Out of the Blue, Into the Trap

Shea tossed her head with a weary, frustrated sigh, hair lashing the air for a moment before curtaining her down-turned face. Another soft, muffled growl rasped against the thick leather panel which covered her mouth, denying both voice and easy breath. She could feel the other girl's hopeful, tear-filled eyes boring into the side of her head, pleading for the catgirl to do something about this nightmare! The futility of all her efforts so far in that direction seemed to crowd in leering and taunting then, hot, stinging tears springing into Shea's own eyes before she determinedly choked them back. No, she wouldn't give up...couldn't give up. For Tiffany's sake, of course...but also for her own. Her fellow captive, their abductors needed against the ransom they either had or were soon going to demand for her safe return. Shea, on the other hand, was a far-less certain commodity - almost assuredly a liability - and one about which the sinister kidnappers hadn't yet reached a decision.

One way or another, Shea knew she didn't want to still be there when they finally made up their minds.

So, with a deep, steadying breath, she raised her head again and threw herself back against the ropes, squirming with mighty purpose against the stifling, soullessly implacable strands. Weary, burning muscles protested the return to action, after already-endless-seeming hours of struggling. If she could have at least bent her back a little it might have helped take the edge off. But, she was virtually welded ram-rod straight by the cunning arrangement of ropes that kept her arms linked to her torso through the gaps in the too-sturdy chair's indomitable back. All she could do was try to press the discomfort aside and keep her wits focused, while the gnawing ache in her lower back and shoulders grew along with the tingling numbness in her arms...and the mounting anxiety and despair in her gut.

As the catgirl's determined eyes scanned carefully around the room for the hundredth time in search of something which could help, her mind cast back over how she'd come to be in this predicament. For a change, it had been entirely unexpected, not even the hint of lurking danger giving her any inkling that something was wrong. Tiffany Greenwell, a classmate, good acquaintance - and presently, her fellow prisoner - had been absent from school for the last day or two, and so Shea had gone to pay her a visit. She'd been turned away at the door of the manor-like Greenwell home by the house-keeper, with an explanation that Tiffany was ill. An explanation which in hindsight rang plainly as a bit too half-mumbled and hasty. At the time, though, it had seemed altogether plausible - and why wouldn't it? There'd been no reason to suspect anything, Shea countered toward the self-chiding inner voice which said she'd been asleep at the wheel - and she'd simply extended her best wishes and went on her way home. She still wasn't sure if the matronly maid was in on this or not, but doubted it.

Someone had tipped the kidnappers off to her visit, though, as Shea found out later that night, much to her surprise. She hadn't even suspected that she'd brushed up against anything untoward, and so was taken entirely off-guard by the trio of insidious interlopers when they'd jumped her in her own home. One moment, she'd been lounging around watching late-night t.v., ready for bed...and the next she was in the grasp of her soon-to-be abductors! The details of the struggle were a little fuzzy from this side of events, but she'd woken back up bound to this chair, Tiffany's seemingly ever-wide and exhausted eyes staring at her new room-mate in a mixture of sorrow, hope, and regret. The pieces had fallen into place for Shea quickly enough after that, tidbits the canny cat-lass had overheard from their captors during their infrequent visits filling in the rest. A kidnapping for ransom...a simple enough, if entirely odious and unforgiveable, scheme was what she'd unwittingly stumbled into, like putting her foot into some hunter's trap. And these particular kidnappers were no slouches, as evidenced by their restraint work on, and "take no chances" approach to, the perenially-heroic young snoop's intrusion upon their caper. Apparently, her reputation had preceded her...

It was altogether clear that Tiffany had never been through anything like this before, and Shea wished deeply that she could do something to give the other young woman some comfort. Unfortunately, circumstances made that utterly impossible at the moment, and there wasn't really time in any event. And thus, Shea focused on what she could do to make the situation better...which would be of far greater value when all was said and done than any soothing words she could offer, in any case. They'd escape, both of them, and bring these slimy cowards to justice; of that, Shea was utterly determined. But first, she had to find or finagle a way out of these thrice-damned and doubly-dastardly ropes!