The sound of the bedroom door being unlocked came as a real surprise to Becky. She had expected hours to go by before she saw anything of her kidnappers, given that she had just been to the bathroom as well as having something to eat and drink, thanks to the input of the gentle one. If it had been left to the bloodthirsty one, she thought she would have been lucky to make it to the bathroom and back without being kicked or punched in some way.

Unfortunately the job of reapplying her bonds and gag had also been left to the bloodthirsty one. Becky had seen the pleasure in her eyes as she secured all of the knots extra tight; tighter than they had been at any point so far. The ropes cut into her already swollen and bruised wrists as well as her ankles, and the towel bit into the corners of her mouth, which felt like they had been rubbed raw by the chafing.

There had to have been a sadistic smile hidden under the woman's ski mask. Although the idea of killing the bloodthirsty one appealed to Becky on a basic level, she knew that if she did get free, she would run as far and as fast as she could away from the woman, because she really was a killer. You could see it in her eyes.

Was it her at the door? Had she come back to inflict more pain? Becky was prepared to scream and struggle as much as she could to attract the attention of the leader, if that was about to happen. The leader would stop an attack, wouldn't she?

The door opened, with a little squeak from its hinges. Becky raised her head, eyes wide with fear at what she'd imagined might be in store.

It wasn't the bloodthirsty one. Not tall enough.

With a slight moan of relief, Becky let her head fall back onto the pillow. She didn't even stop to think about what else might be happening, until the kidnapper was standing at the side of the bed, looming over her.

"Mmmph?" Becky asked, trying to demonstrate submissiveness with her eyes. There was no reason to inflict more pain on her.

"I'm not going to hurt you," the gentle one said, to Becky's relief. "The other two have gone out for a while, so I thought I'd come and sit with you. I'm prepared to take your gag off, but you can't make any sound louder than I'm talking now. Can we agree on that?"

"Ymmph," Bayley agreed, nodding enthusiastically. A period of more than a couple of minutes without that vile sock stuffed in her mouth would feel like heaven, such was the state she was in. She lifted her head so that the kidnapper could work on the knot in the towel, which was tied at the back of her head. She seemed to have a bit of difficulty undoing it because of how tight it had been left by her friend.

"She didn't need to do it this tight," the gentle one muttered to herself.

Then the knot came free, much to Becky's relief. The kidnapper used her gloved thumb and index finger to pull the sock out of her mouth, and Becky coughed instinctively.

"Thank you," Becky gasped as soon as she was able, as the kidnapper sat down on the edge of the bed. There was no chair in the room. Apart from the bed and the single night stand, all of the furniture had been removed.

"I can't untie you, though."

"I understand," Becky said. It was disappointing, but not surprising. What was this even about? She had at least picked up on one piece of information earlier. "You're Bayley, right?"

The brown eyes widened in surprise. They were gentle eyes, Becky thought. Gentle like the person behind them seemed to be. Part of her was angry that she also found them to be very attractive eyes. An ex-girlfriend of hers had been blessed with eyes that were very similar to these.

"How do you know my name?" Bayley demanded.

"Your partner. The tall one. When you were both in here earlier, after you both went out, she locked the door and I heard her say something like, 'Are you happy now, Bayley?' It was because you convinced her to give me a drink. So, you're Bayley."

Bayley sighed. "You're really not supposed to know that, but yes, I'm Bayley."

"Why am I here, Bayley? You're not going to kill me, are you? Your team, I mean. Your partner looks like she would enjoy it."

Looking down at the undoubtedly beautiful woman, Bayley had to feel sorry for her. She sounded so scared, and why wouldn't she, after what she'd been through in the last twelve hours? "No. We're not going to kill you, not unless you try and escape. We didn't kidnap you because we wanted to hurt you."

"Why did you do it then? You were paid to do it by someone else, weren't you?"

"Yes," Bayley told her, seeing no harm in it. Becky deserved to know she wasn't in physical danger. "You've been working on some new computer chip that's worth a lot of money. That makes you worth a lot of money too, to the right person."

"So there's no chance of you letting me go?" Becky asked forlornly.

"I'm afraid not. Even if I wanted to, the others would sooner kill me than agree to that. There's too much money at stake."

"Then please don't let the tall one hurt me. I can see in her eyes, she would like nothing better than to see me die a painful death. She's a sadistic killer, I can tell."

"Don't provoke her, and you'll be okay. Our, uh, boss, won't let her do anything to you. She's no pushover, but she's not cruel either."

Becky had to admit that was probably true. The leader had promised she wouldn't be hurt unless she brought it on herself, and she had kept her word. "How long am I going to be here for?"

"We're not sure," Bayley replied, before thinking the answer through. It was a mistake.

