Chapter Text
When Marise Gabriela Gaumont woke, she knew two things immediately. The first was that her best friend of five years had undoubtedly kidnapped her. The second was that as soon as her mom and dad found out, they were going to say “I told you so.”
Opening her eyes and blinking groggily, Marise looked around in hopes that something would destroy her immediate theory. She was certainly in Ainsley’s car- it had that soft tan interior and the cramped backseat, and on the back of both of the front seats were sleek organizers that held pens, notepads, an insurance card, an emergency poncho, and a somewhat random coloring book. The car moved cautiously, more so than it would if there was a carjacker or other criminal. A glance at the front told her that it was in fact Ainsley in the driver’s seat, not that she needed it. No one else would have been driving a consistent five miles below the posted speed limit.
Despite being the right person, some things stood out and made Marise realize that there was something more going on than she was aware of. Marise’s best friend Ainsley Madison was a usually anxious woman who was the least fashionable soft butch that Marise had ever met. This Ainsley had body language that seemed confident and aware. Worse, she was wearing some hideous white combat uniform with small, colorful patches on the long sleeves, as well as a very silly looking hat that looked a little like a beret was in the process of having a baseball cap’s baby. Marise wasn’t too familiar with the military- and she liked it that way- but she knew immediately that this was not any uniform she’d ever seen before, and it was somehow worse than anything Ainsley would have picked on her own.
But that uniform was the only sign of strangeness (apart from the being kidnapped thing), so she felt very confident bellowing “Ainsley, what the fuck?!? ” in the loudest and most intimidating voice she could muster. She was slightly upset that in the moment it seemed neither very loud nor very intimidating.
Ainsley’s eyes flickered to her rearview mirror and met Marise’s. “Oh!” she said, sounding pleasantly surprised. “You’re awake.”
“I’m awake? That’s what you’re going to say? What the fuck? Did you drug me? You did drug me, didn’t you? God. My mom warned me about people like you!”
Ainsley shifted guiltily as she steered the car down a winding road lined with large, looming trees. “It’s not what you think-”
“Tell me what I think,” demanded Marise. “I dare you.”
Silence. Ainsley gripped the steering wheel tighter.
“Let me out,” Marise said.
“No,” said Ainsley. “I can’t.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because you’re a thousand miles from home and don’t know where you are. Because I have your cell phone in my pocket so you can’t figure out where you are easily, or call someone without knowing the whole story. Because I’m driving and going 50 miles per hour, and I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” Ainsley hesitated. “Because I need you. Because I want you to trust me.”
“So you drugged me so I’d trust you?”
“Give me a chance, Marise.”
“Give me my phone back.”
“I will. When we get there.”
Marise pushed herself up and was hit with a wave of nausea. She wasn’t sure whether it was the drug that Ainsley had fed her, or the fact that she nearly always got sick on long car rides. Either way, she was tempted to vomit all over Ainsley and her pristine Prius. “Where are you even taking me?”
“I can’t tell you until we get there. Trust me?”
“No.”
“Please?”
Marise frowned and snorted. “You know, before I came to visit you, my mom said, oh watch out for your internet friend. Maybe she wants to drug you and kidnap you and kill you and sell you to a human trafficking ring. Maybe not in that order, but that’s what she said. And I said, no mom, that’s ridiculous. Ainsley would have to be really playing the long game for that cause we’ve known each other for years and I think that’s more effort than kidnappers usually put in. I’ll be fine, mom. So now she’s gonna be at my funeral- if I have a body to bury at the end of all this- telling everyone she was right.”
Ainsley sighed, and she looked deeply guilty. Good, thought Marise. “Marise, I’m not going to kill you. I just want to talk!”
“And we couldn’t have talked in your apartment?”
“No, we couldn’t have.”
“Asshole,” said Marise, with feeling. She tried to open the car door but it refused to budge. “Did you activate the childproof locks?”
“Yes.”
“Goddamn evil genius liar.”
“I never lied!”
“Nope, you just drugged me . Seriously. I said what the fuck and I meant it. What the fuck is this? What’d you even use? Did you take my allergies into account? Maybe you did kill me.”
“You’re not allergic to anything.”
“Am too. Shitty jewelry. Gives me a rash.”
“There is no bad jewelry in the… in what I gave you. Please trust me. Just for half an hour. Hate me all you want, but trust me just a little while longer. Please.”
Marise kicked the back of Ainsley’s seat. “Give me one good reason.”
“Because you’re right. Because six years is more than just playing the long game. Because I know that you could probably kill me and you haven’t done it yet, so there must be some kind of trust left.”
