. That I couldn’t outsmart his trap. If the girl was sincere, then I exposed something to a stranger. Ergo: skin crawling.
“Oh. OH! Oh okay. Um...right. Cause you’re- this is- right. I can- I can just start now. Right. Getting the card.” The girl rambled.
It took a few minutes. A few heart freezing minutes. The girl needed step by step help in the process. I talked her through it. Clearly, she was a first timer. These skills would be useful in the future, all girls should learn lock picking.
It took trial and error. The door popped open. A young blonde girl walked in, a proud smile on her face. She looked young, maybe fourteen or thirteen. Her baby face didn’t help anything. A young girl like this? She’d need all the help she could get.
“Look at me! I did it. I picked a lock.” The girl cheered.
“That’s great.” I praised, smiling wide.
“Yeah! I’ve never done it before. People kept talking about it and-” Her eyes widened. “Oh god! You said you were stuck!”
“I...am?” I glanced back, trying to peer over my shoulder to my locked hands. “I told you that, right?”
The girl scrambled over. She started fidgeting with her hands, pulling them in and stretching them out. “Oh god- oh god you-”
“Could you like...help?” I asked.
The girl was startled, gawking at me. “Help?! You- you need a hospital!”
“Just got out, thanks.” I shifted my shoulders. “I’ll be fine.”
The attention and concern convinced me (partially) that this wasn’t a plot from Dominic. He wouldn’t have allowed that kind of concern towards me. Now I’m just being given her honest reactions. She must be green if these scrapes freaked her out so much.
Honestly, it’s not even my worst interrogation.
Of course I was lying. I could feel the tears and aches. I’d witnessed my own torture. No, no it was an interrogation. This- I was interrogated. Dominic used his fists to get out answers. He’d left to clean up, and gather more tools. I could handle it, but I would much rather prefer not having to hide anything.
Scarves could cover the marks on my face. The bust lip wasn’t bleeding too badly, it should be fine with a bit of maintenance. The rest of it could be ignored. My stomach often hurts like this, it’s fine.
“Fine?! Who even says that?! Look at you!” The girl gestured to all of me.
“Hey.” I’m not that beat up. Sure, for a fifteen year old, I look like shit. But I always looked like shit.
“You need help!” The girl walked up to me, reaching for my arm.
My heart thumped. “Stop!” I shrieked.
The girl froze.
My breath raced. I tried to calm it back down, to keep myself from freaking out. If I freaked out, the girl would freak out. There was an explosive in the room. Someone needed to keep a level head.
“Look below my seat.” I instructed, in a forcibly flat and restrained voice. It was the best I could manage under the circumstances.
The girl took a panicked step back.
“Look. Below.” I repeated.
Swallowing, the girl knelt down. Shaking she saw beneath my seat. She gasped, falling back. She scurried back from me. Her back pressed against the wall.
“It’s alright.” I assured her. “It’s a trigger release. A dead man’s switch. As long as I’m on the chair, it won’t explode. Can’t even be a big explosion. This thing feels tiny. More of a startling explosion than a painful one. Probably.”
The girl shook her head. “Ho-how?! How could-” She pressed her face into her hands. “How?”
“It’s alright. I’ve done this sort of thing before.” I replied.
“How are you so calm?” She asked.
“I did it before. It can be diffused.”
“You- what?”
“Or you could just go. I can handle it from here.” I glanced around the chair again. Having another person would be helpful, especially as Dominic was sure to be coming back soon. If I needed to go through another interrogation until I could manage an escape, then I would.
The girl sniffled. She pushed herself to her feet. Clearing her cheeks, she looked up at me. “What do you need?”
“I can handle it.”
She laughed, a mad laugh like she doubted me. Again, hurtful. “No you can’t. How could I help?”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Have you ever diffused a bomb before?”
The girl blinked at me. She sucked in her lips, squeaking.
I sighed. This is not okay. This is really not okay. I needed her to be able to do this. Because if she doesn’t do this, then I don’t get out. If I don’t get out, Dominic can just do whatever he wants to my friends. And what he wants to do to them it’s… It’s not good. I need to be able to save them. And I can’t do that if I’m handcuffed to a fucking explosive.
I need to help my friends. And I don’t have time to give this girl a step-by-step instructional guide on this.
“It’s okay. I can-”
“Can you tell me how?” The girl asked.
“No.” I snapped.
