I got off of Cornelia and then knocked on the cage to the front of the car. “Hey! Where you taking us?”

One of the girl’s glanced back, and then hit her friend. “You idiot! You forgot to bind his hands!”

“Wh-what? I did bind his hands!”

“Then, how is he knocking!”

“Let’s not get caught up on who bound whose hands to what.” I sighed. “If you meant me harm, you wouldn’t have gone to this effort to capture me, so tell me who the heck I’m going to see.”

The girl who looked back the first time snorted. “You’ll find out when we get there.”

I sighed and sat back. There actually wasn’t some crazy trick to getting out of their rope. As I had mentioned, they were amateurs. The girl had tied my hands behind my back, but the knot she made immediately loosened. I was able to rip my hands out almost as soon as I was shoved in the car. It wasn’t as impressive as saying I used some kind of magic or trickery of hand, so I kept my mouth silent on the subject.

Cornelia, who was still tied up, only stared at me. It took me longer than I’d like to admit before I realized she expected me to untie her as well. Actually, I kind of liked her being tied up, and it wasn’t like she could do anything I couldn’t while locked in the back of the car. The child safety was on so I couldn’t open the back doors. Of course, if I really wanted to, there were many ways to escape, but I was very interested in just who was kidnapping me. I already had a few theories.

Cornelia clearly wasn’t as excited about it as I was. I had been tied up, kidnapped, imprisoned, and enslaved more times than I cared to count. For Cornelia, or really any normal woman, one time was too many. Rather than thinking about the implications of who was kidnapping us and why, her face was filled with fear and worry. However, I also felt if I tried to comfort her any more, it’d only upset her. Once I finished undoing her binding, I stayed my hand and focused instead on trying to get something out of our escorts.

Turning back to the one who had to spoken, I gave her a flirtatious grin. “Have you ever considered having a man?”

She looked back, her expression slightly hesitant. “Wh-what are you saying?”

Seeing that she was taking the hook, I leaned a bit closer. “Men can give you all kinds of pleasures. Of course, in the end, you’ll also have a baby.”

I saw Cornelia rolling her eyes, but I ignored her and focused on the woman instead, trying to give an intense look that tended to make women blush. It was lost a little with the barrier between us. Furthermore, I couldn’t even see the girl. She still had her face covered with a wrap and sunglasses. She could be extremely ugly, but that wouldn’t be enough to cause me to flinch. In this world, the standard of beauty was skewed, and even an ugly woman by this world’s standard would be average from my previous world.

“Really? A b-baby?”

“You can always take me where we’re going after. Surely you can spare fifteen minutes?” I winked at her.

“Fifteen?” She looked at me wide-eyed, and then a smirk appeared on her face. “But my girlfriend here last thirty!”

“Hehe… you should give up. My beau loves pussy, don’t you.” The woman driving stroked the other girl’s cheek, her thumb entering the girl’s mouth.

The girl who was speaking sucked on her partner’s thumb while nodding excitedly. When she pulled her hand away, she put it in her girlfriend’s lap. The one I had been speaking to turned away without giving me another mind, stroking her partner’s hand instead. Whether she moved her hand any farther than the lap, I couldn’t see from the back of the car. I fell back into my seat, making an ugly face. It was then I noticed that Cornelia was shaking where she sat.

“What is it?” I demanded.

“N-nothing.” Her voice sounded tight, and she had a hand in front of her face.

Her eyes looked a bit too serious and focused for me to believe that she wasn’t laughing at me. That only put me into a worse situation. My moves almost always worked. What were the chances I ended up getting picked up by a couple of lipstick bitches?

I took a breath. That wasn’t fair to them. They were lesbians, but there was no saying that they were the kind of lesbians who despised men. Just because one of them led me on and then flaunted it in my face didn’t mean I needed to resort to name-calling. That was the kind of thing a lot of other men would do, and I didn’t want to be that kind of guy. Instead, I calmed myself by looking at Cornelia.

“W-what?” She grew surprisingly flustered after noticing me watching her.

“I’ve just… never seen you genuinely laugh before. I bet you have a pretty smile.”

