Ablaze , ᶦᵛʸ

c.9

Earlier that night, Graham had left to return to his "job". Emlyn was unsure what it even was, and while she was a bit reluctant to see him go, she also knew it was for the best that they both returned to their normal lives.

Clearly he hadn't missed her at all, and Emlyn was hurt.

She lied on her air mattress now, puffing out her cheeks like a pufferfish as she inhaled deeply and stubbornly held her breath. Sometimes she liked to do that because of her irrational fear of drowning. When she felt anxious, her paranoia tended to kick in, and so she defaulted to holding her breath several times. Practicing it calmed her down ever so, as the knowledge that she'd be able to hold her breath should she ever be in a situation where she literally drowns in a body of water, helped secure her fears.

She wasn't drowning in a traditional sense though. Now was a more figuratively drawn type of drowning.

Emlyn was drowning in her own pain.

She inhaled deeply, rolling over on her side and hanging her head over the edge of the air mattress, which was pretty damn flat and air was constantly escaping at a gradual but affective rate.

Emlyn shifted her chin and closed her eyes, reflexes loosening.

Crisp cool air vented into her face, gently blowing locks of her hair around on her face, over her eyes and nose and cheeks. The slightest of a relaxed smile appeared on the woman's face as the air continued blasting right into her eyelids, and the hair dusted out on her skin. Tickling her.

"Emlyn?"

At the sound of her name being spoken, she dragged the hair out of her eyes and tucked it out of the way, climbing on her knees and dismounting her shitty excuse for a bed.

Surely her kidnappers were much more comfortable than she was and Carmen's spitting about humanity was utter bullshit considering the way they isolated her in this room, confining her inside it almost like a prison cell. They even delivered food through a small door only they could open from the outside. And not to mention how Emlyn was sleeping on this flat bed they rarely ever reinflated for continued use. She was basically sleeping on soft plastic, thinned out on the hardwood floor.

"Are you coming or not?" the red head woman named Ivy asked, her distinct Boston accent chunky and thickening her words, like her brother's did.

"Yeah... Yeah, I am," Emlyn said, and stalked over to the open door, where light poured into every facet of her shadowed lock up. When Ivy closed the door behind them, so did any photons that became nothing more than disintegrations in the faded absence of light that was the makeshift prison.

Ivy clasped cuffs onto Emlyn's wrists, and started walking down the long winded hallway.

The chains clinked ever so often as the pair moved, the cold metal clamping tightly on Emlyn's skin and pressing onto her veins.

She could feel the pressure sinking into her wrists. If they were any tighter fastened on, she was sure her wrists would be bleeding hell by now. If she struggled at all, it would be so easy for the cuffs to cut open her skin. Naturally, she didn't struggle. She was out of that little hellhole they'd been keeping her in ever since she got here, so she was relieved to get some light and fresh air.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

The chains swung back and forth precariously, hitting each other on a multitude of occasions since Ivy and Emlyn weren't exactly walking slowly.

Instead of asking what else they wanted from her, Emlyn kept her mouth shut. She wasn't going to complain or make her life more of a hell than it needed to be. Instead she simply trailed after Ivy continuously, into the small cafeteria where they had brought her out for dinner yesterday.

"Ivy, Emlyn," Zack greeted, through a mouthful of pepperoni pizza.

"C'mon, I'll show you to your seat," offered Ivy, only it wasn't an offer. It was an order that she somehow made sound like an option, when it obviously wasn't. Nothing here was a choice, just survival. "So, you're probably wondering what brings you here on this fateful dinner hour."

"More like midnight snack," Zack munched on his thick slice that was oozing a lava trail of cheese between his teeth crunching on the dough and the plate he placed the slice on.

"Tomato, tomato," Ivy replied, and patted the table. "Carmen told us to monitor your phone for any incoming phone calls, you know in case one of them's important, if you somehow managed to get a code for help out to them, or if you're working with someone within the walls of VILE, you know. The usual. And the thing is, we received this phone call from— this person named 'Best Gee-Eff. Best GF.'"

"Best Gluten-Free what?" Zack mumbled, swallowing his pizza.

"That was my girlfriend," Emlyn explained, staring down at the plate Ivy had prepared for her. She wasn't hungry though. She didn't know if she could stomach the food right now.

"Oh," Zack said lamely in realization.

"My girlfriend called my phone?" Emlyn repeated in disbelief.

"Yeah, and Player was able to track her location. The call came directly from the thresholds of VILE," came a voice from behind Emlyn, and it wasn't Ivy. She turned around, facing Carmen. Carmen was sliding her arms into the sleeves of her red trench coat.

"What did she say?" Emlyn murmured in shock.

"She told you to meet up with her at this cafe. Nothing else. It was really short."

"And what are you gonna do?"

"Meet her," Carmen said simply.

"Look, I know you guys don't trust me—"

"It isn't a matter of trust. You don't understand. If what you're saying is true, and— you did sound perfectly genuine, because I'm a good teller of truth and lies— it means VILE has been keeping their eyes on you for a long time now. Your girlfriend— she's betrayed you."