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That evening as I tucked my pillow under my head, I glanced across the room at the vents on the floor. Had Sam been gassing me too? That, most definitely, was not in the plans. We’d never done that before, and if he was, why? Before I could follow that thought down the rabbit hole, sleep took me.
I woke sometime later to Dahlia shaking me awake.
"Drake?" she hissed. "Get up. Come on."
"Dahlia?" What was she doing in here?
"Yeah, come on. The others are in the hallway. The power is out again. We’ve only got a few minutes to talk. Quick."
She pulled and tugged at my arm in desperation. Still hazy from sleep, I almost tripped over my own feet as I followed her. I gave a quick glance toward my office, ensuring the seam of the door was still hidden. She wouldn’t know where it was hidden unless she knew to look for it. I followed her into the hall and found Bri and Payton waiting also. Bri still stared daggers at Dahlia, I wondered how it had gone waking her. The shock of finding another person here in her room had probably dulled any animosity at first.
"What the fuck do you want?" Bri asked. "He’s going to see us out here. I don’t want to get my ass shocked."
"I told you," Dahlia said. "The power is out. No cameras. Look at your device. It’s shut off too."
Bri pulled her baleful gaze from Dahlia for a moment to check her device. Sure enough the screen was dark. Bri’s brow furrowed, and she crossed her arms over her chest. "Talk," she grunted.
Despite the danger and the time constraint, Dahlia grinned for a moment, happy that we were listening.
"Okay, look. Drake and I found a bunker behind the mansion. It’s where I killed the guy I thought was Sam. While we were there, I found schematics and blueprints and stuff. There was a notebook that said the house powers down for thirty minutes each night. With the robes over your vents that keeps the gas from knocking you out, and we can—"
"Hang on," Payton said. "What do you mean about gas?"
Dahlia’s face tensed. "We really don’t have time, ugh. Sam gasses us. I don’t know if it’s every night or only certain times, but he puts us out. I put those big heavy robes on the vent that pumps it out. I think we try to make a run for it."
"But there are electric fences out there," Bri said. "We can’t climb those."
"Right, but the power will be off. The only hitch is we have to get up, get out of the house and sprint for the fence line. Then we need to climb over. We have to do all that in fifteen minutes."
"Oh my god," Payton moaned. "That fence is really far away."
"Right," Dahlia said. "That’s why we need to get the watches off. Once those are gone, Sam loses his ability to control us."
"Fuck me," Bri said, rolling her eyes. "No big deal, just take these off," she said, holding hers up. "These goddamned bands are like steel mesh or something. How the fuck do you plan on doing that."
She didn’t answer. Instead, Dahlia glanced behind her, almost as though she thought Sam would be walking up the hall to catch us. When she looked back, the fear in her eyes was like that of a wild animal caught in a trap.
"It’s been too long. We need to get back to our rooms. We can talk and gameplan more tomorrow," Dahlia said.
"We didn’t say we were going along with this," Bri said, but even I could see the intrigue on her face.
"Tomorrow," Dahlia hissed. "Talk more tomorrow. Hurry. Get back in bed."
Bri huffed a sigh, but both she and Payton hustled away, rushing back to their rooms. I grabbed Dahlia, pulling her close and kissing her. She fought for a moment, but then melted into my arms, sliding her tongue into my mouth. When I broke away from her, I didn’t even say goodbye. I ran back to my room and closed the door, leaning heavily on it and breathing deep panicked gasps. Dahlia had a plan. One that might actually work. A plan I’d never thought to counter. No one, and I mean no one was ever supposed to get into the bunker. We’d planned to instill enough fear and obedience into the dolls that they would never try to do more than we asked. It appeared that, again, Dahlia had surprised me.
Once I’d calmed myself, I decided I had to talk to Sam. We had to change the paradigm. Prevent this plan from working. If the dolls escaped, and god help us, found a way to remove the devices from their arms, things would go poorly.
I ran to my office door and tucked my hands under the hidden latch, lifting up to open the door. The latch clicked and the door swung inward. I stepped in and froze. The breath in my lungs oozed out, but it took several seconds before I could pull in more. My eyes widened in shocked surprise. Confusion and panic bucked inside my mind, spinning and crashing like a tornado.
My office was bare. Everything gone. Everything. My computer terminals, my laptop, the security feed monitors, the command and control station, all of it was gone. The only things that remained were some wires hanging, useless as a soft cock.
"Oh my god," I muttered and rushed to the cabinet on the far wall.
I pushed it aside to reveal a second hidden door. This one led to a small tunnel that took me to the bunkers. When I yanked on the handle to unlock the door, it didn’t budge. I grunted and pulled, shoving my weight against the handle. Nothing. I gaped at it in horror.
"Sam?" I said out loud, speaking to the empty room. Hoping he heard me. "Sam, god damn it, what are you doing?"
There was no answer. Leaving the door, I ran back into my room. My hands shook as I shoved the bed aside, my feet skidding on the rug. My movements were chaotic now, urged on by the terror that rose inside me, like water slowly boiling, rising up the pot, ready to overflow.
