Dream Wolf

26: The Steps

Cocoa wasn't okay. Ali bit her lip, hoping that Maria wouldn't explode.
"Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in..," Maria was muttering just low enough that Ali could hear it but Tom couldn't.
"WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO HER?" Ali clapped a hand to her ear. Evidently, the breathing hadn't worked.
"Um, I don't actually know," Tom said. "But I saw her as they were taking me down, and she had a black eye."
"Just a black eye?" Ali asked. "She can deal with it." Maria sighed and leaned against the cold wall. Tom shrugged.
"That was quite a while ago."
"Are you trying to-"
The door opened, and someone stepped in.
"Cocoa?" Maria asked.
The reply was a bag on her head.
Nope, not Cocoa.
Ali felt someone do the same to her, and as her arms were quickly tied behind her back, she couldn't help wondering who it actually was, taking them. Roy? Mom? Some other dude?
Probably the third, she thought as she hit the first stair. Ali was the only one of the three who hadn't gone down- awake, at least- in the first place, so she had a slightly harder time going up. Her foot hit the step with a smack, and she stumbled, which led to a sharp jerk up by her captor.
Oh, how she longed for the days when the closest she'd come to being in a dungeon was in a movie.
Ali soon got into a rhythm for stepping up the stairs. Up, up, right. Up, up, right.
There were a lot of steps.
Up, up- flat ground. She'd reached the top. As Ali was walking in the twisted hallways, she noticed a small crack in the bag over her head. Probably intended so that she wouldn't suffocate, but there were other uses for things like that. She peered through the hole, but all she could see was white. Maria came into view soon enough, her own captor marching her along, but the walls and floors and ceilings were crystal clean. And white.
Then they came across a wooden door. A turn, a few more steps, and then they stopped. Someone slipped in just after them before shutting the door with barely more than a crack.
Huh. Looked like Cocoa did have a black eye after all.
The guard-guys whipped the bags off their heads in a flourish, as dramatic as possible. Ali had to hold in a giggle.
Now that Ali could see the full picture, her eyes darted around, putting pieces together.
Roy. Mom. Cocoa. Wolf. Front of room.
"Sorry, guys," Cocoa squeaked.

A/N: What did you think of the latest chapter? Not too much in the first part, but, well, they're out of the dungeon now.
Any ideas as to why the four of them are at the front?