The expression on her face turned stony and she dropped her hand, revealing nothing even close to a smile. “If you think you can flirt with me because you failed with her, think again.”

I chuckled dryly. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I remember that you don’t have even the remotest sex drive.”

She didn’t respond but instead looked away from me dismissively. At the very least, she was no longer shaking in fear, so I had accomplished more or less what I set out to do. I just wished I had accomplished it in a way that didn’t make me seem so foolish. Shrugging my shoulders, I laid back my head and closed my eyes. They had actually made no attempt to hide the direction we were going, but since I was always driven everywhere, there was no way I’d be able to keep track anyway. I didn’t know my way around Amaryllis at all. It was just one more reason why I was sure they were complete amateurs at this, and that I wasn’t in real danger.

The car finally came to a stop about thirty minutes later. Whether we were thirty minutes away, or if the girls intentionally drove in circles to confuse us, I had no clue. It appeared like we were in a warehouse area. Watching as the girls got out of the car, I suddenly had a flash of familiarity. This was all too similar to an event I had experienced many years before. However, there was no way that the two could be related, right?

When they opened the doors, the pair of us walked out. I noticed that there were three other cars parked in the same lot, with about a half dozen other women. Some of them I thought I recognized from when they broke into our building.

“You took off their restraints?” One of them chastised the one who had been driving.

“They took them off themselves!” She tried to defend.

“You idiots, do you want them to escape?” Another snapped at her.

“Um… we’re not escaping,” I interrupted, holding up my hands.

All of the women present turned to me, with various looks of disgust or anger. It was clear I wasn’t welcomed into the conversation, but I didn’t care at that point. They had gone to great lengths to get a hold of me, now they needed to deal with me.

“Who are all of you?” Cornelia walked up to me and demanded.

I reached over and pinched her. She let out a yelp and glared at me, but I put a finger up to my mouth. Her words were not well received. She had put up the hackles of everyone there. If you were going into a group of people who just kidnapped you, it wasn’t a bright idea to start demanding information. I thought that would be obvious, but now that Cornelia had picked up on their amateurish nature, she had stopped being scared. Now that she wasn’t scared, she was being a bit cocky. I wasn’t sure which I preferred, so I decided to speak before she could ruin anything.

“Look, you brought us here because you wanted me for something. I could have escaped, I didn’t. I could have made things difficult for all of you. I didn’t do that either. So, rather than wasting time tying me up or knocking me out, just tell me what you want or bring me to whatever leader can tell me what you want, okay?”

The girls all looked at each other, but eventually, they gave nods to the girl who had been driving. Her girlfriend kissed her on the lips and then walked to the side. She gave me a slight grin. Now that I saw her in the light, she was kind of pretty. It was a shame. I didn’t let her goading smile break my attention, and I focused on her girlfriend instead.

The woman who had been driving gestured and the pair of us could only follow. The other girls moved in behind us, basically cutting off our escape route. Just because they were complying with my words didn’t mean they weren’t still worried we might try to run. We entered into a factory building, and the vibes I had come back in waves.

“You girls wouldn’t be the Primrose, would you?”

The Primrose was the name of a gang of teenagers. Most of these women looked a bit older. Those had all been eighteen and younger, where some of these women looked as old as twenty. However, had the Primrose members grown up, they would have reminded me of these girls right in front of me. As soon as I said the word, the woman in front of me stiffened. She was familiar with the Primrose. Cornelia, on the other hand, looked confused. I guessed that all of her reports didn’t include details of that little debacle.

I was going to push things to see if I could get an answer from her, but just as I was about to say something, another woman approached her.

“She’s ready to see him.”

The first one nodded and looked back at me. “Come, here.”

She reached out and grabbed me this time, and even though I wasn’t tied up, she shoved me into an adjoining room like I was. The room I was shoved into appeared to be some meeting room or the factory. It was more nicely decorated than most of the factory. I hadn’t taken more than a half dozen steps into the room when I saw who they were taking me to. I froze in my place, and the woman who was leading me yanked to get my feet moving again.

