The Adventures of Elise and Victoria Stone (Part 2)
By atfirstdawn

*Mature content warning
© Keira Morrison/ atfirstdawn & DarklordMenchi 2013



“Holy crap, this place is really high end! We could ransack anyone on any floor and we’d be well to do,” exclaimed Victoria as she and her sister pulled up in their Lamborghini Veneno outside of a building of apartments owned by the rich and the almost famous of the city.

“Yeah but Elizabeth Andrews is the only resident we know of with no strings to the outside world and a job that won’t miss her if she doesn’t show for a day or two,” replied Elise in a focused tone.

“Man, if I could afford to live in a place like this I’d be very lax on the whole minimum wage office drone thing.”

“Yeah, but you’re lax on the whole employment thing in general… come on, lets ‘sack the place before she gets back.”

Turning away from her sister, Elise went to open the car door before she was interrupted.

“Hey, wait!” Victoria blurted in a worried tone.
 
“What?” asked Elise as she slumped back into the driver’s seat while expecting her sister to talk at length about something unimportant.

“Look at this place! Everyone living in there must be loaded - surely they’ll have security systems and CCTV cameras everywhere. ”
 
“Hmmm… maybe.”

“So what are we doing? We’re here in a stolen sports car, we’re wearing the most obvious we-are-here-to-rob-you latex cat burglar outfits and we’ll be carrying empty travel bags on the way in that’ll all be packed to bursting on the way out. Is this really a good idea?”
 
Elise was silent for a moment. “Well, I guess all of that makes this a lot more fun.”

“You can’t be serious - we’ll get caught for sure this time!”

“Ugh, you sound like dad, Victoria.”
 
“And you sound like mom! Do I have to remind you which one of our parents is in jail for doing what we’re about to do?”

“Mom made some dumb decisions is all, she was dating a cop, it was only a matter of time before she got burned. What we’re about to do is in no way the same in relation to why she got caught and sent down.”

“No, it’s worse! We may as well write our names on the wall.” Victoria’s concern for their safety was now turning to aggravation towards her sister’s stonewalling.

“You’re basing us getting caught on the fact that there is a security system in there with cameras and a direct line to an emergency response unit… I really don’t think they have one,” replied Elise in as blunt a tone as she could muster.

“The people living in there are damn millionaires or close to it, why wouldn’t they have a security system to protect all they’re worth?”

“Elizabeth Andrews works a day job, minimum wage, 9-5 every weekday. Yet she lives in a place like this, how? Inheritance from a dead relative? She has lived here for years, it wouldn’t stretch that far and a day job wouldn’t cut it. A lottery win? No records of that and you know I can find anything out about anyone… we aren’t running a risk here because there’s something not right about Miss Andrews.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“It’s a feeling, a too-neat paper trail, no convictions, fines, absolutely nothing and her finances don’t match up. I look at her details and only see half a story. I don’t know what the true story is but if we go up there and find it then we can take some of the heat off of us and expose her for whatever she is doing to wrangle this lifestyle. Whatever she is doing, this place is the perfect place for it, private lifestyles of the rich and almost famous are dark and seedy ones; they wouldn’t want anything like a security system watching their comings and goings. I’m guessing no one living in that building is innocent in terms of finances.”

Victoria sat staring at her sister with an eyebrow raised in amazement and confusion. “Wow Kojak, I think you missed a calling in life…”
 
Elise turned to her sister “Shut up and come on.”

The foyer of the high end apartment building was empty as Elise and Victoria pushed open the double glass doors and scanned the corners of the ceiling for CCTV cameras. Moving through the foyer, Elise called the elevator and turned back to her sister as they waited.

“Notice anything?”

“You’re still playing detective?”

Elise raised an eyebrow. “No cameras, no intercom and no clerk to welcome guests…”

“…anyone can come and go. Hmm… intriguing.”

Elise nodded silently at her sister, her mind full of questions and theories about Elizabeth Andrews and the other residents of the building. She couldn’t be sure if there was danger ahead or gold and glory. She hoped for the last two.

The elevator arrived and Victoria nudged her sister’s arm to snap her out of her train of thought. Together they stepped into the elevator and then into Elizabeth Andrews’ apartment…

“Ugh! Aww man, gag me with a spoon! This place is horrible!” exclaimed Elise as she stepped into Elizabeth Andrews’ lounge.

Elizabeth Andrews owned the whole thirty-fourth floor of the high rise apartment building with a view that looked out over the ocean. The rooms within Elizabeth’s apartment weren’t separated by walls or doors but by furniture and revolving boards which may as well have been actual doors. The layout was rather odd, both Elise and Victoria had never seen anything like it, but that wasn’t what had gotten under Elise’s skin.

Every room - its wallpaper, furniture, carpets, curtains, crockery and miscellaneous decorations - sported very busy floral designs. Dark reds, blues and purples adorned every inch of the apartment, highly detailed with very little space for breaks in the monotony. The curved, sloped and curled dark stems with fully bloomed flowers covering every inch of every room seemingly existed solely to threaten Elise with a migraine and piss her off.

