Cindy's Recourse Pt. 01

The year is 2020.

"Give me one good reason why I should let you live," Cindy growls at the intruder, slightly letting up on the choke hold her hand has on his neck.

He gets mere seconds to attempt to catch his breath before Cindy turns to Gracelyn with a nod. A shooting pain runs up his body from between his legs as his nuts are crunched by a merciless kick. He can't scream due to Cindy clamping back down on his throat, and he can't reel over in pain due to being secured down in a modified floor section.

Gracelyn continues with a few more savage stomps to the same spot before Cindy signals her to pause.

"C'mon fucker, you gotta work with me here! Give me a reason!" Cindy says.

The lighting in the floor that was activated by the alarm casts an eerie red glow on her face through the hair that is hanging down around it, partially darkening her eyes as they peer into his.

He struggles through the pain, "I heard the place was haunted."

"Oh it's going to be if you don't give me a better excuse!"

"It's true! I swear!"

Cindy pops him in the eye hard enough to make his head bounce against the floor. "You are the third piece of shit to break into this place this week! This isn't a coincidence!" She stands back up and places her Timberland boot across the guy's neck in place of her hand. "Unfortunately for you, the part of my family who could tell if you're being honest or not is no longer around because of other pieces of shit like you! So! You have one last chance to tell me why you're here!"

"Go to hell," the guy wheezes.

"I'm already there," Cindy heavily says as she applies all her weight onto his throat, tearing up as she holds her position, waiting for him to pass out.

The guy struggles for several minutes before the life fades from his movements.

Walking off the other side, she looks back to Gracelyn. "Do what you want with him. If he wakes up, we'll throw him in with the others. If not... oh well."

A couple months' worth of heartache and anger is taken out against the intruder's torso and thighs in a matter of minutes. Gracelyn eventually ceases her efforts when he doesn't stir, seeing it as a moot point in pounding on him if he's not going to suffer.

The red lighting that engulfs the room shuts off as Cindy cancels the silent alarm from her phone, returning the ambient light theme back to a violet hue that matches the time of night. As she stares out the window in front of her, Gracelyn's reflection catches her eye as the girl stomps over the guy's body to join her.

Gracelyn leans her forehead against Cindy's shoulder blade as the rest of her frustration comes out in tears. "I can't be myself anymore," she sobs.

Cindy fights back tears as she hangs her head in grief; her anger and adrenaline over the situation keeping her ability to talk intact. "He said he thought the place was haunted," she recalls.

"So?" Gracelyn replies looking up at her, making a half assed attempt to wipe her eyes so that her glasses don't fog over. "Probably is now since he didn't wake up."

"He's not dead, watch," says Cindy as she aggressively walks back to him, pulls him up by the shirt, and smacks him hard across the head, sending an echo throughout the main room, succeeding with reviving him. "See?"

His perception spins from the hit as he catches his breath.

"That opossum gag won't work on me," she scorns him before smacking him again in the opposite direction. "Enjoy your moment with God?"

"Fuck you! Let me go!"

"Uh, yeah no, that's not going to happen! Especially not with that attitude you little shithead! You're going to learn some manners first, and if you're lucky, I might call the police to come pick up what's left!"

"Really? Blackmail!? That's the best you got!?"

Cindy can't believe this guy's arrogance and punches him in the other eye! "It's not blackmail you idiot! You broke into my house! You're lucky I gave you the option to live!"

She attempts to get him to his feet, but his dizzy state results in him falling to his knees. The restraints that held him to the floor are magnetic and click together automatically when his wrists fall behind his back. She secures them with a pin as Gracelyn grabs a shock collar and hands it to her.

"Let's make one thing perfectly clear here," she says holding the collar to his face, "you are our bitch now and have been since the moment you stepped foot on my property! This reacts to sensors around the house, in the yard, and to loud noises!"

She gives it back to Gracelyn, steps on the back of his leg and pulls his hair back to make it convenient for her to apply the collar without hassle.

"You will go where we want you to go! Go somewhere you don't belong, Zap! Go within fifty feet of the perimeter of the property, Zap! Try to yell for help, Zap! If you even try to talk louder than I want you to, guess what... Zap! Are we clear?"

Gracelyn gets the collar fitted and helps Cindy get the guy on his feet.

