The girl winced as she heard a crash coming from her bedroom.  It sounded like her dresser had just been tipped over.  She growled into her effective gag, resuming her struggles to escape the restrictive hogtie she had been taped into.

The men, two of them, dressed in all black and wearing ski masks, had appeared out of nowhere, grabbing her from behind as she came out of the kitchen.  She’d been too surprised to event try and prevent her mouth from being stuffed with a thick rag, before tape was slapped over her lips, and wrapped around her head repeatedly, assuring that she stayed quiet.  They definitely had their priorities straight, and that worried her.  

With her sufficiently silenced, the intruders had proceeded to wrap her wrists and ankles in more of the tape, before roughly shoving her to the floor and hogtying her.  “You stay put while we look around,” the shorter intruder had told her, giving her ass a playful spank through her pajamas.  They then proceeded to ransack her small apartment.

She’d been forced to watch as they tore her living room apart.  She knew exactly what they were looking for, and their wanton destruction was really getting to her.  It’s not like she’d stashed what they sought in her couch cushions like a drug dealer.  When they finished destroying her living room and separated, the stocky one going into her bedroom and the tall lanky one going into the kitchen, she got serious about her escape.

She’d dropped a glass of water in her initial capture, and they’d foolishly neglected to clean up the broken glass.  She wriggled her way over to the mess, her white tank top getting soaked by the spilled water and clinging to her straining chest.  Careful not to cut herself, she’d rolled over, blindly groping around behind her for a decent sized shard of broken glass.  She found a good piece, and quickly began sawing at the tape holding her wrists to her ankles.

She saw the shadow of the intruder in the kitchen making it’s way back into the living room, and she quickly palmed the shard of glass, silently cursing as she felt the sharp glass slit the soft flesh of her palm.  

“Where do think you’re going?” the tall one asked her as he saw her.  “Oh, shit,” he said, seeing the broken glass.  He grabbed her by her arms, hauling her bodily away from the spill.  “Rob, get in here,” he called to his partner.

“Don’t say my name,” Rob hissed, poking his head out of the bedroom.

“Shit, sorry.”

“Idiot.  Did you find anything?”

“No, I think she was trying to escape.”

Rob laughed, coming in and kneeling front of the bound girl.  “You weren’t going anywhere, were you Red?”

She glared at him over her strong gag.

“You sure we can’t make her tell us where it is?” Lanky asked, looking at his partner.

Rob shot him a look.  “Are you crazy?  The gag stays on, no matter what.”

Lanky shrugged.  “I mean, what if we have the wrong girl.  She teaches deaf kids for crying out loud.”

“The boss said her car was at the docks last week.  But that’s why we’re looking around.  Just to make sure.”

The girl had ben using this distraction to continuing sawing away at her bonds.  She no longer had the luxury of being careful, the glass cutting into her fingers as she gripped it awkwardly, making the shard slippery and even more precarious.

“Check the office,” Rob said, turning back towards the bedroom.

“You stay put,” the still unnamed robber told the girl.  He kneeled down in front of the bound girl.  She prayed that she’d cut enough, and kicked her legs against the tape holding her in a hogtie.  There was a brief moment of resistance before the tape snapped, and her legs shot out straight like an over-taught rubber band, knocking the burglars legs out from under him.  He fell with a crash to the floor, crying out in shock.

“What was that?” Rob shouted as he ran back into the room, in time to see the girl rolling up onto her knees and then hopping up onto her bound feet with surprising agility.

She tried to reach up to her gag with her hands still bound behind her, not coming anywhere close to reaching the tape muzzling her.  Rob made a mad dash, jumping over the back of the couch and across the coffee table.  If he’d taken the time to go around, he might have had her, but as he was leaping off the coffee table, he was unable to stop himself as she ducked, and he fell over her, smashing into the entertainment center, destroying the small flat screen TV she had there.

The girl had also been knocked over, but she used the position to her advantage, rolling onto her back and pulling her bound wrists under her butt.  She grabbed at the tape binding her ankles, pulling it free and then tucking first one leg and then the other under her bound wrists until her hands were in front of her, still taped together.

“Oh no you don’t,” the lanky burglar said as he grabbed her from behind in a bear hug, one hand grabbing her arms and the other slapping tightly over her gagged mouth.

He hauled her to her feet, where she promptly stamped her bare feet down onto his toes.  Even through his shoes, the blow was hard enough to make him loosen his grip.  She grabbed his arm and flipped him over her back.  He landed on the coffee table, cracking the cheap wooden furniture in half with his impact.

She reached up finally for her gag, her bloody fingers desperately seeking purchase along the edge of the tape.  Finally she was able to peel back an edge, and yanked the whole tape band down around her neck.  As she was trying to dislodge the cloth stuffed in her mouth, another hand was slapped across her lips, preventing her from expelling the gag.  She gave a muted scream of frustration, trying to shake the stocky man off of her back.  He was an inch or two shorter than her, but he had a good eighty pounds on her.  He clapped his other hand across her mouth, nullifying her attempts to pull his arm free of it’s viselike grip across her lips.

“Damn you’re strong girl,” he told the struggling girl.  “Pauly, give me a hand will ya?  Get the god damned tape.”

The tall one, evidently Pauly, still dazed in the middle of the broken coffee table, groaned and rolled off the table, crawling towards their discarded bag of supplies.

The girl tried stomping this one’s feet as well, wincing as her bare heel slammed down into the steel toe of his boot.  She felt something poking into her backside as he pulled her in close against his body.  She twisted in his grip, reaching as far behind her as she could, groping around at her captor.

