Everything happens in a blur. Someone comes up behind me and puts a hand over my mouth, so I can’t scream. Another person in a hooded cloak grabs Dex, and shoves a cloth over his mouth, drugging him. I need to get away. I’m about to inflict on whoever’s behind me when they shove something over my head. I recognize the severe headache that follows. The Neverseen made an ability restrictor. I can’t gather my thoughts enough to inflict. I try to scream, but they shove a cloth over my mouth. The sickly sweet scent belongs in my nightmares. I try to fight off the effects of the drug, but it’s too strong. NO! THIS CAN’T HAPPEN AGAIN! I CAN’T… can’t… can’t… the world goes black.
oOo
When I wake up, I’m strapped to a chair in a dark room, illuminated by a single balefire lantern. The ability restrictor is still causing me a huge headache. Dex is still unconscious, strapped to a chair on the other side of the room. I try pulling on the bonds on the chair, but it’s no good. I’m gagged, but even if I wasn’t, it wouldn’t do very much for me while I’m inside a Neverseen hideout. I start crying. I can’t help it. I can’t help anything. I can’t transmit for help. I can’t escape these stupid bonds.
“Ah, you’re awake. Good.” The sound of Lady Gisela’s voice gives me chills. Then I put it together. I’m the ‘special project’. The goal of it was to capture me… for what? I try to say something, but the gag is in the way. “Hm, I would prefer it if you keep quiet until I ask you a question. But let me tell you a quick story. I was at Havenfield, reclaiming my son, when I found a stack of papers titled ‘adoption papers for Lori Ruewen’. Naturally, I was curious. So I did a little digging and found… nothing. I had people tailing you. But it seems that everyone you ever came in contact with knew your story before I did. So I brought you here. So I can learn everything about you. You do have this little habit of always being around that Foster girl. But I got you here in the end, along with your strawberry blonde boyfriend. Now let me remove that gag, and we can begin. Though I must warn you, if you don’t cooperate, I have people here who will not hesitate to hurt you, or him. And everyone in this facility has been warned to ignore any screaming.” She pulls the gag out of my mouth. “Now first question. Where did you come from? You’re wearing a registry pendant, but don’t have a file. You share the last name of your adoptive parents, but nobody with that last name is your mother.”
“Like I’d tell you.”
“I think you will. I’m feeling generous, so I’ll give you one more chance to answer my question. Where did you come from?”
“No way.”
“Have it your way. Blank!” I was confused for a moment. Then it occurred to me that Blank was probably one of their members.
“How hard should I go?” He asks.
“Just give her a little taste.” He places his hand on my shoulder and I feel it start to heat up. Soon, it hurts. But I won’t be weak. I close my eyes and bite my tongue, but I don’t cry out. “Hm. You’re tougher than I anticipated. Give her more.” The burning gets worse, and I start to taste blood in my mouth. But I won’t give in. “Well this isn’t going to work. You can stop now.” The heat eases off, and even without looking, I can tell that the flesh there won’t be pretty. Lady Gisela crosses the room and places a cloth over Dex’s mouth, which wakes him up, and removes his gag. “Burn him.”
“NO!” I shout involuntarily.
“If you don’t want to see him hurt, then answer my question.”
“Lori, don’t tell her anything!” Dex shouts.
“You stay out of this!” Lady Gisela says.
“I can’t let her hurt you. I’m from another universe.”
“DON’T PLAY WITH ME!”
“I’m not lying! I had a technopath build a machine that let me travel here.”
“That’s impossible!”
“It’s not, because I did it. You said you couldn’t find anything on me. It’s because I wasn’t born here.”
“She’s telling the truth.” A woman standing behind me says. “Either that, or she’s a better liar than you.”
“I fooled that husband of mine for years. Lying to an empath isn’t actually that hard.”
“You fooled your husband. Not me. I pick up on around 85% of your lies.”
“We’ll discuss that later. You say she’s telling the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll accept that. For now. Next question. What are you hiding in your brain?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s a lie.” The woman behind me says.
“Looks like your boyfriend here’s going to get hurt. Blank.” He puts his hand on Dex’s wrist.
“STOP!”
“This is what happens when you lie.” This is the time to inflict on her if there ever was one. And her little contraption she wears won’t stop it. I concentrate all my anger, and send it straight to her. She falls to the ground in pain, and somebody comes behind me with a drugged cloth. I change my anger to be directed at them, then at the one called Blank. He must be a Pyrokinetic.
“Dex, are you ok?”
“As good as I can be. Are you?” He gasps. “Your shoulder…”
“I’m fine. We need to find a way out of here. They won’t stay down forever, and I won’t be able to knock out too many more who come.”
“Is that a…” he goes pale.
“What?” I say, trying to look behind me.
“Ability restrictor.” He finishes.
“I think so. I could probably transmit to somebody if they were within a few miles, and I had like ten minutes.”
“Lori, I invented that thing on your head.” He spat the word thing. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know you didn’t make this one. They stole it. And I never held this thing against you, ok?”
“This is all my fault.”
“No! None of this is your fault. I know how dangerous those words are. Don’t go down that path.”
“We need to get out of here.”
“Exactly.”
“No, you won’t be escaping. Somebody drug them!” Lady Gisela says, trying to get up. I try channeling, but nothing will break the bonds attaching me to the chair. I gather all my energy and transmit to Dex, even though it hurts. Hopefully it’s strong enough he can hear me.
When they put the cloth over your mouth, hold your breath and act like you passed out. I just have time to take one big breath before the cloth goes over my mouth. I’m almost out of air when they take it away. I’m careful to act like I’m unconscious while I listen to their conversation.
