A bird with a broken wing can still break free...
Pain was the first thing she noticed, then a sickening nausea when she tried to open her eyes and her stomach attempted to rebel. Her brain felt like it was slip-sliding inside her skull and she felt sweat break out over her entire body as she took shallow breaths and tried to fight down the queasiness. Her shoulders throbbed, particularly the left one she was lying on. Both arms were pulled back and tied together at the wrist, her ankles were bound and there was a strip of tape across her mouth. She smelled blood and guessed that was probably why her head was pounding so badly. Continuing to take shallow breaths, she tried to look around her, but she could only see shadowy outlines of something grey and tinny. And close. She was in something, locked up tight and trussed like a turkey. She'd be pissed when she could get over the gut-wrenching fear and sickness.
She thought back to how she'd gotten here; coming home late from the market. All the baking she'd been doing recently for everyone stopping by and the extras she'd been sneaking over to Piggy - to help distract him momentarily from missing his brothers - had used up most of her supplies and she had decided to get more, since she was planning on making a batch of cherry tarts to take over to their security specialist. The stillness had alerted her that something wasn't as it should be, giving her enough time to fling herself to the side and missing the blow aimed to take her legs out from under her. Rolling back to her feet, she balanced lightly and looked over at the figure who'd attacked her. They stood there, mostly shapeless and covered head to foot in black. She tried, but couldn't pick out anything notable about them, other than their complete lack of anything of note. And that was all the reprieve she was given before the faceless attacker came at her again; moving with a fluidity that screamed training to her and she had her first moment of fear in years. She'd had hand-to-hand combat training - all the children had - but she'd never felt comfortable around weapons. She didn't have Red's knife skills or Hood's ability with ranged weapons, nor had she ever wanted them; until now. The knowledge that this was the person, or one of them, that had taken the other two Pigs had her eyes widening and her stance changing to the defensive. If she could just distract him long enough.. If she could get her mouth open and sing..
Training she may have had, but whoever this is, they've had more. If I get out of this, I promise I'll practice more. I promise I'll pick up something else - just please let me get through this, she prays silently. Her arms are already stinging from the blows she's blocked and she knows she'll be covered in bruises come the morning. Somehow, she manages to hit the side of his knee and he goes down. Taking a breath, she prepares to blast him with a note of fear to dull his reaction, but the air is forcefully ejected from her with the kick to her solar plexus. Mouth open and gasping for air, she stumbles back, not seeing the roundhouse aimed for her head. It felt like lightning striking her brain; one moment she was up and the next she was blinking groggily at the dirt that her face was pressed against. At least she could breathe again, partially, small hiccuping breaths that hurt to take, but she sucked them in greedily. Her vision greying, she fights to stay conscious, to fight back, but her body feels like someone's cut the strings and she feels a tear slip past her cheek to be soaked quickly into the ground.
There's a buzzing in her ears that indicates she likely has a severe concussion and is about to lose consciousness, but the squawk of a radio has struggling, clinging to wakefulness. "I've got the bird." The voice is male, normal tone range with a lilt that denotes an Asian background.
"Which one?" The answering voice is tinny, thanks to the quality of the radios they seem to be using. It's also female, with that hint of a syrupy twang from the southern states.
"The singing one. There's another bird?" She can hear the frustrated confusion in the voice.
There's a small squeal as whoever was on the other end comes too close to something electronic. "Seems like there's always another with this lot. But good, the singing one'll be useful. We can get her to bring the others in with less fuss. Rock's still nursing a bite-mark from one of those pigs."
A muffled chuckle from behind the material covering the man's face. "Serves him right. I told him not to just assume it'd be easy. We bringing this one to HQ with the other two?"
"Negative. It's too late. We've orders to stash her at the meeting place and move her in the morning."
"ETA's an hour. Meet you and Rock there."
"Affirmative."
