Surprise! [Caught Outside Chapter 3]

I took apart a VCR yesterday. What did you do? I'm not joking, actually. Ali, Silver, and I were at Silver's house and decided to take it apart. There was a more complex roleplay going on around it. It wasn't actually a VCR in the roleplay, it was a dangerous explosive.
Recent song obsessions: I have been looking through the older Imagine Dragons songs. They have a very different feel from their more recent, popular works like Radioactive and Shots. Try listening to Shots and America (my personal favorite right now) back to back. You will see what I mean.
Anyway, the point of this post is: I edited the next chapter of Caught Outside! Exciting, right?
Are you ready? It's below the break.

Chapter Three:

I nearly screamed when I turned around. There were two other girls inside my hotel room. One with blond hair was crouched on the floor like she had just jumped from the window. The dark-haired one snapped at me from her seat on the windowsill,

“Keep your mouth shut or we're all going to be arrested.” I closed my mouth quickly, but then asked,

“Who are you and why are you-” The dark haired girl cut me off.

“No names till we get out of here. The window if you please.”

“Um,” I said, remembering that I was still wrapped in a towel. “I'm not wearing anything.” “Terrific,” the girl growled. The blonde girl had started grabbing random things from the room and stuffing them in a bag.

“Backup,” said the girl, “she's not wearing anything.” I could hear a few groans from outside, as well as a mutter of, “Allison?” There was another groan and then a tall girl with curly blonde hair climbed through the window. “Guard the door,” she told the first girl.

To me, she said, “Get dressed.” I grabbed my clothes and hurried into the bathroom to change. When I came out, most of the items in the room were gone, and the blonde girl was spray painting the furniture. I stared at her confusedly.

“No evidence,” she said, and went back to work.

“Out the window, come on.” One of the girls ushered me out the window and into the waiting car. My heart sped up, fear settling in the bottom of my stomach, but I kept silent. The black haired girl pushed my head down and handcuffed me. I wanted to scream, but I didn't want them to hurt me. I knew I couldn't fight my way out. They had all the power, maybe guns, too. I didn't really want to find out how far they would go. Just their appearances scared me.

When the girl finally let my head up, we had arrived at a large white house with green shutters. I was rushed inside. One of the three boys instructed me to sit down on one of two couches in living room.

“Okay now. Introductions,” said the girl with dark hair. “I'm Celia.”

The blonde haired girl who been spray-painting nodded at me and said, “Lilly.”

The third girl, sitting between Celia and Lilly, smiled a little bit at me and said, “I'm Alison.”

The dark skinned boy sitting next to me was Dillon, Celia's younger brother. Mason had dark brown hair.

“And I'm Henry,” the last boy said.

“And your name is?” Celia prompted.

“Meredith,” I replied.

“Full name?”

“Meredith Raven.”

“Last name?”

I sighed. “Engle.”

“Meredith Raven,” Celia repeated thoughtfully.

“Pretty name,” Lily commented. I smile a little. Maybe they were friendly.

“Well Meredith, we need to interrogate you.” The butterflies in my stomach exploded. Maybe they weren't so friendly.

“We're going to try to be friendly about it,” Allison explained. “Are we all in on this?”

Celia nodded and waved her hand at Lilly. “You can ask first,” she offered. As she set her hand back in her lap, I noticed several letters scrawled in red ink, possibly a tattoo, across the back of her hand. I read them over in my head, trying to make sense of them.

Finally I asked, “What does that say?”

“This?” Celia held up her hand, showing me the letters more clearly. I could read them now. “Mirrors,” I read aloud. “What does it mean?” Lilly and Celia sort of glared at each other for a minute before Lily said,

“It's a shortened version of Never Mirrors. It means, in short, that we do not believe that Chips should be used to solve conflicts. This is life, not a mirror of what people think the world should be! Even criminals deserve a choice.”

Celia nodded. “Exactly what I would have said.” Even though I wasn't quite sure what Chips were, I decided to move on. I looked to Lilly, wondering what I should tell them. The truth? I supposed that was my only option. I glanced around nervously, wondering if I should speak first.

Thankfully, Lilly caught my eye and smiled. “Okay Meredith,” she began. “Where did you come from, and why haven't we seen you before?”

I told myself that I had to answer truthfully, but I didn't want to. I had pushed the reason to the back of my mind, but now I let it come back full force.

“My mom,” I muttered to the floor.

“What happened?” Alison asked.

“She-” I couldn't go on, couldn't say that word.

“Is it permanent?” Lilly asked quietly. I nodded, feeling my eyes start to water.

“I'm sorry.” Lily crossed the room and sat down on the arm of the couch, putting her hand on my shoulder.

“When?” she asked.

“Last night,” I murmured. Lily hugged me. Henry looked up at her, and she whispered something to him. Henry met my eyes with a look of sympathy. A ripple of whispers passed around the room, each person looking up at me sadly before passing it on. No one seemed to notice me shrink back into the couch cushions. Then the doorbell rang. 

Here I go with the cliffhangers again. I will get the next chapter edited a little faster this time, I hope. Thanks for reading and have a nice day!