Erin groggily sat up and rubbed at her head. The lingering ache there told her that she was alive, but she didn't know how. The last thing she remembered clearly was John breaking into her hotel room and forcing her to drink all the bottles in her minibar, along with the MDMA cocktail that he had used to kill so many people. Erin had vague memories of walking the streets of New York, John by her side, but she couldn't be certain what he said, or what Aaron has said to her when he found her. If he had found her. She didn't know if that was a hallucination or not. She didn't know how much had been John coaxing her into revealing truths about their shared past. All she knew is that she was cold and hungry and in desperate need of a bathroom.
Getting to her feet, Erin took a look around the room she had woken up in, taking in the bed that had a surprisingly comfortable mattress, as her back didn't ache. There was a truly tiny window at the top of the wall which allowed a little light to stream into the room, but it was too high for her to reach and too small for her to crawl out of. Shaking her head a little, Erin began to shuffle around the room, taking in fact that the floor was thinly carpeted, and the way it felt beneath her feet told Erin that the floor beneath was concrete. "So, I'm in a basement," she murmured as she looked around for a way to escape. There were two doors in the room, a heavy metal one on the wall across from the window while the other was a normal wooden door on the wall across from her bed.
Frowning a little, she went over to the wooden door first, wondering if that would be her way out. Opening it, her shoulders slumped to see that it was the bathroom. Taking a moment to empty her bladder, Erin quickly washed her hands before shivering with cold. Heading out of the bathroom, she hurried over to the heavy metal door and frantically pulled at the handle, unsurprised to find that it was locked. It was beginning to look clearer that she had been taken hostage by John, or someone working on behalf of him, and she trudged back to the bed, curling up against the headboard and allowing herself to cry for a few minutes. A part of her knew that she couldn't wallow in self pity, as she had to find a way out of the situation, somehow. Her children and David waited for her out there, and she would do anything to get back to them. Taking a few deep breaths, Erin got up from the bed once more in order to get a better look at the room she was being held in. There wasn't much to the main room, the walls were made up of the same concrete that the floor most likely was, while the ceiling was unfinished, as she could see the wooden beams that supported the floor above. "I'm clearly in a basement," she said as she turned on the lamp that was next to her bed, filling the room with a little more light. Opening the top drawer of the nightstand, she found the book that she had been reading back home, the bookmark still in place, and she shivered once more. "How many people did John have working for him?" she murmured as she took the book out and set it next to the lamp.
Next to the nightstand was a larger dresser, and she opened each drawer in turn, a feeling of dread filling her stomach as she took in the sight of her clothes. This had clearly gone much deeper than she had realized, and once more tears began to pool in her eyes as she pulled out a warm cardigan and pulled it on, buttoning it hurriedly as she took a look at the rest of the contents of the room. There wasn't much there, but she was unnerved by the fact that the bookcase contained all the books she wanted to read, while the top of it was covered in pictures of her children, along with Alex, David, and Penelope. Picking up the picture of the younger woman, Erin frowned, wondering how John had known that she had been growing closer to the woman. The only person in her life that knew that was David, since he had been the one to encourage the friendship.
The sick feeling in her stomach, accompanied by the growing headache, caused her to seek out the bathroom once more, and she threw up violently in the toilet, hating the burn of bile against the back of her throat. "You have to keep it together, Erin," she murmured as she got to her feet once more, washing her mouth out to fee it from the taste of sickness. "The only way that you'll come out of this alive is if you remain on your toes."
Using the fact that she was already in the bathroom to explore, she saw that medicine cabinet above the sink contained all of her skincare products, along with her makeup, while the top drawer of sink cabinet contained her brushes and other makeup tools. There was a small closet next to the sink that contained fresh towels, washcloths, and rolls of toilet paper. Everything that she needed to take care of her personal needs was contained there, which told her, again, that John had been paying much closer attention to her than she had even realized. A cold, sinking, realization filled her brain that she was never meant to be found, that this was the place she would die, forgotten and alone. Which was worse than having died on the streets of NYC, because at least she had been surrounded by people. Now, though, she would live with the creeping horror that she was one day closer to death and yet everyone she loved already thought she was dead.
Though she didn't want to cry yet again that morning, or what felt like morning, Erin still found tears flooding her eyes as she stumbled back into her main room and fell back onto the bed. Staring up at the ceiling, she tried to gather her thoughts, to come up with a plan of action, but nothing was forthcoming. All she could think about was her family, and how she wanted to curl up with her children. Her stomach began to growl angrily, reminding her that she had no idea when she'd last eaten. Sitting up, she scanned the room for a cupboard that she had missed that might contain food. As she was doing that, the sound of metal creaking caught her attention, and she looked towards the locked door, only to see that a small door was opening in the middle of it, and as she watched, a tray was pushed through containing a plate of food and two bottles of water. Hurriedly, she rushed over to the door and dropped to her knees, trying to look out at the person there. "Let me out, John! Please!" There was no answer, just the tray being jostled closer to her, and she took hold of it in defeat as the small door was slammed closed, leaving her alone once more.
