Now's Not The Time

Chapter 11

"He's. out. there." Maggie mouths, and I nod back. I press my index finger to my pursed lips, telling Maggie to not make a noise.

"Come on, I know you're in there. All I want to do is get some study notes off of you. I saw Jack over here and heard him calling your names and thought 'Hey, I was gonna ask for the study notes tomorrow! Why not ask them now?'" Ted lies. "So just open up and I'll give you a ride back to your place, and we can exchange study notes?" Maggie opens her mouth to reply but I quickly put my hand over her mouth, shaking my head.

"What are you guys doing hanging around the ladies room like that?!" I hear a female voice yell from the other side if the door.

"Our sisters refuse to come out and we need to go home now, can you help us?"I hear Ted's voice ask.

"I'll try..." Confusion and curiosity was heard in her tone. I move to behind the door, where neither Jack or Ted could see us, while the lady opens the door. "There y-" I cut her off by putting my hand over her mouth and making a 'shh' motion. I slowly take my hand from her mouth and raise my arm, pointing to the cuffs, then the door. The lady just nods and goes about her buisness in the stall.

After washing her hands she leaves, and tells Ted and Jack, "There was nobody in there. I think they ran off to anther gas station. Shit! I forgot my purse." She re-enters and grabs her purse, I grab her arm and pull her closer.

"Please stay. Help." I whisper.

"I will help as best I can." She says and Jack's phone gets a text. I unlock it and read it aloud.

'Mark Cullin: Are they still in the bathroom? I need to get them out, they trust me.'

I look up at Maggie. "Who's Mark Cullin?" The lady asks.

"He was 'helping' us escape..." I stare at the phone in disbelief.

"I'm getting you out of here. My name's Niome, by the way." Niome says.

"How do we know we can trust you?" Maggie speaks up. "Last person we trusted to get us out of here turned put to be helping Them."

"You have every right to not trust me, but I'm here to help. Whatever you need, I will do my best to get it for you." Niome puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder, and another on Maggie's.

We walk out of the bathroom, me holding Niomes arm -in a deathly tight grasp- and Maggie holding my hand with our restraint hands. "Girls, I was getting worried! Those boys are still in here, we have to leave quick before they see you." Mark rushes us, but we stay put.

"I'm going with her. She's my auntie and we bumped into each other in the bathroom." I lie.

"But... She's black! She can't be your.. I mean.." I stare at Mark in disbelief.

"Well excuse us." Niome slaps Mark and we leave.

"Bye, thanks for everything!" Maggie says and grabs our drinks. "Niome can you just take us to the nearest police station?" Maggie asks. "You can just drop us off there."

"I will take you to the police station, but I will then take you home. I need to make sure you're safe." Niome says as she opens the back door of her car for us. We thank her as she closes the door and gets in the drivers seat and starts the ignition.

We arrived at the gas station, and there was a fairly attractive officer walking from a filling cabinet back to his desk, reading a file. I looked up at Niome and she said "I'll be right here in this seat, waiting for your return. I will come to you if anything goes wrong." Maggie and I nod as we walk up to the hot officer.

"Excuse me." My voice squeaks,  and I clear my throat "Uh hehe excuse me." I repeat lower. He looks up at Maggie and I and sighs.

"Okay look, girls, I am on duty! You look like two very nice young ladies; and I'm sure you are! But unless you have a real emergency; please leave." I look at Maggie funny, and she looks at me the same way. We look back at... Bart his name tag says. We look back at bart and give him a "iz 'u' fo' real? bish naw" look. "What? if you have nothing to say I can walk you to the door."

I laugh lightly and put my hand on the desk, Maggies dragging behind. A few drops of blood fall onto the desk and I winse as my hand makes contact with the sharp metal and hardwood. "Oh my god what happened?!" Bart panics.

"We were almost kidnapped." Maggie says. "can you just help us get these off? my wrist hurts and it's bleeding fairly heavily and I just want to go home to my mother." Maggie complains.

"Me too." I add.

"Okay, I'll try. All police cuffs use the same key, so it should be easy.." Bart takes out a ring of keys from a drawer in his desk. My hand is grabbed carefully placed into one of Barts hands and a key inside the lock. "it's not working..." Bart mumbles and he tries to place it inside the keyhole again.

"What do you mean it's not working?" Maggie raises an eyebrow.

"These aren't police cuffs. They were costom made. I'll have to cut them off." I look up at Bart in disbelief. "Not your hands!! The cuffs..!"

"How long will that take?" Maggie asks.

"I'm not sure. Depends how strong the material is." Bart says, handing me back my hand.

"Niome has to come." I almost yell.

"Who?" Bart asks.

"She saved us." Maggie says. Bart thinks for a second, then nods. We walk over to Niome and tell her to come, and make our way back to Bart (who was waiting by the hallways).

Bart takes us to a back room and shuts the door. "Let's start with something simple. Hmm.. lock cutters?" Bart looks up at Maggie and I and we nod. A large lock cutter is pulled from a cabnit and placed onto the table. "Okay, keep your hands raised." Bart instructs as he places our hands (Magge and i's) in the air.

The cutters are put in place and squeezed shut. More and more pressure is put into cutting the cuffs, but nothing happened. "What else?" I asked.