“The shit in this place better be worth something. Come on, let’s ‘sack the place before she comes home. I’m so going to enjoy tying this bitch up,” spat Elise as she dropped her travel bag of bondage gear to the floor and moved further into the lounge with two more empty travel bags over her shoulders.

“Why so pissy?” asked Victoria with a knowing smirk. She knew her sister hated flowers.

“Because anyone with taste in décor this bad deserves to be tied up!”

Victoria smiled at her sister’s reasoning and stepped through the lounge towards the kitchen of Elizabeth’s apartment. Once there she set down her own empty and open travel bags and knelt down in front of the first cupboard she found and opened it up, revealing expensive china with yet more floral designs. She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow in mock amazement at thought of how long it would have taken Elizabeth Andrews to get everything in her apartment to match. Still smiling over what her sister had said, Victoria began to pull the floral china from the cupboard and stack it carefully and deftly into one of her own travel bags that she had laid open beside her.

In the lounge Elise was still stood in the middle of the room, looking around and wondering where to begin. The floral theme was really bugging her and she didn’t want to steal any of it at all because she couldn’t stand the thought of carrying it around with her even if it’d bring in the money. For once Elise’s financial greed was replaced with the urge for instant gratification and destruction. She stood a few minutes more and entertained the thought of simply trashing the room until she heard her sister call out from the kitchen.

“Oh, Elise, remember I get to gag this one, you gagged the last three, you know it’s my favourite part.”

Elise rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She called back and listened for a thank you that never came.

Moving from the lounge, Elise wandered through Elizabeth’s apartment and into her bedroom. The floral theme was just as prominent in the bedroom as it was everywhere else, Elise had been in the apartment no longer than four minutes and already she wanted to blow her own head off. Elise’s first port of call in the bedroom was the chest of drawers at the far end of the room. Within each and every drawer were rings, necklaces, satchels of diamonds and other miscellaneous jewel encrusted items like tiaras. Everything from the drawers went into one of three travel bags over Elise’s shoulder and soon all five drawers were empty.

“Okay rich bitch, what else you got?” said Elise to herself as she moved through the room and crouched down beside the bedside cabinet.

Elise opened the first drawer of the bedside cabinet and laughed out loud. The drawer was fit to bursting with bondage gear; Elise pulled out handcuffs and gags of all designs from bit gags to ball gags, harness gags and dental gags, silk scarves of all colours, nipple clamps, hoods and a lot of thin plastic rope.

“Kinky bitch… ” she said to herself with a smile.

The next four drawers were full of locked diaries, revealing lingerie and a couple of first-aid kits. Elise frowned at the first-aid kits; they were heavy duty, filled with much more than just bandages and antiseptic creams. Needles and thread to sew up wounds and a lot of other medical equipment that Elise had only seen in movies were all present. Elise felt a growing sense of worry creep into the back of her mind, she knew that Elizabeth’s private life wasn’t on the level but Elise’s mind was now jumping to wild conclusions that were making sense…
 
With a deep breath Elise stood from the bedside cabinet, set the travel bags down on the floor and indulged the wild accusations that were screaming Elizabeth Andrews’ name in her head. Trying not to think about her actions, Elise went over to Elizabeth Andrews’ bed and pushed it a few feet across the room to reveal a door beneath it which had been built into the floor.

Elise’s heart punched her chest and called forth a cold sweat, she knew she needed to grab her sister and get out of Elizabeth’s apartment but, against her better judgement, Elise kept silent and pulled open the unlocked door in the floor…

“Oh god no…”
 
Elise was suddenly staring at a young ginger woman staring up at her through the wire mesh covering of her hidden prison. Her limbs were tightly bound within her cruel and cramped confinement; red ropes tied her ankles, her shins and her thighs both below and above her knees. Her wrists were bound to her waist and connected to a tight fitting crotch-rope that she was all too aware of, and her forearms were bound to a coil of rope circling her stomach which playfully restricted her breathing. Her upper arms were bound with a length of rope which encircled her breasts, above, below and between. Each unforgiving strand of rope was then tied to one of the family of steel rings found at her side, keeping her body firmly in place over the uncomfortable spiked studs beneath her.

Elise couldn’t find her sense of self; she couldn’t will herself to move or speak, she was wholly paralysed. She knew she needed to help the girl, she also knew that the girl beneath the bed wouldn’t be the only one hidden away somewhere in Elizabeth’s apartment, she had the whole floor to herself, any number of people could be hidden away somewhere… and there was probably room for more.

A light illuminated the darkness in Elise’s head and for an instant she could think clearly and only one thought was on her mind. All at once Elise stood and called out her sister’s name before running out of the bedroom, through the lounge and into Elizabeth’s kitchen.
 
Elise stopped dead in her tracks. Victoria was lying unconscious on the tiled floor of the kitchen. A woman in a black and purple floral dress was standing over her with a gun in one hand a sodden rag in the other. Elise knew who it was; Elizabeth Andrews the slave trader…