Terry Barton
"W-well," I felt the tremor in my voice, unable to completely conceal my fear, but I pressed on in strained composure. "We were coming back from that party, and then the van came, and then..." I swallowed. "I don't know who they are or why they're doing this, but we need to get out of here." Then I noticed her attention was drawn towards the wound on the side of my head.
"It's fine. Really! This is nothing!" I smiled reassuringly, though with a mild wince as her fingers lightly traced the bump. Redirecting the conversation back to Belle, I trained worried eyes on her visage. "Are you okay? ...Wait, did you just say that you couldn't stand?!"
It was then that a system of speakers blared throughout the room. Well, not quite "blared", but it was sudden and the relative silence prior to it enhanced the perceived audibility of the sound. Either way, it was enough to unnerve me even further, bringing me off-kilter. The harsh, deep voice that emanated from those speakers, sarcasm dripping like blood-soaked honeysuckle in his supposed concern about our well-being, immediately ticked me off. The more he said, the more rage was built up in my frame. Just as I was about to explode, another voice did it for me. I hadn't noticed Ren getting up, having been so focused on Belle, but his entrance back into the waking world caused my confidence to surge. I silently applauded his outburst in my head, pretty sure our minds were in sync. The guy said almost exactly the same type of thing I was going to! As he crept close and inquired of me what to do, however, my mind hit blanks.
"I don't know, man..." I paused for a moment, deliberating on the subject before speaking in a hushed tone. "For now... I guess we find out what this guy wants, but we'll also see if we can find a way out in the meanwhile. We don't want to make him mad though: we don't know what he's capable of. I'd be careful about searching. Far as we know, he can speak to us. He can probably hear us too, but can he see us?" My hand curled around Belle's, squeezing gently as I spoke.