The House

Chapter 2

Ava walked out of the bathroom to find Emily waiting in the hallway.

"Hey." Ava greeted her.

"Hey." Emily gestured for Ava to follow her, then led her into a bedroom. "Look, I know we just met, but considering we might be here a while, if you wanna talk about what happened at the clinic, I'm here for you. If not, I totally get it."

Ava rolled onto her side. "No, I think it would be good to get it out of my system. I just don't wanna do it in front of everyone." She took a deep breath. "About two months before all this, I had a one night stand with my best friend. Three weeks later I found out I was pregnant. I made an appointment to get an abortion, and two days before the appointment I went in because I wasn't feeling good." She looked down. "I ended up miscarrying. My most recent trip to the clinic was to get birth control."

Seeing and hearing how close Ava was to tears, Emily embraced her. "I wish I knew what to say."

Ava hugged back. "In the end it was close enough to what I wanted, but my body made the choice for me." Her voice cracked as she spoke.

They sat down on the bed.

"Like a kid trying to help, but doing so in one of the worst ways possible." Emily said.

Ava nodded. "Exactly."

"Well, maybe some good can come from this."

Ava turned to look at her. "How?"

"Well, the whole situation with the Nazis eventually led to my best friend telling me she was in love with me." Emily explained. "We've been together for three years."

Ava smiled. "Well, I'm not in love with him, but that does make me feel better. Thanks."

They returned to the living room and found Alejandra sitting between Hayden and Evan on the couch.

"What'd we miss?" Emily asked as they sat down.

"Well, we've agreed to do our best to put our differences aside until we get out of here." Wayne replied.

"Sounds good." Emily said. "I'm thinking we should search the house first, see what we find. Food, hidden cameras, weapons, literally anything."

"Makes sense." Jeremy leaned forward. "$50 says there's a government behind this. Not necessarily ours, but someone's government."

Wayne raised a hand. "I'll take that bet. I guarantee it's a private group of some kind. Maybe some rogue behavioral scientists or some shit."

They split up to search the house. Jeremy, Alejandra, and Evan took the basement; Emily, Ava, and Wayne took the main floor; and Hayden and Ashley took the upstairs.

"So, Evan." Alejandra said as she looked through a box of clothes. "What's your deal?"

Evan looked up from his box. "What do you mean?"

She gestured to all of him.

His expression became more confused.

She sighed. "This whole 'holier than thou' thing. Did your parents neglect you? Were you raped by a psychotic atheist?" She giggled.

He rolled his eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about. I just try to open people's eyes to the truth."

Alejandra snapped her fingers. "Did you murder an autistic kid and spend 15 years in prison, and now you've convinced yourself that you were 'saved' by God when in reality you're planning to kill your own kids?"

He blinked. "That's...weirdly specific. No. I don't have kids."

"Eh, it was a long shot." She went back to looking through her box. "So how long have you been out of the closet?"