“Wake up!”

*SLAP!*

“Colleen – I don’t think that she’ll – ”

*SLAP!*

“Shut up for once Sam!  She must’ve called the police before she came here!  If only…”

*SLAP!*

“Coll – Wait…Are her eyes…?”

Bruised, beaten, and her face now reddened from Colleen’s angry attempts to awaken her, Ava’s eyelids first twitched, then lifted.  Kneeling over Ava – who was lying down – Colleen impatiently watched as she regained consciousness.

“Hey!  So, the police are coming, right?  Who told you that we were here?  How’d you find us? Hey – answer me!”

“Wh…Where are we?”  Ava confusedly mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

“That’s not what I – ”

A tall, athletic-looking guy pushed past the inquisitive blonde. “Colleen!  Give her a damn breath, you saw how that giant chick threw her in here!  Ava – what’s the last thing that you remember?”

“Sam?  What are you doing here?”  Ava asked, her questions multiplying by the second.  She noticed that he was still wearing his prom attire, only his white shirt was dirt-stained and torn, and his tuxedo jacket was in the corner of their cell.  Wait, cell?

“Ava, you had to’ve known we’ve been missing since prom, right?  That’s why you’re here.”

“No – I was…I mean I knew you guys weren’t in school, but what is – ”

“She obviously doesn’t know shit.  Go figure.”  Colleen, with her burgundy prom dress equally destroyed and her heels discarded next to her feet, spoke up from the corner of the filthy cell.

“You really didn’t know that we were here?”  Sam asked, his hopes of rescue falling.

Her voice showing signs of panic, Ava responded, “No…one minute my elevator crashes, now the next I’m here!”  She sat up, her muscles aching in the process.  Her eyes looked beyond Sam, trying to make sense of her surroundings.  In the darkness, she could make out prison bars and boxes.  Lots and lots of boxes, like they were in a storage facility that just happened to have a prison cell in it.  What the hell? 

Wide-eyed and with her voice quivering, Ava asked, “Where are we?!”

“Might as well tell her, Sam.  Like she’ll do anything about it.”  Colleen said as she inspected a broken nail on her finger.

“Tell me what?”  By the way things looked, Ava braced herself for the worst.

Composing himself, Sam started, “Alright…where should I…Oh!  Yeah, okay.  So we were at prom, right?  And Colleen here meets some tall chick outside while I’m parking the car, chick says she has some drugs.  Colleen thinks this Amazonian drug dealer is the shit.  She’s already sold – she would’ve bought an elephant from this chick if she had one.”  Sam shot a dirty look towards his girlfriend, who stuck her tongue out in response.

“Where was I?  Ah, alright, so Colleen figures she can get us some weed or something for after-prom, but the tall chick says she has something better.  Something more fun.  Says what she got was special, can do things to people.  Mess them up.  Tells her to go try it out, have some fun with it, then come back and pay her.  Tall chick gives her instructions.  I guess she was supposed to slip the drug to a dude that she doesn’t like, a teacher or something.  The rule was that when he’s ‘bout to take it, she has to take it.  Colleen didn’t think to ask any other questions, thought she was about to have the best frickin’ night of her life.”

“Listen Sam – I!” Colleen started.

“Hey!  Let me tell the rest of the story, before your giant bitch friend comes back.”

Colleen frowned.  Ava raised one eyebrow.

“So, Colleen uh…well Ava, she put the damn drug in your drink.”

“What?!”

“Hey now!  It’s not important now, just listen for a minute.  Dumbass Colleen didn’t pay attention when the chick said that she had to give it to a ‘DUDE,’ not a chick.  I guess the drug only works on the opposite sex or some shit.”  Sam looked towards Colleen again, who was rolling her eyes.

