[2] Rescue Operation

[Piper Juunanagou]

A soft groan escaped Piper’s bloodied lips as she slowly cracked open her weary eyes. All around her, some form of ghastly, musical torture was blaring—causing the wounded, blurry-eyed woman to cringe as she tried to shake off her delirium. As the seconds dragged on, Piper slowly came to the realization that she could barely feel her arms and legs. Even worse, there was something that was holding her arms and legs together.

With a faint moan of pain, the red-haired woman twisted her neck at and awkward angle as she tried to look down at her ankles. Her foggy eyes grew wider as she caught site of two thick, black cuffs clamped around both of her ankles. All at once, Piper felt like she was back in a hospital and tied down to one of those terrible beds.

Haunting memories began to strangle her thoughts as she lied on the plastic floor of the vehicle. Flashes of abusive doctors and uncaring nurses light up in her head as she slipped further into the delirium that the cocktail of sedatives had created. If Piper was able to scream, her shouts would have eclipsed the terrible music pouring from the speakers. But try as she might, all she could do was twitch and gasp erratically as the myriad drugs coursing through her bloodstream acted to keep her in check.

“…stop or you’ll hurt yourself,” the weak, almost wavering voice of Szar managed to wrench Piper out of her hallucinations and anchor her to the even less comforting reality of the situation. Rolling her head to look behind her numb body, Piper could—despite her blurred vision—make out the purplish figure of Szar lying just a foot or so away from her. “Are you okay?” He added frailly, his voice barely audible over the wailing singer in the background. Piper winced as she struggled to keep her head at an angle where she could see the fuzzy frame of the alien.

Opening her mouth, the woman tried to make words come out, but just as earlier with her attempted bout of screams, all she could formulate was a series of unintelligent gurgles and groans. Frustration began to swell up within the woman as her weak neck muscles gave out and her head rolled away from the changeling and back down to the other side of her body. With a grunt, the woman clenched her eyes shut and tried to make sense amidst the chaos of her mind and the abuse of the terrible noise coming from the front of the vehicle.

Szar? Piper thought as she tried to focus her erratic, unorganized thoughts into some sort of coherent design. Can you hear this? She added as she tried to project the words into the mind of the alien. After a few seconds of nothing but the pounding of her head and the screaming of the music, the woman got a reply.

“How…how are you doing that?” The changeling whispered, trying his hardest to talk above the music but not loud enough to let the driver hear him. Piper smiled on the inside as she once again tried to clear her head of the jarring, ambient noise.

I genuinely don’t know. Piper replied. I had a friend who could communicate telepathically…I guess I picked it up from her.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Szar said, punctuating his mark with what sounded like a weak laugh.

If it’ll make you feel better, a lot of my life hasn’t made sense lately. Piper replied telepathically as she wrenched her head up to try and see if she could pinpoint the driver. Although the redhead’s vision was starting to clear up, her muscles were still numb to the point where it took her a good half a minute to angle her head. When she managed to position herself, she found herself frowning on the inside as she stared through the small crack in the back seats at the woman driving the car.

“It’s that incorrigible woman, isn’t it?” The changeling muttered, straining once again to be heard over the driver’s loud, painful music. The redhead frowned as she realized that the woman was actually talking to someone on a cell phone.

Trisha Demolic. Piper replied after taking a few beats to remember the name of the woman who had beaten her down like she was a redheaded stepchild. He left his wife to cart us away. She added with a weak mental laugh.

“Can you see where she’s taking us from that angle?” Szar asked as his newfound companion tried to life her head a little higher. Unfortunately, she only managed to get a couple of inches before the numbness got the best of her.

No…but it’s rather sunny. Piper replied awkwardly as she turned her eyes back to the driver. Although the two prisoners were only a couple of feet behind Trisha, they couldn’t hear her conversation due to the jarring volume of the music. What do you think they’re going to do with us? She asked as she tried to move her extremities. Although they were slightly more responsive, it was evident that the pair of prisoners needed more time before they could try anything on their own.

“I don’t know,” Szar whispered, his tone betraying the frustration that boiled within his barely responsive body. “But I will bring those two to justice,” he seethed. Piper would have nodded her head had she the strength to do so, but unfortunately, all she could muster was a weak smile as she narrowed her eyes at their driver.

You’re a stupid cunt. Piper rasped—directing the remark toward the blonde woman driving the SUV. Almost immediately, Trisha’s entire frame jostled as she lowered the volume just slightly and shot a fleeting glance toward her sedated cargo. By that point, Piper had managed to pull her head so it wasn’t facing the woman.

“Did you just say what I thought you said?” Trisha shouted into the cell phone as she turned her attention back to her driving. After a short pause, Piper heard one last remark before the volume went back up to full: “Oh…well then I must be hearing things.”