“I didn’t know she could still inflict! That ability restrictor isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“It kept her from transmitting somewhere across the globe for help.”
“We don’t even know if she can transmit that far.”
“You dimwit! She’s obviously her universe’s version of Sophie. She can probably do whatever she wants.”
“How do we know that she hasn’t already? With Gethen on the Legacy Project…”
“Someone go turn up the restrictor.”
“What?”
“Make. It. Stronger.” Someone walks up behind me and messes with some dial on the ability restrictor. It takes all my effort not to groan from the new headache it brings on.
“That’ll stop her from inflicting.” Whoever said that might be right. I know that inflicting comes from the heart, but I don’t know if I’ll even be able to think with this new setting. I try as hard as I can to send a message to Dex, but it seems like they’ve improved upon the original design and made it stronger. And by improved, I mean made a thousand times worse.
“Should we try again now?”
“No, let's wait a while. Come on.” I wait several minutes before I judge that it’s safe to look up.
“Dex?” I whisper
“I’m here.”
“I’m sorry that you are.”
“It’s ok. We’ve survived it before, we’ll survive it again.”
“Right. Now how do we get-” I stop talking and draw a sharp breath when the restrictor brings on a new headache.
“I never should have made that.”
“There was no way you could’ve known. Try channeling into your arms so you can break your bonds.” He grunts as he tries to escape, but to no end.
“What are these made of?”
“I have no idea.”
“HEY! THEY’RE AWAKE!” Someone calls.
“What?! Blank, get in here!” I start channeling, and pulling, and doing everything I can to break the bonds. But they won’t break. I think they actually gave me bruises on my arms where they held me down. Lady Gisela walks into the middle of the room. “Well, it seems you two are, in fact, awake. And I can’t have you like that. Start with her. And don’t hold back.” I can’t see Blank’s face, but I can see his cruel smile as he grabs my wrists and starts burning me. I didn’t realize how bad him not holding back would be. I scream in pain, but it’s even worse when I have to watch Dex get the same treatment. I can’t believe that anyone could be this dark and twisted, but Gisela smiles at our pain. “Alright, we can drug them now.” Resisting it gets harder with each second, until I can’t escape it any longer and the world goes black.
oOo
Every time she wakes us up, it’s the same cycle. Ask me a question. Burn me. I refuse to answer. Burn Dex. I spill whatever answer I can come up with that isn’t an outright lie, but also won’t jeopardize any of my friends. She tries to ask me another question. She gets bored of this torture game and drugs us again. I vaguely remember being fed awful food. I lost track of how many times it’s happened, but I think the burns all over my body speak for themselves. They have to know we’re gone by now, right? Somebody needs to find us, fast.
oOo
“Wake up, please Lori. Just wake up.”
“Sophie?”
“Yes. We’re rescuing you. And Keefe, and Dex.” I let out a sob of relief.
“You found me.”
“Technically Ro did. Hurry up, I don’t know how long everyone else can keep them occupied.”
“The bonds.” She tries tugging on them.
“Hold on.” She says, rummaging in her bag. She pulls out a vial of some type of acid. One drop melts the bonds I couldn’t break. I try to stand up, but almost immediately fall down. “Try to stand up while I get Dex.” She puts a cloth over his mouth that has the stuff that will wake him up.
“Sophie?”
“I’m here. We’re rescuing you.”
“Where’s…”
“Everyone is safe.”
“Lori?”
“She’s right there. Do you think you can walk?” He tries to stand up, and is at least able to stay standing. When he tries taking a step though, he loses his balance and falls. “Ok, I’ll go find someone to help you two.”
“Dex.” I say as I crawl towards him.
“Lori.” We meet in the middle of the room, and I collapse into his arms.
“It’s over.” I whisper.
“We made it.” Sophie comes back with Fitz and Alden. Alden picks me up, and Fitz carries Dex.
“Track Keefe now.” Alden instructs. Sophie closes her eyes, and starts running down a hallway outside of our room. After a minute of running, we find the room I saw when I was seeking.
“Keefe…” Sophie mutters. Then Gethen steps out of the shadows.
“It’s too late to stop his Legacy. It was already in motion before you got here.”
“Give him over, Gethen.” I’ve never heard that kind of venom in Sophie’s voice.
“How about… no.” I gag when he pulls out the sword he got in Lumenaria. Before he can do anything, Sophie inflicts on him, leaving him writhing in pain.
“Keefe, please wake up. Please be ok.” She mutters.
“Let’s take him. We’ll get him to wake up back home.” Alden says. Home. Sophie picks Keefe up and leads the way back to a main room where all chaos seems to have broken loose. Everyone is there occupying the Neverseen. Tam, Linh, Biana, Della, Mr. Forkle, Stina, Marella, Wylie, and so many more. Even Kesler is there, throwing elixirs at people. When they see us, everyone runs to the exit, and Marella sets a fire behind us so nobody can follow. There’s a cliff outside, so I get to experience Sophie’s teleproting for the first time. It’s super disorienting. And when we get to the Foxfire healing center, Elwin is waiting for us. Alden sets me down on a cot, and I close my eyes, halfway between awake and asleep.
“Take that circlet off her.” Elwin instructs. Somebody does, and I instantly relax, the headache I didn’t even know was there gone.
“You can go to sleep now.” Sophie whispers. I nod my head and fall asleep, safe.

Please give me ideas for alternate POVs or flashbacks Lori can have. Writing something similar to this, but not a part of the actual story helps me a lot, and I only have like seven more chapters.