“Why not? I-” She took a shaking breath. “I can help.”
“I’m sure you can. Not like this.” I replied. The girl braced herself. “This is an explosive. One wrong move, we both get hurt. We can’t risk that. You need to go.”
The girl shook her head. She moved forward, looking down beneath my seat.
“Hey.” I warned her. “I’m not joking. Get out. I can handle this.”
There had to be a way out of this. There had to be a way that didn’t include putting this girl’s life at risk.
“No you can’t. You’re as old as me!” The girl argued.
“I’m really not-”
“And you’re hurt!”
“It’s flesh wounds!”
“How did you even get here?” The girl asked. “Who did this to you?”
I shut my mouth.
“Come on. I’ll make sure they can’t do it again. When I tell my dad about this, he’ll make sure of it! My mom too!”
“Why are you here?” I asked her. “You broke into a locked room, why?”
“Be-Because I heard you.”
“No. You tried opening the door before you heard me. Why did you come in?”
The girl swallowed again.
I narrowed my eyes. “You knew there was a secret in here?” Her eyes widened. “Yes. A locked room, a secret, you couldn’t resist. Whose secret? Your mom’s? Your dad’s” Her eyes twitched. “Your dad. Your dad had a secret room, and you wanted to see it.”
“Ho-how do you know that?” The girl asked.
“I’m unfortunately very clever. Who’s your dad?” I asked. “It can’t be a large number of people. Let’s not kid ourselves. Look at me- I’m being interrogated. This isn’t water cooler talk. Your dad is someone...important.”
“You’re fifteen.” The girl stressed.
“Already told you, I’m really not. I was born fifteen years ago, but we both know ways around that. How does your dad know-”
“You’ve Traveled already?” The girl gawked at me.
I tilted my head at her. “...yes?”
“Is that why he...he did this to you?” The girl wondered.
Oh, oh dear. Oh me oh my. I’m really about to ask this. I would regret it, but there weren’t a lot of other options.
“Dominic Chamberlain is your father.”
The girl didn’t deny it. “My father did this to you.”
I nodded, chest aching for the girl. She scrunched up her face. Her eyes welled up, in rage or in sadness I couldn’t tell. The room wasn’t brightly lit.
“Why?”
“...I don’t know.”
He’d given me reasons for it. That I made too much noise. That I failed to complete the job. He barely gave me time. All the work I put into cleaning it, it hadn’t meant a thing to him. There was another reason here. A reason that gave him permission to hurt me.
He wanted to know about my friends, about how many places I’d gone. He slapped me for not replying. He punched me over bad answers. No answers I gave satisfied. My pain satisfied. This felt personal. But I’d never met Dominic before the other day.
I don’t know why. Could he have known I had Delilah’s journal? Was it that I was alone, so he projected? No, no, this was personal against me.
“You need to go.” I warned.
“I’m not leaving you. It woudn’t be right.” The girl argued. “My dad did this. He needs to be stopped!”
“And he will. But not like this.” He would be stopped, only when I was sure my friends were safe from him or his people. My friends got themselves in this mess, but I would get them out of it.
My friend...oh wow. I am good. Like, ‘I scare myself sometimes’ good.
“I’ll get myself out.”
“You just said-”
“Yeah. And then I figured out a way out. It’ll be dangerous, the timing will need to be exact, or else the bomb will go off. But I can’t do it if you’re here.”
She shook her head.
“You’ve helped me, I promise you have.” I told her. She helped calm me down, even if it was just me forcing myself to be calm. It cleared my mind. The girl- whose name I don’t even know- helped me keep my head straight. “Now I need you to help me again.”
“I can’t-”
“Stay safe.” I instructed. “Don’t rock the boat. If I get out, only to find out you got hurt, that would kinda ruin my day.”
“But Dad-”
“He will get what is coming to him. You can’t put yourself at risk. As a child, that is not your job.”
“I should call the police.”
“Who do you think brought me here?” I asked.
The girl paled.
Having gotten through to her, the girl walked out of the room. She closed the door behind her.
When the door closed, I got to work.
The spell left my lips.
==DMLE==
The building rocked. Dominic tensed. He hadn’t expected her to actually try. He rushed out towards the room.
==DMLE==
Think about Lilac
Think about Lilac
You want to see Lilac
==DMLE==
Dammit my body hurts more now
This was a bad choice
“Mommy?”
Nevermind.
Best decision I ever made.