A Slave to Broken Hearts (A Slave to Love Sequel)

Chapter 65: Handcuffs

"Um...what's all this?" I asked.

This was a definite change from regular self defense since we didn't normally have props, but laid out on a blanket in the grass were various items such as rope, tape, zip ties, handcuffs...

"Well it's important to know how to fight, but it's also important to know how to escape if you do get kidnapped, and since you already have been kidnapped it's likely to happen again," Lexi explained, picking up a roll of duct tape and tearing a chunk off with a threatening rip.

I made a face at her. "Rude."

"But true."

I caught Blade's eye from where he was sitting on the grass, legs stretched out in front of him with his weight leaned back onto his hands, but he was no help. Considering I really didn't have a leg to stand on, I couldn't blame him, but still. I didn't need the fact that I was an easy target pointed out.

"Come on, let me tie you up already," Lexi said, advancing on me with the strip of duct tape. "You need to practice for when someone grabs you again."

"When?"

"If," she corrected with an impish grin. As if that made me feel better. "Stop wasting time, I've got a date with Alek after this."

I really didn't want to be tied up.

Not like this anyway.

But it was the whole point of learning self defense and therefore a necessary evil, so I reluctantly held my hands out to her. Once I was securely restrained with tape, Blade duct taped her wrists and hands too. She demonstrated how to get out, essentially by smashing your arms against your body, and it took me a few tries, but I managed. It made my arms hurt, and my body from smashing my arms against it to break the tape at the wrong angle, not to mention how ripping the torn tape off also took some of my arm hair with it, but a little soreness was better than death. Priorities were everything, or so it was pointed out to me by Lexi when I was rubbing my red skin and making a face. 

To give me a break from a more physical means of escaping, we put a pin in the zip ties till later and moved straight along to the next restraint and so, with incredibly deft hands, Lexi bound my wrists with the rope.

"I probably don't want to know, but why are you this good at tying people up?" I asked, moving my wrists to test for any slack once she'd finished looping them round and round in some complex knot. Not only was there no slack but I wasn't seeing any way out of this short of becoming a beaver and gnawing my way out. 

"Do you think I'm out here having super boring vanilla se--"

"Don't finish that sentence," Blade cut in. "I don't want to hear about it."

"Since when are you the Virgin Mary?" she shot back. 

"I never said I was, but that doesn't mean I need to know what my little sister is doing during her personal time."

"Fine," she huffed. "I have also tied people up non-sexually a fair amount. Not as often as Blade though, he's better at it than me."

My surprise must have shown because he was quick to explain. 

"When I worked as a guard," he said, "We didn't always have the means to restrain people with handcuffs and sometimes had to get creative, so it was ideal to be versatile."

That made sense, even though Lexi's blatant admittance that Blade was superior at something was still bewildering.

"Can somebody explain how to get out of this then?" It was starting to feel a little claustrophobic. Worse than the duct tape. Probably because I knew from experience how long it could take to untangle an earphone wire knot and the idea of being stuck in rope like this for too long sent my heart fluttering, despite how safe I was with both of them.