1.10 Madison

Madison felt a tiny bit of a perverse satisfaction at the exhaustion on her friend's face. It meant she wasn't alone in having a restless night. When Sophia had suggested the possibility that Taylor could have gained powers, her imagination had gone into overdrive. Every bumped table was an invisible Taylor sneaking up on her, every odd behavior was the sign of someone possessed, every creak from the walls and ceiling the herald of a monstrous Taylor creeping up to stab her with a thrusting, piercing tong.

She really hated dad sometimes. What kind of father thought 8 was a reasonable age for late night viewing of Alien? And The Thing was not a Christmas movie just because it had snow! The Blob however was quite hilarious, and it was, admittedly, something of a morale booster to point out all the stupid thing the movie people did wrong and how much better she could have done. Once she could stand to look at the screen for extended periods of time of course.

What was she talking about again? Oh right! Fear for her life.

Well, it turned out she had squeaked at every little shadow for nothing. Emma had been able to talk to Taylor and her dad (hm, wonder what he was like) and Taylor had just broken out of the locker through normal means. Still, Madison had had some lingering doubts. So, she had made the perfectly reasonable request to come over for the evening (and maybe the night) today, a Friday. A perfectly reasonable day to have a sleepover.

Both Emma and Sophia had shot her down immediately. And they were annoyingly evasive about why, simply claiming they had "things to do."

Madison was quite perturbed that after all this work and how far she had gone against Taylor that the two were still treating her as a third wheel, and she really wanted more company than dad tonight. So she kept pushing. She deserved to be a full member of this group, and by god she was going to get in one way or another.

By about noon, they had relented, though not without conditions. This was apparently a very, very secret thing they were doing tonight. If she was going to come, she would have to give them her phone, and anything else she might have that could call, record, or take pictures of the secret place they were going to.

Madison had been somewhat wary about this, but she wiped it away with the logic that her two friends wouldn't demand something like that unless it was necessary, even if as just a loyalty test. The important thing was that they were offering her a chance to become more involved in the group and learn the secrets she knew these two were keeping from her. So she had agreed and handed her phone over once she had called dad to let him know she would be hanging out with her friends after school for a while.

She became more nervous when the trio had taken a bus to a bad part of town after school. She was nearly frightened when she saw the terrible looking building they were about to enter. The whole run down, boarded up windows look screamed "axe murder's lair."

"Um, girls, what are we doing here? We aren't going in ... there are we?"

"Yes. You scared? You chickening out?" Damn, Sophia sounded awful. Also pissed off, but that was normal.

"Um, well, no. I'm not chickening out. I'm coming. Wait up!" Wow, you fell for the same trick as every other horror movie protagonist. Really?

Shut up brain. Yes, this did look like the set up to a bad horror movie, but as she kept telling herself, as she walked up the creaky stairs, past a flickering light, by doors held together with padlocks, she did not in fact live in a horror movie.

"Hey, which room are we supposed to be in?" Emma's tired voice was a jolt in the not quite mercifully silent hallway on the third floor. She had taken out her phone and was talking on it. "Ok, see you there." So, they were apparently meeting someone here. Did Emma and Sophia secretly do drugs? Were they introducing her to their dealer? Was there some way for her to politely refuse drugs without looking like a wimp? Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. "Well, this is the room."

Emma was standing before a door, a solid looking thing also held shut by a padlock. The little number plate was gone, but on the door someone had written in marker "333". Emma got on her knees and felt around the crack under the door until her fingers found what she had been searching for and pulled a piece of paper out. She cursed. Emma peaked under the door again.

"Frack it, the key fell off. Sophia, do you think you could help here?"

"How?"

"Your powers, of course."

Wait, Sophia had powers? Said girl turned into a black cloud and went through the door. OH MY GOD SOPHIA HAD POWERS! The black cloud came back through the door and solidified back into Sophia, holding a key which she handed to Emma.

With the key Emma opened the padlock and then the door. "Well, Sophia, care to lead the way?" Emma asked in a mockingly sweet tone. Sophia grumbled, but headed in.

