Chapter 131: Knowing The Right People
The three girls walked hand-in-hand, glancing back several times as the door to that room, the one they’d been trapped in just minutes ago, finally swung shut behind them.
They still didn’t fully understand how they’d gotten out of it. The whole thing felt like a blur, too fast, too intense. But none of them wanted to stick around long enough to ask questions.
Instead, they left the bowling alley completely, not stopping until they were out of the park and back on a busy street, surrounded by the noise and movement of everyday life.
Even with all the people walking by, they didn’t feel safe.
Not really.
"What was that back there?" Cindy asked, still a little breathless.
"I don’t know," Abby said, "but it felt like there was some kind of internal fight going on. Like... they were all from the same group, right? I think the girls Kira brought in belonged to that other girl too, Aki or whatever her name was. And for some reason... she chose to help us."
They kept walking, trying to make sense of it, until they noticed Sheri hadn’t said a word. She was staring off into space, her expression blank, like she wasn’t even there.
"Sheri, are you okay?" Cindy asked softly. Then she sighed. "What am I saying? Of course you’re not okay. None of us are."
Cindy reached into Sheri’s coat pocket and pulled out her phone. She tapped through the screen and quickly dialed her own number, holding it to her ear until it rang.
"This is my number, alright?" she said, pressing the phone back into Sheri’s hand. "If anything happens again, anything at all, you call us. I don’t know what those people are capable of, and I don’t care. You don’t deal with it alone."