The Wild Ones - Part 3 - The Sirens

10.

Lily's eyes gazed around the cell in slow motion. Even if nothing had been taken away from them, there was still nothing useful around. Nothing sharp, nothing that could be thrown. Nothing to whack the stupid son of a bitch in the face with.

Her head swung back around to the door, the blood curdling scream of Becky ringing in her ears. She didn't have Becky down as the screaming type. But when someone was dragging you out of a room by just your hair she guessed most people were prone to let out some sort of feral noise.

Lily suddenly heard a sound emerging from her own mouth. She hadn't thought of anything to really say, it just seemed to be an involuntary reaction. It appeared to be some amalgamation of 'No!' and 'Hey!', but time was going too slowly for her to truly process the sounds. And yet somehow time was speeding up now, the seconds jumping one another, and Becky was no longer in the doorway, screaming, but down the hollow hallway, her sobbing reverberating against the stone walls.

The groan of the cell door as it began to swing close brought Lily back to the present, her senses rushing to catch up. She immediately made for the door before it had time to shut, awkwardly sticking a hand in the ever shrinking gap. The pain as the door crunched against her flesh didn't register for a while, but even when it did it only spurred her on further.

She hauled the door open and skidded down the hallway, following the wails of her friend. It was near black outside, only an orange glow from somewhere down the hall lighting the way. As Becky had predicted no one else seemed to inhabit the other cells, open doors displaying similar rooms to their own, except these seemed entirely disused, dust gathering over the benches.

The yells had stopped now as Lily reached the end of the hall. The corridor split left and right. She was fairly sure they'd come in from the left when they were brought here so she raced in the other direction, her hand against the wall both for stability and to feel around for doors.

This turned out to be entirely unnecessary; it wasn't long until she found Becky. A blue glow radiated from a circular window set into a cold, iron door. Becky's face was pressed up against it, her eyes darting from left to right in the hopes of finding something recognisable. When she saw Lily approaching she began banging her palms against the glass, but the sound was extremely muffled.

"What is this?" Lily muttered under her breath, searching around the iron door for some sort of handle. But there didn't seem to be one. Lily put a hand to the glass as a reassurance for Becky but tears were still rolling down her face, highlighted by the blue lights in the room she was trapped in.

Lily tried to see past her to examine the room Becky was in; it couldn't have been more than 10ft in all directions, the walls lined with the strange blue glowing lights.

"I can't find a handle," Lily yelled at Becky, running her sore hand against the door in the hopes of finding a groove.

"...coming back...just...out...get some..." Becky replied, her voice mostly muffled.

Lily filled in the gaps in speech and a shiver ran down her. Of course Adams would be returning soon, and she didn't stand a chance taking him on armed with little more than a nail file. She'd even left her shoes in the cell, she suddenly thought, as she felt her socks skid against the floor. And that gave her a thought.

She quickly took off her cardigan and laid it on the ground a few metres away from her, stretching it to cover as much area as possible. Becky peered on, her brow furrowing in confusion.

Just as Lily was standing back up a shout came from the other direction. Lily scampered backwards 'til she was just beyond the door, and hugged herself, praying silently.

Becky began banging again, and Lily realised she must look totally useless out here, standing around, doing nothing.

The footsteps echoed down the corridor, a shadow flashing across a wall and disappearing a second later.

"You should be in your cell," the shout came. "You're next, don't wor—"

Before he could finish, Adams was toppling over himself, his thick body falling inelegantly to the floor, his shiny black boots caught up in Lily's cardigan.