A woman was standing there. She wore a mask, framed by dark brown hair. She had a billowy outfit that obscured the features of her body. The second I saw her, I recognized her immediately.

“Hello, Clyburn.” She greeted me like she was familiar with me.

I supposed, in a way, she was. The problem was that she shouldn’t possibly exist.

“Hello, Faeri.”

“Faeri?” Cornelia narrowed her brow. “You know this woman?”

“Oh, we go way back,” Faeri said in an eerily familiar voice that was gravelly and distorted.

“Do we?” I asked. “The last Faeri I met was my sister. To the best of my knowledge, she’s in prison.”

“I’m Faeri… and I’ve always been Faeri,” she responded.

“I’m confused, Faeri is your sister?” Cornelia demanded.

“Faeri is a title… but you’re not Primrose anymore, are you?”

“Primrose was a bit too small for the likes of me.” Faeri shrugged. “I had to evolve. We’re now the Alyssum.”

“Are you Hannah, or was the one I saw go to prison Hannah? I felt something was off about her and her cruel words. Did you use some kind of illusions and sent a girl in your place?”

“I’m Faeri!” She snapped. “That’s all you need to know.”

“I suppose, the police would have a way of checking for illusions and tricks. If you did use a fake Hannah, they should have been able to figure it out.”

“Enough!” She shouted, and to my surprise, two larger women grabbed me from behind.

They kicked my knees out, bringing me down hard. With a hand on each shoulder, I was left in a kneeling position. Cornelia was also dragged to her knees. She looked worried but seemed content letting me do the talking. They were trying to put on a show, but wasn’t that exactly like Hannah? That was if this was the real Hannah. She did like to play these games with me. No matter what she did though, I didn’t feel threatened. This seemed to annoy Faeri the most.

“If I could see your body through those robes, I’d recognize if you were my sister in an instant. Hell, just a look at your pussy would be enough.”

She unconsciously readjusted her outfit, a frown possibly forming behind her mask. “The playing we used to do back then is not something we’ll be repeating! You better accept that!”

“Aren’t I your captive?” I asked innocently. “It’s not like I’ll be able to push you down from here.”

She snorted, “Maybe… but knowing you, I’d get pregnant just from being in the same room with you.”

The other girls around her acted like what she said was true. One of the two women holding me down softened her grip, and a few women even took a step back. I almost wanted to laugh.

“I could still make you pregnant. There is time.” Those words were more for Hannah than Faeri, but a part of my mind believed that they must have been the same person.

Faeri hesitated for a second as if she was considering my offer. However, she noticed the other girls acting sheepish after talk of pregnancy and she shot them all a glare.

“He won’t be able to get you pregnant unless he fucks you! Dumbasses!”

The girls seemed to be fine with her beratement, even taking breaths of relief and looking calmer after her words. I understood that the driver was a lesbian, so she may not be into me getting her pregnant, but I was surprised at how many of these girls didn’t seem excited by it. Even back in the days it was called the Primrose and was made up with several lipstick lesbians, the overwhelming majority was still filled with the desire to become pregnant.  

“Enough of this crap! Why did you take us?” Cornelia spoke up, seemingly emboldened by the way I was talking to her.

Faeri glanced over at Cornelia, and a small smirk touched her lips. “Anne Cornelia Martin, they used to call you the Shy Queen in Amaryllis, didn’t they?”

I made a noise of surprise. I had heard her called Anne many times, but I didn’t realize that she was named Anne and her middle name was Cornelia. I also didn’t realize that she was the fifth virgin beauty of Amaryllis Academy. Well, she had told me that she wasn’t a virgin anymore, so she didn’t have the qualifications to be called the Shy Queen anymore.

Cornelia had an ugly expression on her face. She didn’t like Faeri outing her name or her status at Amaryllis. I could tell that immediately.

“What of it?” She snapped.

“Nothing…” Faeri responded with an almost nonchalant voice. “I just wanted to offer you condolences after having your womanhood taken from you.”

“You fucking bitch!”

