Shooting Star

Chapter 3

The morning sun rose once again, as Carter woke up from her sleep with no amount of restfulness in her soul. Her mind felt scrambled as she began to piece what happened, but after she ran, she couldn't remember anything. She slowly opened her eyes, being welcomed to the familiar sight of her apartment's living room. The blinds and window by the plush red sofas were closed, the door beside one of those sofas locked shut, and not a single light was on, yet the glow of the sunlight was strong enough to be able to hit Carter right in the eyes. The walls were light in color and plastered with precious childhood memories, forever cemented by old photos in fancy frames, but the peaceful appearance of the living room was ruined when she noticed that spots of her blood were stained on her prized, fluffy white carpet her mother gave her for her 16th birthday all those years ago.

It seemed that she somehow had the strength to make it all the way home after the nightmare that was last night. She couldn't remember it, but the moment she opened her eyes and took a breath, she knew that she had cried herself to sleep when she finally made it to the safety of her own home. All she could do at this point was let the pain and numbness in her tired, violated body pass its course, and she was determined to lay down here for as long as it took. The poor girl could barely process everything that just happened. Her despair. Her fear. Her pain and agony. Her feelings of both betrayal and fury towards a woman she had never even met before. Her luck.

She remained still on the living room floor, though her eyes were still open. Checking to make sure she could move again, she hit her right arm against the floor and felt that her numbness was gone. Carter stood up like a reanimated corpse, contemplating if she was willing to even leave her home ever again. But in a sense, she was somewhat grateful that she even got a chance to see this room again.

Rather violent knocking on the door forced Carter to come back to reality. Immediately panicked, she approached the door in caution, trying to search for her taser, but she didn't feel it in her pocket. In fact, her cell phone was gone, too. That doctor confiscated them so that Carter couldn't resist or call for help at the camps. The door knocked again. "CARTER!" a feminine voice yelled on the other side of the door. The tired, barely conscious woman sighed in relief and opened the door. It was just Winter.

Um... a very angry Winter.

"What the fuck were you doing?!" Winter yelled. "I waited for you outside your workplace and I kept calling you, but you didn't answer the damn phone! Your boss was about to file a missing person's report on you!" Winter's yelling hurt Carter's head. "I don't have my phone, clown. If I had it, I would have answered it," she answered, rubbing her head.

"You lost your phone again?! Honestly, what if something happened to you?! You can't just walk around with nobody to call for help!"

Carter defensively raised her arm, showing her restraint bound, mildly bloody wrists. "Yeah, because having it with me was real helpful last night!" she yelled back. "Clearly, I was dealing with something else!" Upon saying it and taking a glance at her wrist herself, Carter realized that maybe this wasn't the best way to inform Winter on what had happened to her. Winter's hazel eyes shifted towards the blood-soaked cuff as confusion and denial slowly started to set in. "Please tell me you got that doing some kind of kinky stuff last night. I mean, I won't judge," Winter replied in dread.

"What kinky act involves my wrists getting slit open?!"

"Okay, okay! I get it!" Panicking, Winter forced her way into Carter's apartment.

The two women grabbed as many first aid supplies as they could. Good thing Carter knows how to take care of herself medically. Winter helped forcibly open the cuffs on her wrists and ankles, and Carter tended to treating her wounds on the dining table in the kitchen. "When you left, there was this older woman who kidnapped me," Carter explained while pouring cold water from a sponge onto her cuts over a bowl and washing it with mild soap. Her friend asked earlier why she didn't use rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, but apparently it causes damage and makes healing slower, which was why Carter was so against using it. Ironically, she was so used to the smell of rubbing alcohol that she was almost tempted to try it. "Her name is Bonnie Umali. She has long brown hair, fair skin, and green eyes, and she's 6 feet tall. And the worst part is, I can't report what she did to me..." Winter sat patiently on the other side of the table, placing the cuffs in a plastic bag for evidence. "What do you mean? What the hell did she do?" her friend replied, trying to be supportive, though there was clear horror in her eyes. "She's a part of the Hyena Labs..." Carter struggled to admit.