Spades and Angels

Did You Honestly Think We Wouldn't Find Out?

Lolita
A While Back

I can't place where I am when I wake up.

It's dark for the most part but with odd flashes of coloured lights. The scents of damp, dank, water and stale cotton candy seeped through the air and surrounding me. Mixing with the smell of rust, rotting, mildewed wood and dust. The sounds of creepy carnival music and other sounds I'd expect to hear at a circus or carnival added to the ambience of wherever I am trapped.

Moaning under my breath, I try to move my head as the sound of a creepy clown cackles overhead. Feeling stiff and sore, I keep trying to move but something stops me. My panic escalates as I feel it. A constricting feeling around my arms, where they're tied around and stuck behind whatever I'm either on or in. The same with my legs when I try to move, even if only an inch. A dull ache spreads through me with every failed attempt I make. One that speaks to something happening before I woke up that I can't remember. Not entirely.

Groaning with a sigh I try to open my eyes. Managing to get them to do so a slit before the lights beaming down on me blind me enough that they try to close again. But I don't give in to that easy escape. No, instead, harnessing as much of my inner strength as possible, I push through it. Choosing to be brave. To be who he sees in me, not who I was told for years I was. Strong and brave, instead of weak. Weak and helpless.

To be an Angel. A survivor and most importantly to get back to the people I care about. To return both to my beloved and my family. Alive. All of us.

The Angels. Forever.

Keeping that hopeful thought in mind I try again to open my eyes. To push through the pain and try to get out of here. To survive and get back to the others. Taking a breath and trying again I manage it that time.

Fighting pain and a lurching, sick, feeling inside I push through and manage to open my eyes fully after a few tries. As I do I discover that I seem to be sitting inside a carnival funhouse. Albeit an abandoned one. The cackling of a clown over loudspeakers makes me nervous. My eyes dart as I try to place where I am.

But it's no use. Wherever I am, it is too complex for me to decipher alone, even more so when I realize I can't find the...

"Looking for this?" The voice of one of the Spades members, presumably tasked with watching me, sounds from out of the darkness ringing the room. Angry and afraid I strain at my ropes to meet them. A laugh comes out of the darkness and I shiver. "Nope, no can do sugar. You're stuck until the boss says otherwise."'

Pushing down my fear I chuckle a little, twisting my head from side to side to ease the stiffness there. "And I'm supposed to know who you are and how - and why -  you care why?" I cough then, trying to wriggle out of the ropes around me. Or at least loosen them so my wrists and ankles aren't being rubbed raw. All whilst trying to keep my captor's attention on my front, moving slowly to avoid getting spotted before I'm free and able to defend myself. "Hello? Do I get an answer?"

The figure laughs, seeming to take pride in how trapped I am. Keeping my anger and fear to myself I push them deep inside. The pain left behind filled me. Groaning slightly I try to lean back as best I can to try and grasp something. Needing something - anything - to try and cut through the rope since the dagger I'd been holding was gone and I couldn't reach the others.

I'm snapped out of my head by a condescending and overbearing yet - and falsely - sympathetic sigh mixed in with a chuckle of laughter. The tone mocking and sarcastic."Oh, Lolita. Lolita, Lolita, Lolita." The voice tuts at me from the shadows and, despite looking for something behind me, I still face them with a glare. "Looking for this?"