Operation: Marauder

Chapter 7

After screaming herself hoarse in the small hopes someone would hear her, Zoey finally took a moment to think. The sun had long since disappeared and so had her interrogator. There was no way to tell how much time had past, but it was long enough to think her new friends weren't coming back tonight. They were trying to scare her, let the hopelessness of her situation sink in, before they came back to ask their questions again. At least that was what her experience with movies had told her. 

She wouldn't give them what they wanted. Not while they used scare tactics anyway. She feared if they escalated to torturing her, she'd break. So you better make sure it doesn't come to that, eh, Zoe?

She nodded to herself, feeling her resolve return. At this very moment, there was nothing to be scared of. She was alone. They hadn't hurt her--not in ways that would hinder her anyway. Now was the perfect time to slow down and think. 

First thing's first: she couldn't look around for an escape if she couldn't get her hands free. She felt around the chair behind her, testing her restraints and the steel they were bound to. After a few tugs, she discovered that neither the zip ties or the chair's steel were going to give way to her strength. She peered around the room, looking for anything that could help her leverage the ties enough to break them. It was empty, aside from the table and herself. The walls were brick, the floor concrete. As she looked around, her chair squeaked. She'd recognize that kind of sound anywhere! A loose nut! She couldn't tell which nut, but there were only so many nuts on a simple chair like this, and if she jostled one free, it would ruin the structural integrity of the entire chair and she could free herself!

She wiggled, making the chair move as much as possible. She moved until she was spent and saw no signs of the nut loosing its hold any time soon. If teetering wasn't going to help her, maybe brute force would. Awkwardly, she leaned forward and stood, her steel companion butting right behind her. Very glad no one was around to watch her cumbersome struggle, she made her way over to the wall, stopping short a couple feet away. Before she could talk herself out of it, she threw herself at the wall, angling the chair in a way where it would take the brunt of the force. 

She fell, landing painfully on her shoulder. The backrest of the chair smacked the back of her head. For a moment, all she could feel was the ache in her head and see a flash of white. Once the shock of pain was gone, Zoey noticed that the chair felt lighter. She rotated and saw that the backrest had broken off from the seat. With a little more wiggling and contorting, she managed to tuck her hands and the backrest under her legs and bring them forward.

Progress.

Her mind went to Jack and her dad--you know it was desperate times when she thought of him. They'd be proud of her for keeping so level-headed through this. For being resourceful. Not that they ever expected her to be in this kind of situation.

All right. One obstacle down, a few more to go.

Her next task was to free her hands from the backrest; it would only weigh her down if she had to run. Just by looking at the weld points on the supports, she knew that wouldn't be a hard feat; they were hastily done. Holding the backrest with her hands, she smashed it into the wall until the support her hands were tied to broke and fell between her palms to the floor.

Before letting herself feel an ounce of hope, she listened for any sounds of her captors coming to check out the awful racket she'd just made. When she heard nothing, she crept to the door and listened through the steel for any signs of them. Still nothing.

Here she thought that vampires had super hearing. Huh. Well, she wasn't going to argue and pushed forward.

There was nothing in the room for her to cut her ties, but that was only a small inconvenience. She tried the door handle. Low and behold, it was locked. This was an easy fix, courtesy of her rebellious years. She pulled a bobby pin from her hair and worked the lock. It sprang free after a few attempts. With a silent victorious fist pump, she opened the door an inch and peeked through the gap. The hallway, as far as she could tell, was empty.