Erin

She had shown up last night, kicking and screaming as a man I had yet to meet forced her down the stairs. She was wearing a shirt similar to my own, although it was red and pink rather than white and blue, and nothing else.

I watched in awe as she was thrown into the chair I had sat in when I first arrived here. She howled, diving at the man, even though her hands were tied together. Her teeth snapped at skin, her feet hit every tender muscle in his body.

He snarled, shoving her to the ground and kicking her in the stomach multiple times. She cried out, trying to crawl away, but he just picked her up again and threw her down onto the chair, cuffing her hands to it, and then, in turn, tying her legs to the chair's legs. He wiped off his brow before pulling her head back by her hair.

She grimaced and glared at him. "Watch it, fugly." Then, she spat in his face. I winced and cowered away, well aware that she was about to regret producing saliva, let alone spitting it at him.

He squared his jaw, wiping spit away from his cheek as he pulled back one fist. Her eyes widened and I saw her hands, still useless behind her, twitch madly, as if they wanted to be in front of her face. I honestly wished they were too.

His elbowed snapped straight, her nose made an odd cracking noise on contact, which reminded me so very much of Dean, and her head flew backward.

I expected her to scream, or do something, anything! Yet, she didn't move. Blood from her nose poured down her cheeks and dripped to the ground. It became very clear that she wasn't conscious anymore.

The man who had punched her looked at me. In his eyes, I could see just how pleased with himself he was. Huh, congratulations to him, knocking out a teenage girl who was tied to a chair.

He nodded to me and walked up the stairs and into the unknown without another word.

As soon as I knew his footsteps were gone from the stairs, I slunk over to the girl in the chair, pulling away as far as I physically could to reach her. I could barely slide in between my knees, but still, I did. I gripped her ankle and pulled myself upwards, enough that I could poke her stomach if I stretched my fingers out as far as they could go.

I poked her gently, struggling to get a reaction out of her. "Hey!" I hissed. "Wake up! You need to wake up!" Slowly but surely, she came to.

She looked over at me, her once beautiful red hair handing in her face. "Who are you?" She asked.

"I'm Erin," I whispered. "What's your name?"

"I'm Adrienne." She said. As she pushed flipped her hair out of her eyes, I saw that her nose was, indeed at an incredibly odd angle. I shook my head, wishing my brother was here. He had broken his nose so many times, and broken other people's noses, that he would definitely know what to do. Luckily for her, I knew the basics. "I woke you up because I figured you would want to get your nose taken care of." Looking with crossed eyes at her nose at my words, she grimaced.

"Oh. Right. My nose. How exactly-" I stopped her by raising a hand.

"You can't exactly do it, so I'll have to do it for you." She nodded, but she looked a little frightened. "I have to grab your nose between my hands and pull it back into place. It is going to hurt, but if you want your nose to heal straight, I need to do it."

She swallowed and nodded again. Hesitantly, she leaned forward and I grabbed her nose between my hands. She took a breath and then nodded. Watching as she squeezed her eyes shut, I started to move her nose back into place. Barely a second after starting to push, she pulled away, tears pouring down her face.

"Oh! I can't!" She wailed. And to think I had thought she was tough.

"You have to! Do you want to have a nose that looks like a capital L, or a lowercase l?" I asked.

She sighed and leaned forward again. "Lowercase l." She whined. She looked straight into my eyes as I grabbed her nose. She nodded, and I went for it, forcing her nose into place as quickly as I could. She yelped and jumped away, making the chair scream.

"Hey!" She cried. "You could have warned me. Or at least done it slower."

I shook my head at her. "If I had done either of those, you wouldn't have let me do it." She pursed her lips, ignoring me.

"Suit yourself." I sighed. "But neither of us know how long we're going to be here, so you might as well try to get along with me."

She watched me, but still didn't answer. You'd think that she would be happy I fixed her nose, but of course, she's offended I didn't prolong her pain. I sighed and bit my lip, I really was starting to sound like my brother.

I looked down at my hands and realized they were covered in blood. I gagged and wiped them onto the concrete. Smeared, black streaks appeared where my hands slid. Almost like a murder scene. I shivered and turned away.

Almost three hours later, as the grandfather clock chimes, Viktoriya came down with another mattress. She flopped in down next to mine and grabbed the spare chain attached to the bolt I was hooked to. I had always assumed that it was for my other leg, but this made a little more sense than that. She slid Adrienne towards it, though she was still in the chair, and hooked the chain to her ankle. Viktoriya then proceeded to untie Adrienne, whispering sweet little comments and praises that had Adrienne all choked up.

Eventually, Adrienne slid free of the chair and crawled onto the mattress, which looked much softer than my own, so soft it sank under her weight.

Viktoriya smiled at us, "Good night, мегера," she whispered to Adrienne, then she looked at me, "Good night, каргa." She walked to the stairs and then up them, clicking off the light and leaving us in darkness as she left. Beside me, I felt Adrienne shiver.

And even though we hadn't spoken to each other in ages, and I knew nothing about her but her name, I reached out and wrapped my arms around her. She wasn't much smaller than me, but still, she curled into me and started to cry.

I held her, humming into her hair and rubbing her back. "Don't worry, Adri. We'll get out of here. You'll make it home." Adrienne wiped away some of her tears.

"And what if we don't?" She sobbed. I thought for a moment. What if we didn't get out? There surely wasn't a way I could tell her that I doubted that we would ever see the light of day again - I knew we were going to get out. I just knew it.

"We will. We will." I repeated. She didn't protest, she just scooted as close to me as she could.

In this basement, at least I assumed it was a basement, the air was cold and dank, so sharing heat with someone other than myself was quite a relief.

"Adrienne?" I breathed. "What is your family like?"

She was quiet for a second. "Well, my parents and I live in San Diego in an apartment. My mom is a news reporter, and my dad is a social worker. They work a lot, but when they are home... It's the best thing ever. We all have so much fun together. I miss them so much. They've been married for almost twenty years, but I'm an only child. They never wanted more than one. They're always so worried about me, really the thought of them being without me must be stressing them out." She sighed. "I sure hope they're alright. I don't know what I would do if they weren't okay." She muttered, almost to herself.

We sat in silence for a moment while I thought about her home, trying to picture it in my mind. I could see her mom, with Adrienne's flowing red hair, and her dad with her nose and strong chin. They looked like a real family, the kind you see in movies. Perfect.

"What about you, Erin?" She asked, interrupting my thoughts. "What is your family like?"

Honestly, I had to think for just a second before I could answer. It felt like it had been so long. "I live with my brothers, parents, and grandmother in Nevada. I'm the middle child so I don't really know how you feel, being alone. My oldest brother is Dean, he's seventeen. And then there's Toby(???), he's (???). We live in a pretty big house, my Dad owns a company, so we don't really spend that much time together. We all just have our own space."

Adrienne nodded into my chest. We sat silently for a little while longer before she whispered, "Do you miss them?"

"Of course I do," I said immediately. My family was everything to me. Nothing could ever change that. Nothing. Not Danny, not Viktoriya, not even Adrienne. "Don't you miss yours?"

In the dark, I could hear Adrienne's lips pull into a smile. "Good night, Erin." She said, lacing her fingers between mine. "Good night."