Madison went in second, with a bunch more confidence. First, her two friends had just let her in on what was probably the big secret: Sophia was a Cape! Maybe this creepy looking place was her secret hideout? It being in the bad part of town made perfect sense then. Meant she didn't have to walk as far to see some action. It being in a nearly abandoned apartment building gave her some privacy and was probably the best Sophia could do with the realities of being a young cape. And even if this wasn't a secret hide out, with Sophia around she was sure they were safe from regular danger: Sophia was tough normally, one of the toughest girls at school. With powers, she could certainly wipe the floor with anyone they met. Save a real full-fledged Villain of course.

Emma took up the rear.

The room was fairly bare. There was one window, mostly boarded, with no real view but a nondescript alleyway with ABB gang signs. Otherwise this was one of the most barren rooms she had ever seen, with only a few phones in the middle of the room and a radiator with a few wires, a thick rug, tape, and… were those handcuffs?

click

Madison spun around. Emma had locked the door from the inside.

Madison did her best to squash a suddenly rising panic at being locked in a room with... those things by the radiator. Locking the door in a bad part of town made perfect sense. If Sophia was a hero, it would be perfectly reasonable she might have to detain some criminal for any number of reasons. She was about to start speaking when Emma shouted

"GET HER NOW!"

At which Sophia slammed into Madison's back, driving her to the floor. Sophia was much stronger and much more experienced. Madison however was well rested, and had just been pushed into full panic mode.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING LET GO OF ME!"

"Emma help me! Gag her!"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN LET GO SOMEONE HElphh..." Madison was silenced when Emma had shoved her scarf into Madison's mouth. Emma tried to tie it in place, but Madison knew this was likely her last chance and kept thrashing, making it difficult.

It took both of them sitting on Madison to keep her pinned. Eventually Madison's body, which could hardly be called athletic, lost out to gravity and she became too tired to keep up her fierce resistance. Even then it still took some effort for her two friends to successfully drag her to the radiator.

Madison got a second wind right before they cuffed her to it and broke free of her friends, rushing to the door, but it was still padlocked and the other two quickly caught up and subdued her again, dragging her back to the radiator and this time successfully securing her to it, along with other restraints.

Both Sophia and Emma were very tired from the whole fight, especially when piled on top of their immense fatigue. Madison for her part kept trying to break free from the radiator, but without success. All her efforts got was more restraints to keep her from moving around and kicking so much. The scarf had also been replaced by tape. At least the rug made "sitting" more comfortable. A very small favor though.

Their work done, a panting Sophia was the first to speak. "Well Madison. I have to hand it to you. You're quite the fighter. I think you might be a survivor after all. I can't deny it after a fight like that." If this was what it took to win Sophia's praise, Madison thought she could do without it. "Well, that out of the way, Emma, what does Taylor want us to do next?"

Suddenly, Emma's phone went off. "... Yes Taylor, Madison is subdued. What do we do next?"

Why would Emma be taking order from... Oh. Oh no. Madison snapped her head back into the radiator. And then immediately regretted it since hitting your head on a radiator hurt.

She was such an idiot. All that worry, and she had missed so, so many signs. It looked like she wasn't as superior to those people in the movies as she liked to think. Idiot, Idiot, Idiot.

Now she was going to be at Taylor's mercy. And after everything they'd done there probably wasn't much of that left.

Still, this was Taylor, even if she had super powers. Taylor was, nice might be the nicest way to put it. Whatever she was planning for revenge, It was probably at best proportional to what they'd already done. And Taylor had certainly survived all of that.

Yes, at this point, the best thing to do, now that she could think rationally, (because fight or flight had been exhausted) was take the licks Taylor wanted to dish out, and move on. She might be in for a bit of unpleasantness, but it probably wasn't anything she couldn't walk away from. She hoped she could trust in Taylor still being Taylor.

All the same, this seemed a good time to have a good long cry.