“What are you— oh, well hello there,” he said as her roving hands found his cock.  The struggling, bound girl in his arms, her pale green bra clearly visible threw her wet, white tank top, had him at half mast as it was.  His manhood responded immediately to this new attention.

She felt his shaft through his jeans.  Her hands gripped the penis, feeling it swell in her hands.  Then she squeezed.  Hard.

“Oh Fuck!” He screamed, releasing her mouth and shoving her away out of pure instinct.

She fell towards the floor, throwing out her bound hands to catch herself.  As she fell, she saw Pauly reach the bag, and pull out a pistol.

She hit the ground hard, spraining her wrist, giving a muffled scream of pain into the rag still jammed into her mouth.  

“Stop or I’ll shoot,” Pauly cried, leveling the gun at her.  

Ignoring the pain, she reached up and plucked the stuffing out of her mouth.  “Stop!” she yelled, her voice hoarse.

Immediately the both froze.  Pauly looked at his gun, still held out and pointed at her, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger.

“Put the gun down,” she said.  As the intruder obeyed, she picked at the tape still binding her wrists with her teeth.  “Kick it over here,” she ordered, and again, he obeyed, the gun sliding across the floor to rest near the red head.

With an exasperated sigh, she gave up on the tape around her wrists, only succeeding so far in getting small pieces of chewed duct tape on her tongue.  She sat up, scooting back to lean against the wall where she could see both of her assailants.  “Now, tell me who sent you.”

“Joey Digeorgio,” they both said, in a very imperfect unison.

“Just you,” she pointed that the taller one.  “Pauly is it?”  He nodded.  “I only want to hear from you right now.  You’re going to answer all my questions honestly.”  She looked at the stocky one.  “And you, with the raging hard on, keep your fat mouth shut, or I will really break your dick off.”  The threat was unnecessary, but she still felt like saying it.  Rob promptly clamping his mouth shut.

“So Joey Digeorgio, the head of the Bristol mob sent you?” she asked.

“Yes, the boss gave us this address.”

“How’d he find out my car was at the docks last week?”

“He’s got cops in his pocket.  They pulled up surveillance footage; saw your car there.  They traced your plates.”

“Who are the cops on the take?”

“I don’t know,” Pauly answered, shrugging apologetically.

“How about you, do you know?” she asked Rob.

He shook his head, his lips still tightly shut.

She sat for a moment, thinking.  They both waited in silence, watching her.  “Alright, here’s what you’re going to tell your boss happened tonight,” she said finally.  “My name is Annabelle Carillon.  You two showed up tonight, tied me up and gagged me, but you couldn’t find what you were looking for.  Clearly, you made a mistake, and I’m not who you think I am.  It was just a coincidence that my car was at the docks that night.  You guys did your job, but clearly a mistake was made, so you’re letting me go, and now you two are going to take your stuff, and go out and get black out drunk, and you’re never going to bother me again.  Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Pauly said while Rob nodded emphatically.

“Good.  Now get the hell out of my apartment.”

They hurriedly stood, grabbing the gun and bag and a leftover roll of tape, as well as the rag they had used to gag her, and left out the front door.

Anna watched them go, finally leaning her head back against the wall with a sigh as the door closed behind them.  She looked around her trashed apartment.  The couch cushions were shredded, the coffee table broken, the entertainment center’s shelves were all broken and her TV lay on the floor, the screen sporting a spider web of cracks spreading outwards from the center, right next to the broken glass and puddle of water, along with a few scattered drops of her own blood across the hardwood floor.

She slowly rose to her feet.  Her body wasn’t in near as bad a shape as her living room, but it was close.  Her wrists were still taped together in front of her, and finally got around to finishing freeing herself, the skin around her wrists red and still sporting the sticky residue.  She touched her chin and cheeks, which she could feel were in even worse shape.  The tape gag still hung around her knock, and she began the painful process of removing pulling her short red hair free of the tape, the tiny cuts in her fingers screaming out in agony as she used them to peel apart the lengths of silver tape.

She made her way towards her bedroom, making a conscious effort not to look at the damage in her kitchen as she passed, mindful of the broken glass on the floor as she padded along in her bare feet.

Her bedroom looked even worse than the living room.  Her mattress had been flipped over, and it lay against the wall, her sheets spilled out beneath it.  Everything from under her bed, previously neatly organized, had been ripped open and strewn about the room.  Clothes, papers, and files were all over the place.  Her nightstand had all the drawers ripped out; their contents joined the mess of stuff on the floor.  Her dresser was tipped over, the drawers beside it, most smashed and broken.  Her closet had been ransacked, all of her clothes ripped off their hangers and thrown about.  

She kicked the stuff out of the way in front of the closet, kneeling on the floor.  She felt about on the floorboards at the front of the closet, and lifted the hatch hidden in the floor.  Inside was a small wooden trunk, locked with a combination lock.  She winced as her tortured fingers spun the dial back and forth with speed born of constant repetition.  With a soft click, the lock opened, and she opened the trunk.

She reached inside, pulling its contents out of the darkness.  She held up the lightweight top, a scarlet vest of kevlar, with jade sleeves made of lightweight zirconium scales.  She pulled out similar scaled leggings, and a crimson leather skirt.  strong, but lightweight red gloves and matching boots followed.  And the last two pieces, the most important ones.  A gold harlequin mask with jade and crimson accents, and a long red wig, matching her own hair color.

She’d poked the bear enough.  The two thugs that had shown up tonight had given her way too much trouble, not to mention destroying almost everything she owned.  Joey Digeorgio was persistent, and he wouldn’t be satisfied with his employee’s story about getting the wrong girl.  Telling the mob boss’s underlings to turn themselves in to the cops wasn't getting the job done, and was apparently only drawing attention to herself.  

It was time for Siren to finish this.