Once he feels his hair being let go, he bolts for the front door. Cindy calmly lets him go and waits for the collar to take him out. The equivalent of a stun gun drops him like a log, and he twitches face down in his own spit.

"I guess not," Cindy says with a sigh, patiently walking towards the guy.

His seizure-like movements bring a smile to her face until the collar pauses to recharge.

"You know, I have about five seconds to pull you out of the shock zone before you get zapped all over again," she says reaching her arm out as if to grab him by the leg, but pulls it back and turns back to Gracelyn, "did I forget to mention that?"

Gracelyn grins a bit as well as the collar gets set off again, juicing the guy for another ten seconds.

"Oh darn. I thought I had ya there," Cindy teases.

The collar pauses again.

"Ok-ekgg!" he cries as the collar zaps him for the noise. "Get me out-!" being shocked again.

Cindy fakes grabbing his leg once again and asks Gracelyn, "Do you smell that?"

"Yeah, I do. It's like a mix of retard, liar, and pee!"

"That's what I thought too," Cindy says as she waits for the third wave of electricity to pause before pulling the guy from the shock zone.

All of his energy is spent and he can't stand on his feet even if he wanted to.

With her adrenaline still pumping, Cindy is able to pick the guy up by the neck of his shirt and drag him down to the garage level of the home as Gracelyn follows. Physically he doesn't have much of an advantage on her [Cindy] in terms of body mass - maybe a difference of fifteen pounds between the two of them, an advantage that allows her to easily launch the guy against a wall to be secured to.

"You two have company," she says to another guy and a girl who were caught together. Grabbing the guy's hair, she turns his face towards them and asks, "Look familiar?"

The two both shake their heads 'No'.

"Are you sure? Your stories about this place being haunted seem awfully suspect."

The other guy keeps a straight face, but Cindy catches the girl's facial expression which resembles a deer caught in headlights. Gracelyn catches it too but doesn't say anything.

"Well, the three of you can whisper sweet nothings to each other about how you all screwed up here," Cindy says before back handing the guy she just brought down across the face once more, knocking him to the ground.

The sound feedback is loud enough that it triggers a low-level shock from all three collars.

"Perhaps you two can explain to this drooling mess why it's not a good idea to try and run, because I promise you he will try when he realizes he's not actually secured to anything," Cindy says pulling the pin from the restraints, but keeping them secured to his wrists. "Rest up. We all have a big day ahead of us tomorrow!"

The two watch as Cindy disappears into the shadow towards the lit up doorway that leads back upstairs. They don't see Gracelyn due to the contrast of the darkness in the room, nor do they see the paintball gun she picked up when she walked in. However, they do hear it fire and are stunned by their collars when the new guy gets hit in the waist and screams.

"That's for passing out earlier," Gracelyn says before following Cindy out.

"You make me so proud at times," Cindy tells her with a smirk, pulling her into a one armed hug as the two ascend the stairs.

"I learned from the best."

Cindy kisses her on the head as they return to the main room. Handing off the paintball gun, Gracelyn pauses and taps the floor with her foot to summon a section of the couch to rise, and takes a seat with a heavy sigh.

Tapping the floor in the same manner, Cindy gets an ottoman section to rise and sets the gun down before continuing over to the window. She ponders her female prisoner's actions, the look she gave when confronted about having similar stories; it wasn't a look like she had been caught in a lie, but one that suggested that she couldn't believe what she was seeing and was frozen in fear.

"That girl wasn't looking at you was she?" she questions Gracelyn without facing her.

Lifting her head from her hands, "Huh? What, just now?" she replies, having been wrapped up in her own thoughts.

"Yeah, you saw her right? She was tracking something."

"I guess. Whatever it was, I bet that shock made her forget all about it."

Cindy faces Gracelyn. "Maybe, maybe not. I...can't...help but feel like her reaction and the haunted claims are somehow connected."

"Please don't," Gracelyn says leaning back in her seat with tears welling.

"What?"

"Don't try to give me hope. It died with them."

"Yeah, I know," Cindy says as she folds her arms and looks to the floor, "mine did too." She tries to fight back tears again, but is unsuccessful with it this time. "I can't help it if Christie made me a believer in spirits though."