I cried out in surprise as Cornelia suddenly lunged at Faeri. I was completely shocked since her rise to anger was so sudden and brutal. It even caught Faeri off guard. She stumbled back as Cornelia grabbed for her. Three women grabbed Cornelia and then shoved her down. Soon, she was lying prone on the ground with her face pressed against the floor, and her hands held behind her back.

Faeri brushed some hair away from her mask as she stood back up, looking just a bit flustered. “It looks like you have some fire in you. You better watch it, or you might find yourself dead.”

“One of us has killed before,” she screeched angrily. “And it sure as hell wasn’t you!”

Once again, Faeri seemed taken aback. However, as Cornelia screamed and bit, she gestured and someone shoved something in Cornelia’s mouth, silencing her. She still struggled in their grip. It was like she was a woman possessed. The girls looked up at Faeri helplessly as Cornelia grew more and more frantic.

I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I moved forward. The girls who had been holding my shoulders had been too busy watching Cornelia’s display and hadn’t been holding me down. Thus, I moved out of their grip with ease. I went to my knees right next to Cornelia’s writhing body, and then I put my hand gently on her back. She jerked as soon as I touched her, spinning and glaring at me. Through her gag, she wore a vicious and hateful look, and her eyes were narrowed to a deadly degree like she was going to burn the world.

“It’s okay. I’m here,” I said simply.

The expression on her face instantly calmed. I could see her icy demeanor returning. She looked away from me and then slumped down onto the ground, no longer resisting being held. I kept my hand on her back for another minute as I felt the two girls who had accidentally let me go put their hands on my shoulders. They were too afraid to yank me away, so they just waited, hovering over me as I comforted Cornelia. When she seemed like she wasn’t going to move again, almost looking like she was unconscious, I looked up at Faeri, my expression slightly less friendly now.

I didn’t know what Faeri knew about Cornelia. I just knew that what she said had hurt the other woman. Even if Faeri was Hannah, I would have spanked her bottom until it was pink for this. She tended to go too far and said things that bordered on cruel. I was an example of that when I tried to save her from the police and she gave me a few of her choice words. Either way, I was no longer in a mood to humor her.

“What the hell do you want, Faeri?” I demanded. “Why did you kidnap me? What do you want to talk about?”

Faeri finally managed to regain her composure. She turned to me and gave an innocent smile.

“Who said I wanted to talk about anything? We have plans, and you’ve been getting in the way of them. I didn’t kidnap you to get your help. Quite the opposite. I need to remove you from the equation.”

“So, what, you’re going to lock me in a cell like last time? Keep me from upsetting your plans?”

“Uh… yeah… that’s the idea,” she responded irritably.

“I’m not a dumb thirteen-year-old kid anymore,” I said. “Do you think you’ll be able to contain me?”

“Fortunately, I don’t have to.” She gestured to Cornelia.

The women picked her up, and then I saw a flash of silver as one of them put a knife to her neck. I narrowed my eyes.

“You want to be careful who you threaten,” I said in a low voice.

“As long as you act properly, she won’t be hurt. However, if you act up, or try to escape, it won’t be you who is punished, it’ll be her!” Faeri declared.

I considered making my move then, but I was on my knees being held down, and Cornelia had a knife to her throat and was being dragged away. Even if I could escape this situation, there would be collateral damage. My biggest weakness though was that I still didn’t know what they were trying to accomplish. Were they the ones killing men? If so, why try to capture me instead of killing me? I just didn’t have enough information to act at that moment.

“Take him away.” She waved her hand.

The two large women picked me up. They made sure to have a hold of my arms so that I couldn’t pull out some kind of magic rune. Of course, they’d never expect I could build them in my head with just a little bit of thought. They didn’t take me the direction they took Cornelia, so if I made a move, I wouldn’t be able to guarantee her safety. It looked like I was caught for the moment. As they started taking me out of the room, I stopped at the door and looked back at Faeri one last time.

“Just tell me one thing. What do you stand for? What is this all about?”

Faeri cocked her head, and then put on a smug smile. “Why… the only thing that it could be about. We’re going to bring down the government!”