The worst part is, somehow there was. She felt it like needles in the back of her mind; a prickling sort of feeling that wouldn’t go away. That even seemed to grow in intensity. She examined Ainsley carefully, wondering what was going on. Why did she still feel safe? Why did she still feel like things were going to be just fine? Like she wanted to be around Ainsley?
She tried to squash it, but the feeling refused to be stifled. At the very least, she found that this strange, irrational trust didn’t make her any less angry.
“Fine,” she said, kicking the back of Ainsley’s seat once more. “You have half an hour.”
The road took a turn that was sharp even at a reduced speed and Marise clutched the unopening door. An unfazed Ainsley nodded. “Thank you. That’s all I need as long as you’re not going to run away or try to judo flip me.”
“I never studied judo. I studied aikido and krav maga. And a little bit of boxing, and some karate when I was little.” Marise added another little kick for emphasis.
“Okay, okay, so none of that.”
“As long as I feel okay, I won’t use my incredible skills on you. If I think you’re gonna kill me, all bets are off.” Marise watched the scenery go by from her window. The trees seemed to be growing thinner- she could see the Adirondack mountains in the near distance. So they couldn’t have been far from Ainsley’s apartment, that much was clear. It was good to know in case she did have to run, and especially in case she had to file a police report.
Ainsley pulled over. She didn’t park the car fully, but she twisted her body so that Marise could see her face, framed by loose strawberry blonde waves. Marise could see the seriousness in Ainsley’s stormy blue-grey eyes. “I could never kill you,” Ainsley vowed. “I could never.”
This, more than anything, was what caused Marise to trust her. Enough to not take advantage of the situation and knock Ainsley out and run. Ainsley could never kill her. This was- somehow- a truth of the universe, as much as the fact that her birthday was on February 28 or that the sky was blue. “Okay,” said Marise, feeling a little stupid for agreeing even so.
“Okay,” repeated Ainsley, and turned around and began to drive again.
For a couple of minutes, there was silence. The trees thinned more and more, in a way that struck Marise as artificial and not a natural clearing. They were obviously going somewhere, not just to the middle of the upstate New York woods. “So can you tell me anything about what’s going on?” asked Marise. “I know you said you couldn’t tell me until we got there but it’d really help me to trust you if you gave me something I could work with.”
Ainsley made a noise of frustration. “I can try, I guess. It’s not going to be much.”
“Give me what you can. Where are we going?”
“To… to… to my place of employment.”
“And you work for the government. You file papers.”
“I used to. I got promoted a few months ago.”
“So what do you do now?”
Ainsley was silent.
“Your uniform,” said Marise, mostly to herself as she looked at it again. She scooted herself along the backseat so that she could get a better view. From the diagonal, she could see a new detail in the form of a circular wooden coin with a flower etched into it on the right side of Ainsley’s chest. It hung from a blue and red ribbon. “What is it?”
No response.
“Not any military uniform I’ve ever seen. White’s a weird color, unless you’re in the Navy I guess. Doesn’t it get dirty pretty easily? Are you wearing boots, too?” Marise craned her neck to see. Ainsley was, in fact, wearing boots. “So you do something a little more active for the government, I’d guess. Definitely don’t need to wear this if you’re just a secretary.”
“Marise…”
“If you don’t like what I’m saying, then tell me something new. Why did you drug me?”
Ainsley seemed to struggle with an answer. “If something goes south, it’s easier if you don’t know where we are.”
“Okay. And you didn’t think to just blindfold me?”
“If I blindfolded you, you’d just take it right off,” Ainsley countered.
This was true. “Okay,” conceded Marise. “You’re right. But why is it important that I go to work with you in the first place? I thought you took time off while I was visiting. Is it “take your internet best friend to work day” at your weird ass government job?”
Again, there was no answer.
“Here’s what I think,” said Marise. “I think you’re a spy.”
Ainsley laughed weakly. “Oh yeah?”
“You’re taking me to a secret government building. You had to get me here, and were desperate enough that you drugged me. You’re wearing a uniform that’s not for any military branch I know of, and it wouldn’t even be practical in any combat situation on Earth, so you probably don’t wear it when you’re doing actual work. I think you’re a spy, or covert intelligence, or black ops, or whatever you want to call it. I think somehow you’re compromised, and you had to get me to safety without risking the mission. Am I right?”
It sounded ridiculous as soon as she said it, but even as Ainsley said, “Oh, Marise,” Marise held out hope that the follow-up would be “you’re so terribly clever that you’ve figured out my secrets. The world is saved!”
Instead, Ainsley only sighed. “Oh, Marise,” she said, “you have no idea how wrong you are.”