Young Writers Society

The world spun in circles around her as Carmen opened her eyes, lights dancing in and out of view as she slowly woke.
The ropes burned against her ankles and wrists as she tried to stretch, rough fibers tearing at her skin, and she couldn’t stop a soft cry of pain from slipping through her lips.
“You’re awake again,” a soft, blood-chillingly familiar voice cooed. Carmen turned her head to the side - too fast, much too fast, sending stabs of pain through her head - and her breathing turned shallow as she made out the figure of Meltdown, perched on a chair in the corner, half-hidden in the shadows. “I was waiting for you to wake up. I fixed you all up, see? Doesn’t that feel better? I told you it would.”
“Let me go,” Carmen breathed. “Let me go, please.”
“No.”
The simple, single-syllable word sent fear coursing through Carmen’s veins, and she flinched at the harshness of it.
Meltdown got to her feet and stepped toward Carmen, slowly, deliberately, an adoring smile twisting her face. The expression and the coldness of Meltdown’s words were at odds, and that made Carmen even more afraid.
The blond villain crouched next to Carmen and reached out to caress her face, her fingers hot and dry against Carmen’s cold, sweat-soaked skin.
“I can’t let you go,” she purred. “I went to all the trouble of getting you here, after all.”
“M-Meltdown-”
“Iris.”
Carmen looked up at the villain’s red eyes. “Wh-what?”
“Iris. That’s my name.” Iris leaned in closer until Carmen could almost smell her breath, minty and biting. “You don’t have to be so formal here, darling. Call me by my name.”
“I-I don’t think-”
Suddenly, the cold metal of a knife was at her throat, and she barely stopped herself from letting out a scream.
“Say. My. Name,” Iris snarled, one hand reaching behind Carmen to grab a handful of her magenta hair and hold her head in place, the other gripping the kitchen knife against Carmen’s throat so tightly that her knuckles were white. Her eyes were the colour of the blood trickling down Carmen’s neck, the colour of death and unbridled rage, and Carmen could see every shade of anger painted in her red irises.
“Iris!” Carmen screamed. “Iris, your name is Iris!”
“Ohhhh,” Iris sighed, her expression immediately turning to one of ecstasy. “Ohhhh, darling, you don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that. Do it again.”
“Iris,” Carmen whispered.
“And you’re Carmen,” Iris whispered back, running her tongue over her lips as if she could taste Carmen’s name. “Carmen, Carmen, Carmen, darling.” She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, inhaling deeply for a moment, then looked back down at Carmen, expression brimming over with love and possession.
What’s wrong with this girl?

Carmen slumped against the wall. Her bonds had grown more sophisticated as she stayed here longer, from hastily tied ropes to chains welded to the walls and around her wrists and a collar, chaining her to the wall like a dog. Her ankles were no longer tied, and she was allowed to get up and pace the length of her chains, from the wall to the center of the room and back again, but why would she? Pacing was the surest way to get tangled in her chains, and the spikes of pain it sent through her body wasn’t worth it. She could practically feel her muscles withering, her skin sagging where defined strength had been before, and she hated it, but she hated the pain more.
Was anyone looking for her? Could anyone find her? Would they come looking only to find a broken shell, no longer Carmen Young or Makeshift, but a desiccated corpse with hollow eyes and scarred skin and an aversion to light?
“D-dad,” she whispered, the word falling from cracked lips. “Dad, I’m sorry, I know how much you w-wanted to keep the business in the family…”
“Aww, crying for daddy, are we?” Carmen hadn’t even realized Iris was in the room, and she flinched and scrambled backwards as the blonde girl slammed the door shut behind her. “When are you going to start crying my name?”
“Go away,” Carmen pleaded. “Please, leave me alone, not today, not again…”
“Shh,” Iris soothed, walking not towards Carmen, but toward the shelves along the left side of the room. “Shh, it’s okay. The pain will be better today, I promise. You’ll like it.”

“Be more careful!”
Carmen stopped just outside the doorway leading to Iris’s office, pressing her back against the cold wall and carefully peering through the open door.
A police officer was in there, rifling through Iris’s files and making a mess of them, scattering white papers all over and scrunching them beneath his boots, glancing at someone Carmen couldn’t see.
“Sorry,” the officer apologized.
“This is evidence, idiot! If you mess it all up, the chief will have our badges!”
Carmen poked her head a little further around the doorway to see a second officer sitting at Iris’s desk, poking at her computer.
“I said I was sorry. We’re not here for this, anyway, the team that comes for cleanup can deal with all Meltdown’s papers. I’m looking for anything that references Miss Young.”
Miss Young? They were here for… her?
She ducked back away from the doorway, heart speeding up a little.
The officers were here for her. They were going to take her away from Iris, from her home, from everything she knew and loved and-
She couldn’t let them do that.
“What kind of idiot would leave references to their hostage in their files? Meltdown’s smarter than that. What are you expecting to find, a journal entry that says ‘Today I kidnapped Carmen Young, I locked her up in the basement, it was so exciting?’”
“I- um.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. We know Miss Young is here, so leave the files and let’s get moving.”

“Oh, Carmen doesn’t respond to words,” she purred. “She’s the heir to a powerful and rich company, remember? She’s been learning how not to get worked up by people taunting her since a young age. All the corporate nonsense has desensitized her.” She took her hand off Tobias’s hand with a tiny shiver of relief; Tobias’s skin didn’t feel right anymore. Not since she’d touched Carmen for the first time and realized what it was supposed to feel like, not since she’d realized that Carmen was the only person she really wanted to touch.
She stepped forward and crouched in front of Carmen, once again rewarded with a flash of fear in her perfect, crystal-blue eyes.
“No, she doesn’t respond to words… but she screams in the most delicious way when you touch her.”

Perched on the edge of a bathroom counter, free of her chains for a little while, Carmen sat patiently as Iris dipped a cloth in the sink she’d filled with water and gently sponged the blood from Carmen’s face. The air was colder than normal, although Carmen wasn’t sure if that was actually true or just because she was going into shock.
The single fluorescent light bulb above the row of sinks flickered and hummed, the only sound other than the drip of a leaky faucet and the hum of the air conditioning. Light reflected off every polished tile of the floor and walls and sunk into the matte tan of the metal stalls. Iris must keep this clean; Tobias didn’t seem like the type to pay much attention to how dirty anything was.
… hadn’t. He hadn’t seemed the type.
The blood on her cheeks suddenly felt warmer.
“I’m so sorry you had to see that,” Iris said quietly, breaking the silence.

Streetlights cast their yellow glow across the road as the black car sped past. Iris’s knuckles were white against the wheel, her eyes flicking between the pavement in front of her and the unconscious woman in the passenger’s seat.
Carmen, beautiful Carmen, pink hair falling out of her ponytail, eyes closed, blood dripping from the multiple wounds tearing open her skin, unconscious in the passenger’s seat with her head resting against the window. Blood was dripping down the side of the door.
“Hang on, sweet,” Iris hissed through clenched teeth. “Hang on.”
She hadn’t meant to do this to Carmen. She hadn’t. And now her beloved was bleeding and dying all over Iris’s new car.
She pressed down just a little harder on the accelerator.