"What do you mean?" Becky quickly asked. "Someone paid you a lot of money to kidnap me, but you don't have a plan to hand me over to them? That doesn't make sense."

Bayley grimaced under her ski mask. "You're a quick, smart girl. I've already said too much about what our plans are. If you let on, we'll both be in big trouble."

Processing that, Becky figured out that something had gone wrong. There was no plan to hand her over, and the other two kidnappers had gone out to get supplies after only being there for one night. They hadn't planned on needing those supplies. The original idea must have been for the exchange to happen today. Now, for some reason, that wasn't the case.

"You're going to keep me here for a while, aren't you?"

"Yes," Bayley replied, trying to sound sure of herself.

There was an awkward silence. Kidnapper and victim was hardly the ideal dynamic for conversation. Bayley felt obliged to say something, and went with the first thing that came to mind.

"Will there be people looking for you. Boyfriend? Parents? Friends?"

"My family live back in Ireland. I have friends over here, but none that will be missing me this soon. I live alone. No girfriend at the moment."

"Girlfriend?" Bayley asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise.

"Go ahead, judge me because I'm gay. It's nothing I haven't heard before, trust me."

"No," Bayley said quickly, raising a defensive hand. "I'm not judging you, I was just surprised. I'm actually bisexual myself."

Becky managed a smile. "Then you'll understand when I say you have beautiful eyes. I don't suppose you want to take that mask off?"

In that moment, it dawned on Bayley that what she was doing wasn't a good idea at all. She was here to exchange this woman for money, not to get to know her, no matter how sexy she was. She'd mistakenly revealed that things weren't going to plan, and for a half second she'd considered taking her mask off. Telling herself that she shouldn't have even come into the bedroom, she decided to leave before she made things worse.

"I can't take my mask off. And I shouldn't have come in here and talked to you like this. The others would be furious if they knew." She stood up and picked up the sock and the towel. "I have to gag you again now. I won't do it as tight as before though."

"No, please," Becky begged desperately. "Having that sock in my mouth is so horrible, and the towel hurts me, too. I promise I won't make a sound. I'll just lie here in silence. I promise."

Bayley hesitated, then saw something out of the corner of her eye. She put the sock and the towel down on the night stand and picked up the roll of silver duct tape instead. "I do have to gag you. Like I said before, we'd both get in trouble if our boss thought I was going easy on you. She specifically told us yesterday to keep you gagged at all times. I can use this tape though. It will be more comfortable for you than before."

Dropping her head to the pillow, Becky raged at herself for asking Bayley to take her mask off. That had been pushing way too far, and now it had cost her. She did appreciate that Bayley was willing to use the tape instead, but she had no intention of thanking her kidnapper for gagging her.

Sitting back down on the bed, Bayley stretched out a length of tape from the roll. "Lift your head up, Becky. Don't make this difficult or I'll have to use the sock and the towel, and I don't want to do that."

Reluctantly, Becky raised her head and stayed still while Bayley stuck the end of the tape to her cheek. Slowly, deliberately, she wrapped it over her mouth, using her fingers to press it down and seal her lips as completely as possible.

Becky had hoped that only a strip of tape might be used, but Bayley went on to wrap it around her head three times in the same slow, deliberate manner. The tightness of the new gag surprised Becky. It was a lot more than she would have expected from duct tape.

"Try and talk," Bayley requested, with an almost guilty look in her eyes, after she had finally seperated the tape from the roll and patted down the loose end.

"Imm cammt tmmph," Becky said. To her immense frustration, although this gag wasn't painful, it was even more effective than the original one. Whatever brand of tape this was, it was incredibly tough and sticky. Her lips were completely sealed, and would not move at all.

"I'm sorry," Bayley said, touching Becky's cheek gently with a gloved hand. "Hopefully this will be over soon. I'll do my best to make sure that, uh, the tall one doesn't hurt you. One of us will be back to see you later."

Becky started pleading helplessly into the tape as Bayley stood up, but she determined herself not to give in to it. Touching a finger to the tape, she said, "Sshhh. I've done what I can to put your mind at ease, and I changed the gag when you asked me to. Now you need to be quiet, okay?"

Lowering her head back down onto the pillow, Becky turned away, refusing to look at Bayley. Tears filled her eyes as she listened to the kidnappers footsteps receeding towards the door. The door opened, then closed, then she heard the lock click into place

Once more, she was alone, bound, gagged and helpless. Only now, she knew that she would be that way for an indeterminate period of time. That was unless the bloodthirsty one decided to take matters into her own hands and kill her.

For the next several minutes, she tried again to wriggle her wrists against the ropes that held them, while trying to talk through the tape in the hope that it would loosen. It was all pointless. There was no escape from this place, or from these people.