“So anyways, Amazon bitch comes back, wants money.  Colleen doesn’t have any ‘cause I pay for every damn thing, and she’s pissed on top of all that ‘cause the drug didn’t work.  Colleen tells the chick that the drug was bust, so she’s not payin’.  So, being gigantic and all, the bitch gets pissed off, snatches her up, and takes her here.  Colleen manages to hold onto her phone and catch the address for a bit, so she calls me and Katie.  No response from Katie, but I up and come here in the middle of prom.  I show up outside, then the Amazon bitch somehow sneaks up on me, beats me unconscious, throws me in here.  We’ve been stuck ever since.  Every once in a while the Amazon bitch will come down, taunt us, and toss us some food or something.  Nothing else.”

Ava sputtered, “So…I don’t even know what to…What is this place?  I mean, it’s supposed to be an office complex!  And Colleen, you bitch!”

Colleen started to stand, but Sam stopped her, saying, “Stop!  I said it’s not important – we just need to get the hell outta here.  Now, you see those boxes?  Me and Colleen think it’s the drugs, like this is where they keep it all.  Whoever the tall chick works for, you know.  They go to parties, proms, and shit like that and sell the stuff to kids.  We still don’t even know what the drug even does.  I mean I think it’s the shrinking drug people keep talking about, but Colleen says that’s bullshit.”

“No – I think you’re right! I have a friend that took it, that’s why I’m here – to help him!  I was on my way to his office…his company is called…Sunny Day Events, that’s it!”  Ava excitedly responded.  Maybe they were getting somewhere.

Colleen spoke up, saying, “There’s no way!  Do you really think a drug can freaking shrink people?”

“You wanna bet?”  Ava snapped back.

“Girls!”  Sam yelled.  “Ava, you said Sunny Day Events?  Yesterday, some worker came down here to pick up one of these boxes.  She got a call, and she answered something along the lines of, ‘Sunny Day Events, this is Pa…Patricia.’  Yeah, Patricia was her name.  You think that’s important?”

“Maybe!”  Ava said, working ideas out in her head. “I mean…shit!  Maybe it’s their front or something, like think about it!  An event-planning would be perfect for that kind of stuff!  Like at proms and other parties, people are sometimes looking to do stupid things.  They could just sneak in and sell their drugs at the party, and no one would give it a second thought.”

“She does have a point,” Colleen said.

“Yeah, she does,” Sam agreed, appearing to be deep in thought.  He continued, “Alright, so down to business: when that Patricia lady answered the phone, she was talking about some massive birthday party for a girl named Katie on Friday.  Said it’s gonna be the biggest party they’ve ever done.  She left before we could hear much more.”

Colleen chimed, “Yeah Ava, we think it’s that Katie.  I mean, that’s her birthday and she told me that she’d have a party.  Bitch can’t be bothered to save her best friend but is, like, getting a freaking event-planning company to put on her birthday rager.”

Sam continued, “Anyways, we figure they’ll be gone all day Friday setting up and doing whatever it is they do at these parties.  So that’ll be the best time to get outta here.”

“We just need to figure out how.  Any ideas?” Colleen asked.

Ava stood up, and walked towards the bars of their cell.  She shook the restraints.  Nothing.  She paused and looked past the bars, her vision full of cardboard boxes.  Wait. The boxes. Ava first looked at the distance between the bars, roughly half a foot wide.  That’s it.  She stuck her arm out and reached towards the closest box.

“Ava?”  Sam said, wondering what she was trying to do.

“What the hell are you doing?”  Colleen called from her corner.

“Just…”  Ava grumbled, with her fingertips inches away from the corner of the nearest box.  She gave one last push, her fingers making contact with the container and grabbing its edge.  Got it.  Ava pulled until the box was up against the bars.      

Sam and Colleen stood up, with looks of confusion plastered on their faces as they walked over and stood on either side of Ava. 

“What, you need, like, a fix or something?”  Colleen said as she watched Ava carefully open the box, as not to show any signs of tampering.  She rolled her eyes again, letting out an annoyed sigh and walking back to her corner.  

After a minute or two, Ava pulled out a small plastic bag.  Inside, there were two clear blue strips, which looked like Listerine strips.  However, both Sam and Ava knew that they were much, much more extraordinary than breath strips.  

Sam looked at the strip, then at the space between the bars, then at Ava.  He stuttered, “You’re not thinking…”

Ava looked at Sam, and smiled.