Authors Note: So I'm having a really hard time writing lately. Changed medications about a month ago and this seemed to have effected my ability to be verbally and literarily creative. I can't even compose a sentence aloud let alone put something on paper anymore :/ I am TRYING very hard to get passed this (or to get back on my old medications) so please bare with me. I love this story and don't want to abandon it :(

Chapter 7

When Allison awoke she was surprised and a little terrified to find that there was no one laying opposite her. She knew she wasn't in her own bed, but couldn't quite pull from her hazy memory exactly where she was or how she had ended up there. "Hello?" She whispered hoarsely and tried to push herself up onto her elbows only to cry out and collapse back into the mattress at the pain radiating down her back.

Now she remembered. "Remy!?" She pushed herself up again, this time biting down on her lip past the pain. She had been placed on the bed by the large black man after he had tattooed her; after she had been kidnapped and raped and dragged through the woods in nothing but her underwear. "Remy?!" She tried again, groaning as she now rolled onto her right hip so she could pull her legs up and try for a sitting position.

From her new vantage point she could see that she was alone in the vast bedroom. There were half a dozen other large beds down both her wall and the one opposite; each decked out in similar but different colored bedding. She wasn't sure if the color coding was indicative of anything, but made a mental note that she was currently bundled up in a blue comforter. "Hello?"

She pushed at the blankets and freed herself from them completely, sitting now at the edge of the bed and staring out across the vacant space. Her hair which was no longer tied back fell limply around her neck and over her shoulders and down her bare chest. With the blanket no longer covering her, she began to shiver in the cool temperature of the room. Whoever had given her shorts hadn't bothered giving her a top... then she remembered why!

Bolting upright, she instantly fell forward towards the bed dressed dark red bedding that had housed the unfamiliar woman from the night before. She had given her the shorts, hadn't she? Allison shook her head and tried to reorganize her thoughts but the searing pain in her feet from standing on her torn soles was making it hard to think about anything other than collapsing into a little ball and passing out. It didn't help that every movement she made above her waist caused the monstrous tattoo on her back to burn like it were on fire.

She needed to find a bathroom. If she was going to try and be rational, or practical about her situation then she had to deal with the small things first. And even though the fact she had just been kidnapped and tortured weighed most pressingly on her mind, her near bursting bladder was making other first steps hard to think of. Plus, if she found a bathroom, she could scrub herself more completely of her past days violation. It might have been too little too late but she would take whatever small comforts she could find. Water and soap wouldn't erase the memory of what happened, but it certainly would help her start to feel clean again.

*****

Remy groaned as she took a large gulp from a water bottle handed to her from Cory. After being woken up and fed a very meagre breakfast, she and the other girls minus Allison had been herded into a moderately sized gymnasium. Her mind immediately began calculating and looking for forms of escape, but they had all but been wiped out when she noticed the revolution of armed guards constantly circling outside the large room. Running wasn't an option.

At least not an option for escape. For all she had done or been allowed to do was run for the past hour and now that the group of girls had stopped their methodically circling around the indoor track, she began to allow her brain to think about things other than keeping her pulse and breathing steady. "I haven't run this much since college." She breathed heavily as she monitored her pulse in her neck. She didn't have a watch but counted the beats out of habit.

The small red headed girl named Jamie appeared next to her with a towel and she took it gratefully, wiping the sweat from her face and the back of her neck. "We do a lot of cardio..." She smiled a little shyly and took a few steps back so she was now sidled up against her lover and partner. "They don't trust us around the weights by ourselves so most of the time we're in here training."

Remy let the towel hang around her neck and down her shoulders and grabbed her water bottle from between her knees and took another large drink. "There's weights?" She wanted to add the question of why they didn't use them to fight off the guards when a commotion suddenly erupted from opposite them and across the large room.

Olga, the large woman she'd talked to the day before, was fighting an unfamiliar raven haired woman; both girls shouting and clawing at the other in an attempt to subdue them. Before she could ask what was going on, there was gunshots and everyone froze, including the two that had been scrapping. A half dozen men swarmed the fighters and were now dragging them towards the exit. To her surprise, they had both gone very quiet and cooperative; easily allowing the men to lead them out of the room.

"Margot's going to get it..." Jamie whispered and instinctively wrapped her arms around her lover's waist. Cory draped her own arm over the girls shoulders and ran her fingers through the unruly red hair that lay across her neck. "She's been pushing Olga all week..."

Remy watched the exchange in comfort and security between the two and suddenly longed for Allison to be there with her. Not that she wanted the girl to be captured and in this horrific position, but since she was and there didn't seem any rescue on the horizon yet, she found herself aching for her company and support. "Why were they fighting?" She pushed thoughts of Allison back and tried to focus on the event she had just witnessed.

*****

Allison pulled painfully at the now soaked through bandage on her back. She'd tried her hardest not to get it wet but the spray of the shower she'd scouted wasn't nearly as reliable as those back in the states. Grinding her teeth together she yanked at the edge of the tape and eventually managed to pull the gauze padding completely free only to toss it haphazardly to the floor outside the stall. The bandages on her feet were soaked through as well but since she didn't have any supplies to replace them she left the soggy material alone.

With her back completely free she scooped her hair into her hand and pulled the strands over her shoulder, turning around so she could try and see the mark on her back in the mirror opposite the shower. There wasn't much hot water in the system so the glass hadn't fogged up with condensation. As she turned and the large black outline of a tiger appeared she gasped and nearly stepped directly into the spray of the shower.

The head of the beast was bigger than her fist and started just below her left shoulder. It's back swung around against her spine while it's hind quarters and tail finished off just above her left hip. The thing was massive and intricate and beautiful. "Wow..." She breathed as she studied the design as best she could in the mirror. The man had called her a tiger the day before, she remembered as two and two suddenly became four. Wait, what had he called Remy then? Antelope? Gazelle? She gulped and realized that this wasn't just a distinguishing mark; that this was meant to be character defining. She was a tiger. A fighter. Shit...

Authors Note: Okay poo ending, with it not really being an ending but it's nearing 2am and if I don't post this now I don't know when I'll get to updating it. Thought a little bit of something might be better than nothing for the moment. I'm a little rejuvenated now, having written two pages... maybe I'll be able to work on more tomorrow. We shall see! Please be gentle guys!