Early next morning, or maybe it was still in the middle of the night, Nora was nudged awake by her phone vibrating incessantly next to her. She had fallen asleep in the middle of texting her employer details about her resignation. When she answered the phone, it took some time before she understood who it was. And a few more minutes to understand what had happened. But once she understood, she hastily put some clothes on and ran out the door without bothering to bring anything extra.
When she got back to the FBI residence, she got the details. She was angry that they had let them all just be there all alone, but the agents said that as none of them had done anything wrong yet, they couldn't detain them. And that they had been there to stop it before anything happened. But it seemed that just the threat had been enough to push Audrey over the edge and she wasn't responding to anyone. She was led into a small room where Audrey sat and stared out into nothing. It reminded her of how Rita had looked. She hoped Audrey wouldn't end up like that permanently. Nora tried calling her name, but there was no response. Further prodding only led to a shiver, then some mumbling. From what Nora could hear, she was waiting to be punished for something. Probably for betraying the Lady. She sighed. What could she say that would penetrate this fear? It seemed her voice was only making it worse. Well, she had been the one to push her to do this.
"Audrey, they're gone! No one's going to hurt you now!"
A small whisper could be heard over the whimpers.
"No, I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to! You can't make me, I like it."
There was a lot of incoherent babbling like that for quite some time. Nora didn't want to slap her or anything, since she was waiting for a punishment. But maybe that was what she needed after all? Her voice and reassurances only made it worse.
Hoping she wouldn't regret it, she slapped her best friend hard on the cheek. Maybe a bit harder than she intended. Audrey first froze, then looked shocked, shielded her face before slowly seeming to return to reality.
"Nora? Why did you slap me?"
Nora almost wilted in relief.
"Because you have been completely unresponsive for hours? Have you slept at all?"
"I was asleep. I dreamt that Morcefres came back and wanted to punish me for betraying the Lady…" she stopped as she probably remembered what had happened. She looked around her.
"They're gone now. The FBI didn't actually leave you alone, they only pretended to."
"You mean they used me as bait?"
"I'm just as furious about it as you are."
"We didn't use you as bait," one agent standing nearby said. "We made a miscalculation. The four who attacked you used their time alone in the car to profess that they realized their error and no longer harbored any ill will towards you. We decided to give them that chance, since they may still have been affected by the drug you're all been on. Clearly, that was a mistake."
"And the part about saying that we're on our own, yet you were still watching us?"
"You are on your own, but since it was your first night, we decided to watch the corridors. Are you really going to be mad about that when we were able to prevent what was about to happen?"
"You could have been honest and said that that was what you were going to do. Please remember that we are not children, despite our limited knowledge about the modern world. We are all capable adults and deserve to be treated as such." The agent had the decency to look a little ashamed. At least Audrey seemed to have snapped out of whatever trance she had been in. Nora hoped she wouldn't react like that every time she felt threatened. These people would probably need therapy.
By now, most of the rest of them were also awake. They were used to being up by the crack of dawn, so very few had slept longer, especially not with the noise from the corridors.
"Are you okay, Audrey?" one of them asked.
"No. But I probably will be. Let's get something to eat." No one disagreed about that. Nora was once again amused and sad to see them all marvel over such simple things as pre-cut bread and the different spreads.
"Have you eaten already?" the one Nora was fairly certain was Leann asked.
"No, but it's OK. I can find my own food. I'm not really one of you, I only came here to see that Audrey was OK…"
"I know you did all this to save your friend, but you made sure to save the rest of us too," Leann said with a smile. "None of this would have happened if it wasn't for you, and Kaneez's husband. I say that qualifies you as one of us, if you want to." There were quiet murmurs of agreement from the others.
"Besides," Audrey said with a smile. "It's not like we paid for this food anyway."
Nora laughed and joined the others at the breakfast table.
After they had all eaten, it seemed they had no idea what to do with themselves. They were used to being assigned tasks and working hard every day. Now that they had unlimited leisure time, they had no idea where to even start.
"Why don't we see if there's anything on the TV?" one of them said. It seemed that was one of the ones who had not been there very long; she and her husband seemed to be the least troubled by the changes. But they had also rarely let go of each other, as if they were worried about getting separated from each other again.
None of this was OK. Nora hoped the FBI would work swiftly on figuring out who these people were and find the ones who still had families waiting for them.
They found the TV remote, and the first channel had what looked like a rerun of a season of "Survivor". They quickly changed the channel. No reality shows.
In the end, they settled on the Food channel. Not the most riveting, but it was something. And it reminded most of them of foods and cooking skills they had forgotten.