Then there was a squeal as the radio was turned off and she heard his feet moving closer. Blinking dust and tears of pain and rage out of her eyes, she turned to look up at him. "Bedtime for birdies.." His fist was a blur and she was out before her brain processed the hit.
~
Which took her back to the here and now. Locked up tight, bound hand and foot and gagged. Pushing her tongue out of her mouth, she licked along the tacky material, using her tongue to pry her lips away from the glue. With more spit than she cared to think about, she began to work the sticky binding off her lips, brushing the edge of her cheek along her shoulder to help pull it off. The silvery stripe began to lift, and after far longer than she was comfortable with, it fell away to dangle off the side of her cheek. Gulping in deep breaths of air, she forced herself to stay calm, to listen and see if she could figure out where she was.
Gayle smelled grease; burnt old oil and the tinny smell of rusted metal that was amplifying the copper smell of her blood in a very unpleasant way. She couldn't hear any traffic, nor could she hear the voices of her attackers. Shuffling around in her enclosure, she tapped it with her feet, listening to the ting of metal. She felt the gritty rug under her and realized they'd locked her in the trunk of a car. Straining her ears, she tried to hear anything; a weighted silence met her and she breathed in her first sigh of relief that night. Moving more, she pulled back as far as she could to allow more room in the small space, more room to cause reverberations. Clearing her throat, she started in the mid-range octave, working her way up until she found that pitch that resonated with the lock on the trunk. She had to close her eyes to hold it, her head aching from the sound, but she finally heard a muted 'click', followed by a waft of fresh air as the lid popped open.
Using her feet to push the lid open, she cautiously peeked out, nose wrinkling as the full effect of the scent of a scrapyard heap hit her. When no one said anything about the trunk opening, she pushed it further, still alert and waiting for that cry. Still nothing. Lifting herself up, she had to bite back the cry of pain as her shoulders screamed at her, along with the myriad of other aches from the pummeling she'd taken. Gritting her teeth, she kept pushing, finally sitting up and leaning over the edge of the trunk. Heaving herself over, she rolled out and onto the ground, biting back a scream as pain shot through her. Great.. trying to escape from faceless bad guys with a dislocated shoulder. Wonderful.
Bracing her back on the bumper of the car, she levered herself slowly upward, wobbling as she fought to keep her balance. Finally, she was up, with her butt resting on the headlight, panting and thinking up horrible things to do to her faceless captors. Sliding along the side of the scrapped car, she worked her way over to the side-view mirror; the broken side-view mirror. Keeping an eye out, she turned around and began working with the jagged shards of metal left twisted out from the car to cut through her bonds. Doing it backwards and effectively blind, she missed and nicked herself a few times, but she ignored the small pain, focusing on the burning throb of her shoulder and using that to fuel her. When her hands were finally free, she quickly jerked out a piece of the broken mirror; cutting her fingers again before she got it out and bent to work on her ankles, her left arm curled against her chest.
Free but injured, Gayle crept quietly from the car, keeping to the shadows and looking around for any signs of company. There was a garage sitting like a bloated, rickety spider in the middle of the lot, lights blazing. Figuring that's where the others were, she hesitated. Part of her wanted to get closer, find out as much as she could so she could figure out what was going on and be able to tell the others. A larger part was screaming at her to leave; that she wasn't cut out for this and that the others wouldn't know squat if she got herself caught again. That last bit convinced her to back away and look for a way out. She had to tell Miller and Piggy and Shang what she'd heard. That Piggy's brothers were alive and being held at their 'HQ'. That there were at least three people attacking the others. That they knew about what they could do and wanted to use them to round everyone else up.
Clutching her arm, she headed for the fence, walking along it until she found a spot she could climb up enough to grasp the top and haul herself over. Dropping ungracefully to the ground, she stumbled back up to her feet and began running. She didn't know where she was or where she was going, but she wanted to put as much space between her and that scrapyard as possible. And so she ran. Exhausted, terrified, furious, injured and bleeding, she ran...