She wakes up with the driest mouth she's ever had and gasps, her hand automatically reaching out, searching for the water bottle she always keeps beside her bed.
It's not there.
Felicity shifts, reaching out blindly, then her hand comes to an abrupt stop, as something metal prevents her from moving further.
She opens her eyes to see her wrists locked into a pair of handcuffs, looped over an old metal pipe.
She's slumped against a wall in a room with barely any light. Her hands are cuffed to the pipe slightly above her, but her feet are free. She shuffles around, pushing with her legs until she's sitting in as comfortable a position as she can be.
She pulls on the cuffs, testing, but they don't move.
About the only positive thing she could say about her current situation is that she doesn't appear to be connected to any kind of explosive. But still, this is, in no way, a good place to be.
"Well," she says out loud, her voice as dry and dusty as her throat, "shit."
She's still not wearing her glasses but this room is small enough that she can still make out a lot of details. Or maybe her eyes are finally adjusting. There are no windows. Only one door that she can see. No door handle so it must be locked from the outside. One bare flickering light bulb casts the minimum amount of illumination possible.
The walls are made of old red brick and some of the mortar is crumbling.
If it's crumbled enough, maybe the pipe she's chained to could come free, and then she'd-
Well, she would still be handcuffed and locked in a small dingy room but it would definitely be better than being handcuffed, locked in and immobilised in a small dingy room.
She'll take anything right now that will improve that.
Felicity gets to her feet. She notices as she does so that she's filthy. Her skin is covered in dust, her clothes coated with the same and the neck of her shirt is torn. She's barefoot, having lost her shoes, but thinking back, she can't remember wearing them since the back seat of the kidnappers' SUV.
Still it's probably better she's not in her heels right now, she's unsteady enough on bare feet and she might need to run when Oliver gets here and rescues her.
Oliver.
The thought of him sends a pang through her, swiftly followed by the thought that he has already tried to rescue her and yet here she is obviously not yet rescued.
Oh they are going to have words next time she sees him. She is totally going to take rescue points off for him failing to actually rescue her and that whole thing were she almost exploded.
Felicity pauses, memories coming back to her. She really did just almost explode - its not a figure of speech or a metaphor.
Lord Downton Hogwarts tried to gag her with his hand, she bit him, he hit her, and she blacked out. She has a few hazy memories of loud noise, pressure in her ears and being dragged across the floor, but she can't quite make sense of them.
The bomb did go off though, that she is sure of.
Hogwarts had said that she would only live long enough for Oliver to watch her die. Obviously that didn't happen, as here she is. Alive.
So why did the bomb go off?
A cold ball of fear forms in her stomach. What if the bomb went off because Oliver was in range? What if Hogwarts set it off to kill him, not her? What if Oliver is dead?
The ball of fear seems to twist, unwrapping like a flower and sending out cold tendrils throughout her body.
What if Oliver is dead?
The fear suddenly feels like nausea, threatening to surge up her throat. She clamps down on it, letting out an involuntary sound that in no way sounds like a sob.
What if Oliver is dead?
She feels her eyes threatening to well up with tears. She squeezes them closed, trying to control her emotions with the breathing techniques John taught her.
Breathe in.
And out.
And in
Out.
In.
Felicity gets a hold of herself. She's still scared, still close to panic but she can't let it control her.
She has things to do.
Firstly, she's going to get out of these handcuffs. Then this room. She doesn't know how but she's going to do it.
Then she will rain down bloody vengeance on Downton Hogwarts and the Driver and any one else involved in their little plan.
They will rue the day they crossed a woman with access to the databases she knows about. Homeland Security watch lists will be but the tip of the iceberg of cyber and virtual destruction she will wreak upon their lives.
But, first things first.
Felicity makes sure of her balance, the lifts one foot to rest on the wall above the pipe. She hops back, bending over so her arms are fully extended, her entire body weight pulling against the cuffs, and the pipe.
Then she pulls with her arms, pushes with her leg and tries to use every once of strength she has to rip the old pipe away from the crumbling mortar.
Nothing happens.
She does it again. The cuffs are cutting into her wrists. A thin trickle of blood starts to drip from her left hand.
But she doesn't stop.
Instead she pulls again.
And again.
And finally, just as she's about to give up hope, the pipe moves.