I wake up in a cold sweat. Racing heart. Aching limbs.
One of my sleeves has been ripped clean off and you can clearly see my bra.

The pigtail girl is sat over me with a box of band-aids and some antiseptic wipes. She takes one of the wipes and removes the wrapper.

"You passed out because you kept running into that wall," she explains, dabbing the wipe onto a small cut on my shoulder, "they're saying you can't be trusted. They're moving you somewhere more secure once I've patched you up."

"Wh-Where's Karen?" I try to sit up, but Pigtails pushes me back to the floor.

"Please don't move. You may worsen your injuries," she scolds, "Your girlfriend is just having some lunch, that's all."

I hiss in pain as she cleans up some crusty blood from my temple with a wipe.

"Have I seen you somewhere before?" She asks, "you look familiar."

"I was thinking the same thing. You look taller though."

Pigtails hums in thought as she carefully places a band-aid onto my temple. She smoothes it out with her gentle fingers.

"Any chance I could join Karen? I'm so hungry." My stomach growls on cue.

"I'll have to ask Gregory. I'm not supposed to even be taking to you right now."

She picks up all of her trash from the floor and drops it into the band-aid box. Slowly, she gets to her feet and starts heading for the door.
All of her movements are slow and sort of graceful.

"Wait a second," I call out. She stops in her tracks and looks over her shoulder at me, "What's your name again?"

"Porsche," she replies with a smile, "it's my dad's favourite car."

Somehow even that sounds familiar.

Porsche gives me a tiny wave before letting herself out of the room. Unfortunately, she locks the door behind her. 

"I'll be just a few minutes. Gregory doesn't usually say no to me." She whispers through a new hole in the wall.

The previous hole, the one I was trying to break, has been messily boarded up. I can still see through to the other side, but there's no way I'm shoulder-barging into solid wood.

Cautiously, I sit up, wincing in pain, and look around for anything I can use to escape. I'm desperate at this point to find Karen and get the hell out of here.

Once I'm onto my knees, I grip the mattress as I try to lift myself to my feet.

"Gregory said you can go if you promise to behave yourself," Porsche's singsong voice takes me by surprise. She really was quick, "I'll escort you over there since you're injured."

The door unlocks and swings open. Porsche practically skips into the room, followed by Firkle and the fat girl who brought us here.
The two of them glare at me as Porsche beckons for me to follow her out of the building.

Outside, it's getting dark and the group have lit a giant bonfire to keep everything bright and warm. They're all gathered around it on long logs, quietly warming themselves up.

I spot Karen immediately.

"Babe!"

She looks up from her card game.
The other two players ignore me.

"Trish?" She asks, confused, "they've released you?"

"Not exactly." I shift my weight from one foot to the other.

Karen pats the empty space next to her, then takes one of her cards and places it on the pile in front of her.

"Shit!" One of the other players whispers. He picks up the whole pile, "you're good at this."

Karen gives a causal shrug and tries to hide a smile she gets when she's winning.

"Beginner's luck, I guess."

I take a quick peek at her cards and try to keep a straight face when I see she's got a royal flush.
I'm not sure what game they're playing, but she'll probably win with a hand like this.
In front of her and the rest of the players are three face up cards (Karen has a two, five and a nine) and three face down cards.

A few turns go around until the pile in the middle is quite high. On the top of the pile is a king.

One of the other players is the girl who tackled me earlier today. Her hands are shaking so much she can barely hold her own cards, and almost drops the one she's about to place.

"S-seven. You must p-place something lower than s-seven, unless you have one of th-the power cards." She stutters.

Karen hums in thought and her hand hovers over the ten. Her two opponents grin at each other, thinking they've won.

"Remind me what the power cards are?" She looks to the other player.

He rolls his eyes.

"Two, four, seven and ten," he lazily reminds her, "do I have to remind you what they do?"

"No thanks, Bradley."

A faint smile tugs at the corners of her lips as she places down the ten.

"Ten kills the deck, correct?" Karen asks, feigning innocence.

Reluctantly, Bradley picks up the deck and drops it onto the ground next to him. He places three sixes in front of him.

"Anyone hungry?"

A tall boy with a big nose and black hair carries a huge, bubbling, cauldron sized pot over and carefully places it beside the bonfire. He takes a spoon from behind his ear and starts stirring.

"Who's that?" Karen asks.

"H-he's never told us his n-name, but we c-cal him Gordon. A-after Gordon Ramsey, of c-course." Rebecca answers, her cards fluttering in her shaking hands.

"Gordon does the best Various Meat Stew. C'mon, let's go get some!" Bradley drops his cards and heads towards the pot.

By now, Gordon is serving bowls of his Various Meat Stew to everyone. He flashes me a quick smile and dips the ladle into the pot.

"Haven't seen you 'round here before. Where you from?" He asks.

"South Park." I reply.

"Ooh. I used to go to school there. Sixth grade," he hands me the bowl and flashes another smile, "enjoy."

I cup my hands around the warm bowl and sit beside Karen, who's clearing up the card game.

Since there aren't any spoons, I take a sip of the stew. It's extremely hot so I should probably let it cool, but it's tasty nonetheless.

"This is good," I say to Karen, "you should try some."

"I'm not hungry."

"You only had half of an apple this morning." I point out.

With a sigh, Karen opens her mouth. I put the bowl to her mouth and tip it slowly, but I accidentally spill it down her chin.

"Trish!" She gasps, attempting to wipe it off with her hands, "that was hot."

"I didn't mean to spill it," I cover my hand with my sleeve and dab at her jaw, "just like I didn't mean to fall in love with you."

"That kind of makes it sound like a bad thing." She giggles.

"It's not," I smile. I move my hand away and kiss her, "nothing can ever be bad when I'm with you."