Gracelyn looks up to the ceiling as her cheeks soak in tears.

"Hearing those fools down there go on about this place being haunted...might be rekindling my hope a little."

"What good would it do us now? Nothing's been the same since we found out. You and I haven't really connected with each other since either! You've become a totally different person!"

Cindy returns her sights to Gracelyn.

"The three of you were my family for eight months and you couldn't get enough of me when they were here!" Gracelyn gets to her feet as she confronts her roommate. "I thought for sure we'd be grieving together, but you shut me out! For two months you shut me out!" attempting to shove Cindy back as her frustration mounts. "And now you want to talk about hope?! What about us?!" shoving her again and swinging at her arm, "Where's my support, huh?!"

Gracelyn furiously swings at Cindy's arms a couple more times before Cindy catches both wrists to get her to stop.

"We were supposed to be in this together," Gracelyn cries, leaning her head into Cindy's chest, "that's what I was led to believe, that we were in this together."

As sudden as they came about, Cindy isn't mad about Gracelyn's actions towards her. Without Christie's guidance, the outburst is an eye-opener for her, allowing her to take in how much she's changed in such a short time. In a moment of understanding, she holds the little lady tight and sinks to the floor in tears. It's the first time since the funeral service that they've cried together.

"You're right," Cindy whispers into her lady's ear, "we are." After a sweet kiss on the head, "I'm sorry."

Knowing that's not good enough, she scoots a few feet over to the ottoman she summoned earlier and leans against it with Gracelyn on her lap, allowing her head to rest on her shoulder.

"I got used to Christie being my rock when I had my low moments. Sixteen years of her having my back, and just like that, she's gone." The recollection chokes Cindy up. "Throughout those years, she tried to prepare me for the idea of life without her, but I didn't want to listen because I always believed that no matter what, she was going to outlive us all. But...I was wrong."

Gracelyn continues to cry on her shoulder.

"Brian took her more seriously, but he believed she'd be around after us too. He thought that with her gift, she wouldn't have been as alone because she still could've acknowledged our spirits."

Gracelyn lifts her head, thinking she knows where Cindy is headed with her story.

"If he were here, he would've been waiting to hear from her somehow...like I am now," Cindy says, briefly pausing in thought, "well, I guess I'm waiting for either one of them, but with how Christie was with spirits, I think she'd be more likely to show up first."

"So you think the hauntings are them?"

"I think it's a possibility, yeah. Remember how she could see his deceased cat's spirit? It's not exactly an uncommon thing around here."

"A fair point I guess," Gracelyn says, staring blankly.

"You don't have to take this as an apology for how distant I've been, I just wanted you to see where the hope was coming from. It's faint, but it's there...for me."

"Yeah, I get it. Doesn't make things any easier though. Half our family is still gone. Even our trample thing feels out of place now, like it sounds stupid to say that it was what my hope was based on."

"It's not stupid. It brought us together."

A lone tear slides down Gracelyn's cheek, "Yeah, but it was stupid of me to think it would keep us that way after something like this," she says as she gets up from Cindy's lap. Her ankle is grabbed, preventing her from walking off. She looks back to see Cindy eyeing her foot. "I'm not in the mood," she says, trying to pull her leg free.

"You wouldn't have brought it up if you weren't in the mood," Cindy says as she holds onto Gracelyn's shoe.

With minimal effort, it slides off as Gracelyn takes a step forward, causing her to pause in place. "I wasn't in the mood to do anything with that guy just a bit ago, what makes you think I'd feel any different now?" she asks.

Discouraged by the tone, Cindy lets the shoe drop from her fingers. "I thought it could be a way for us to try and connect again...but, if you don't feel up to it..."

Gracelyn's shoulders drop with a sigh before she looks back. It's a call for help that is unique to them, and she knows it. Under their current circumstances of mourning and grieving, no one would consider trampling as a way to connect. This is taken into consideration as Gracelyn places her socked foot on Cindy's thigh.

"I'm still not in the mood right now," Gracelyn says as Cindy scoots out from the ottoman and lies face up on the floor, "but if it helps you feel better," stepping up onto her lady's stomach and pulling off her other shoe before setting the second foot down.

"I don't know if it will," Cindy says with side steps compressing her chest and abs, "never had it done for this reason."

"Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever trample someone for this reason either," Gracelyn says with her glasses in hand and wiping her eyes dry.

Cindy notices a subtle difference in Gracelyn's weight, as if she's put on a couple pounds from depression. She remembers Gracelyn's steps grazing across her body effortlessly before without much impact, but now, while her movements are still second nature, she feels closer to the memory of Christie's weight. It's nothing more than a light massage to her physically, but mentally it messes with her when she closes her eyes because it feels like Christie is walking on her again.

Gracelyn watches Cindy's facial expressions, and after a minute or so, she sees a tear pool and then streak down the side of her head. She steps onto her chest with one foot and wipes her face dry with the socked toes of the other.

Cindy looks up to see Gracelyn smirking kindly at her. Although both of them can speak, they don't. Instead they relay their feelings and concerns only through their eyes and some interaction with Gracelyn's foot. A cocked eyebrow here, a soft kiss on the toe there; an exchange that continues for several minutes before a sock is removed and a loving kiss is made on a bare sole.

It's the first time something other than standing on someone has sparked hope for Gracelyn. The sensation runs up her leg, fills her heart, and sizzles up the back of her head causing her to drop and straddle Cindy along with a hug.

"You ok?" Cindy asks.

Gracelyn nods 'Yes' with a tighter squeeze.

Cindy effortlessly props herself up with one arm and holds Gracelyn in the other. She gives her a soft kiss on the cheek, "I know you didn't want to, but thank you for that."

"Sorry it wasn't longer," Gracelyn replies, nuzzling her nose against Cindy's cheek.

"It was as long as it needed to be this time," Cindy whispers back.

Gracelyn kisses her back on the cheek before the two make eye contact again briefly, eyeing each other's lips next. Their body language does the talking once more so that both go in for a lip lock at an even pace, solidifying the notion that they want that to happen equally as much.

A few minutes later their lips part, but their foreheads remain leaning against one another. Gracelyn savors the taste momentarily, and as she does, Cindy can see a thought brewing based on her facial expression alone.

"I won't leave—" is all that escapes Gracelyn's lips before they are silenced by Cindy's finger.

"There is nothing more to say," Cindy says before kissing her again.

They share one more hug before getting back to their feet. On their way to their room, Cindy checks the garage's security feed from her phone to make sure her prisoners are still where she left them, and for the time being, they are. It doesn't cure the edginess she has from them being there, but the reliability of the shock collars was proven with the first two, so even with the new guy there now, she will still be able to rest and recharge.

With some of the emotional turmoil alleviated between them, sleep will come easier for Gracelyn as well.

The next morning, a greeting from Cindy over the intercom wakes her unwanted guests. They are made aware of paintball vests, helmets, loaded weaponry, and are told that they have ten minutes to suit up as the game starts when the garage doors open.

"Is she serious?" asks the girl.

"Looks like it," says the guy she came in with. "I'll play their little game. We can take the little gal hostage and get ourselves out of this."

"You gotta be kidding," says the new guy, reluctant to suit up.

"They gave us all gear, and it's just the two of them, so this should be a walk in the park."

"I've never used one of these though," says the girl.

"It'll be simple. Stay behind me and keep your finger off the trigger until we find the small chick."

"I'd be more concerned about the tall one. I can barely walk right at the moment because of her."

"Then you track her down if you're so concerned about her."

The new guy looks over the table with the gear, "They didn't give us any coms, so splitting up might not be the best idea."

"Then stay within eye-shot and shut up. Find the little one and go from there."

Cindy chimes in over the intercom again, "Five minutes, losers! Also, a word from the wise, the perimeter is marked by little flags, so be on the lookout for those or you'll be dropped!"

"Great," says the new guy unenthused.

As the three get their gear on, the guys are somewhat relieved that they were given cups to protect their genitals, and the girl finds it amusing when she notices the new guy now has boobs, not just her.

Her repressed snickering clues him in on the wardrobe malfunction. "Son of a b—", cut off by the shock collar for yelling and reducing him to a kneeling position temporarily. Slamming his fist to the ground, "Fine, we do it your way - get the little one."

They barely get their gear and their plan figured out before the garage doors open. The sunshine outside looks like freedom to them at first glance, but considering Cindy's warning, it's anything but.