When The Light Goes Out

Chapter - 21

"Are you okay?"

"Are you hurt?"

Monique shook her head at all of their questions, not that she was paying too much attention to what they were saying. Her head was spinning. Panic was evident in the pain in her chest. "I-I...I'm so sorry," she said again.

"It's alright, just calm down," Clare said. "We're all here together now. My name is Clare. That's Marcia." She pointed to the darker skinned girl next to her who had been staying close to her since she'd seen her. "And that's Casey." Casey sat on the other bed looking at her uneasily. Monique could tell she was thinking.

"I'm Monique," she said nervously as she looked at their faces. The hope in their eyes looking at her from the other bed, from the floor and standing beside her made her feel all the more anxious. They didn't seem starved, which was good. They weren't hurt anywhere from what she could tell either. What she did note was that they were all girls. No boys. What are they planning? Why are they taking girls?

Another thought crossed her mind suddenly: she was the adult in the room. They would be looking to her to come up with something. Clare sat beside her on the bed. "Did you see where we are?" she asked.

Monique nodded. "But...it won't do any good to know. No one will hear you from here. You're underground and this room has been altered."

"Where are we? We have to at least know that."

"This is an underground tunnel," she said. "Which means no noise is going to get out of here."

Marcia's shoulders slumped and Monique quickly added, "it's not anywhere where no one wouldn't find you if they looked."

"So we're still in the city?" Clare asked.

"Yes, but it isn't a place anyone could walk right into. He's the only one with access that I know of."

Marcia asked the next question. "Do you know him?"

She shook her head. "I did at one time but not anymore. The guy I knew wouldn't have done this."

Clare paced the room with her arms folded. "What do you know about him? Does he have a weakness we can exploit? Some kind of flaw?"

Monique tried to think about something she noticed or saw Dennis do. Patricia was too calculating to get around. Hedwig wasn't around as often as Dennis. He was their only option and he didn't like her. She could tell them about his disorder but they probably wouldn't believe her.

"Before you do anything, you should know that...he isn't exactly... He's not who you think he is."

The girls turned to her, giving their full attention. Monique looked around the room. "He isn't fully aware of what's happening right now."

"So now he's crazy," Clare said. "He took Marcia out there and tried to make her dance for him. He knew exactly what he was doing!"

"Yes, part of him did but-"

"Look, I'm sorry, but we were taken from the back of my dad's car," Clare said. Her voice cracked as she spoke. "He knocked us out and we woke up here. I don't care if he's crazy or not- I just want all of us to get out of here and go back home."

Monique clenched her fists. He did all of those things? Dennis and Patricia and...Hedwig? They took these girls just like that? Monique lowered her head into her hands. She stayed like that for few minutes.

"I'm sorry you girls have been through so much." Monique sat up straight again. "I'll do everything I can to help you get out of here."

"What about you?" Marcia asked. "Weren't you kidnapped too?"

"No, I was here by choice," she replied as she stood up. "But he doesn't trust me or think of me as a friend. I'm in the same boat as you."

They looked at each other, feeling the hopeless situation gather it's steam all over again. It had cleared a little when Monique was shoved inside, but the view was short lived. Clare seemed to be the ringleader. She was coming up with plans, ideas, possible strategies to get out and voicing them openly. Marcia looked ready to follow her anywhere. Monique had to cut down some of her ideas since she had a better idea of what they were dealing with.

Casey just listened to them plot and plot without a word. Sometimes she seemed to be interested but most of the time she looked like she was lost in thought. Monique hoped so much that Dennis hadn't done anything to her. After hearing what he tried to do with Marcia, she was a little on edge. He didn't seem like that type of person at all. He was too uptight to do something like that.

After going back and forth between ideas for what felt like hours, Clare and Marcia laid down for some rest. Monique said she'd sit up to keep watch in case he came in. That seemed to make them feel more at peace with closing their eyes for a little while.

This has to be hard on them. It was the type of thing to only happen in movies and on tv, not real life. She had never believed that. It happened more often than people thought, the news just didn't cover all of them. Monique hoped that the girls never told themselves something as silly as that.

Even she was feeling the stress of being trapped and she was a grown woman with a job, bills to pay and in a relationship. This was real. It was their reality. Although it was hard to believe after everything she'd been through since meeting that person, it was her reality too. She couldn't sit around feeling sorry for herself either.

The girls had been taken against their will and it had to be made right. She was involved, even if she didn't know what she was involved in. Monique couldn't imagine what the horde intended to do with them. She started to pace the room. It was a hard pill to swallow, but she couldn't keep doing things the way she had been.

Monique wanted to make peace with them despite what Barry had told her about them. Maybe this was her wake up call. She had to start thinking realistically now. They weren't her friends. They weren't going to be her friends. They didn't care about her or the girls and she was going to have to start acting like she didn't care about them either.