ANASTASIA MULBERRY

"We can't stay here." Anastasia murmured after a few lengthy minutes, only after she was certain that there were no wolves lingering around the door outside and could possibly overhear their conversation or rather, grand escape plan. Except, she had still yet to come up with a solid plan and with her zero knowledge in this kind of thing, she was sure that it would be far from grand but as long as they escaped, then neither of them could complain.

If they managed to survive, of course.

"No, but where are we going to go?" Thea asked with a desperately wild look in her eyes. "We don't even know where we are!"

"We don't, but we can't stick around here." Anastasia insisted as she reached into her pocket where she had been hiding the scalpel that she had swiped from Heena earlier. She had purposely hidden the scalpel away and stored it in her pocket for a lengthy amount of time.

Both Anastasia and Thea had kept quiet about it, especially when Harvey returned a short while later with a sandwich and bottle of water for the both of them. He hadn't said a word to either of them and instead, dropped off their food, sent Anastasia a sharp look before turning around and heading out of the room. Although, unfortunately, he didn't forget to lock the door behind him.

While she was very tempted to devour the sandwich as her stomach ached from how hungry she was – unable to remember the last time that she had eaten properly, before the few mouthfuls of noodles which only seemed to make her even hungrier – she knew that once she escaped, she would have the rest of her life to enjoy as much food to her heart's content but for now, they needed to make it out of here alive.

"Did you not hear what they said?" Anastasia asked her sharply as she rattled around with the chains around her left wrist, trying to pick the lock to set herself free, barely sparing Thea a glance as she spoke. "They're going to take us away from here where no one will be able to ever find us."

"What do we do?" Thea asked in a small, panicked voice as she blinked at the woman in front of her.

"I don't know, but I don't plan on sticking around here to find out." She shook her head frantically as she continued trying to pick the lock, twisting the scalpel as she felt around the inside the mechanisms, a look of concentration taking over her face. "Now, I don't know about you but I'm getting out of here. If it's the both of us together, we have a greater chance of successfully escaping but if you don't, then I'll have no chance but to leave you here." Anastasia shrugged her shoulders in a nonchalant manner, a frustrated sigh passing her lips as she continued to struggle with the lock. "Either way, I'm not going to stick around to find out where they're going to take me."

"You're not leaving me behind." Thea denied with a firm look on her face and a determined glint in her eyes. "I need to get back to my son. There's no way I'm sticking around here while he's out there alone."

"Then we're both in this together." She murmured quietly and after one last twist of the scalpel, a small click sounded and the both of them held their breath as they locked gazes before finally, Anastasia's lips twitched slightly at the corners.

"Did you just?" Thea asked quietly, her eyes wide with disbelief.

Anastasia merely nodded her head frantically as she was quick to pull the handcuffs off one wrist, stretching her hand out and waving it around in the air to her heart's content; finally starting to gain back control and power of her own body. However, before things could get out of control, she was quick to move onto her second wrist which had been far easier than the first now that she knew what she was doing and before either of them knew it, she was completely free.

Not willing to waste any time or take any risks, Anastasia was quick to scurry across the room and start working on Thea's cuffs, needing the both of them to be free.

"Do you think we're going to make it out of here?" Thea asked in a small voice as she stretched her one free hand, watching as Anastasia moved onto the rest of them.

"We have to." Anastasia paused briefly and sent Thea a meaningful, promising look but before she could finish taking off the second handcuff, a set of footsteps sounded from the top of the hallway, only getting louder in sound as the steps continued.

Thea's breath audibly hitched in her throat but before she could say or do anything to give them away, Anastasia was quick to raise her hand and press a finger to her lips, indicated that she needed to be quiet.

Without saying a word, she quickly reached over and snapped the chain back onto Thea's wrist before she turned around and scurried away back to her seat.

Thea watched with wide, desperate eyes as she fled back to her seat, unsure of what was going to happen or what to do. Anastasia simply shook her head frantically and hid the scalpel under her thigh before crossing her legs and perfectly placing the chains and the cuffs so it looked like she was still captured against her will. Just to make things more real, she reached for her sandwich and took a big bite out of it, indicating with wide eyes for Thea to do the same. Whatever they could do to make it look like they hadn't just tried to escape was absolutely necessary right now.

And just in time, too as she barely had time to calm down her breathing before the click of the lock audibly sounded before the door was pushed open.

Neither Anastasia or Thea knew who or what they were expecting, but they hadn't expected for one of the wolves from earlier to drop by and certainly not with a large, ear-splitting grin on his face, his gaze mostly lingering on the feisty redhead who as expected, was glaring daggers at him the moment he poked his head through the door.

"What?" The wolf chuckled as he clapped his hands together, moving to stand in the middle of the room. "I thought you two ladies would be happy to see me."

"Why would we be happy to see you?" Anastasia rolled her eyes before taking another bite of her sandwich, already reaching out for the water bottle.

Glancing behind the man, she was glad to see that Thea was also nibbling on her sandwich. While eating hadn't been on the initial agenda, she was glad that with this added distraction, they were actually given the chance but couldn't help but wonder if this moment had deteriorated their plans. She sincerely hoped not as they simply couldn't afford it.

"It's always the redheads that are the feistiest, isn't it?" He chuckled as he took a step closer, cocking his head in her direction after she had piqued his interest with her defiance. "Your mate is one lucky bastard."

Anastasia had to fight off the urge to scream at him for speaking of her mate in such a way. Just because she was angry at him and not currently on good terms with him, didn't mean that anyone else was allowed to talk smack about him. As far as she was concerned, only she had that right.

However, instead of defending her mate like every fibre in her body was demanding, she scowled deeply and shot the wolf in front of her a dark glare.

"Too bad he doesn't want you." The wolf threw his head back and chuckled, his eyes trained intently on the female in front of him. "One wolf's loss is another wolf's treasure. And what a beautiful treasure you are."

Instead of spitting or swearing at him like she wanted to do, she baited him closer with another dark look as the masochist seemed to feed off it.

"Since he's not interested, I'd like to take a go at you." He murmured quietly and continued walking toward her, almost as if her gaze was keeping him under a spell.

Almost as if a knee jerk reaction, she pushed out her legs and kicked him in both knees with all of her strength, aiming to drop him to his knees so she would be able to do some last damage with her scalpel. However, what she didn't expect was for the wolf to go tumbling down – having been caught off guard with the surprise attack as he had believed that both the women were still restrained – and smash his face into the exposed brick wall behind her.

A quiet gasp escaped the both of them, having not expected or anticipated for something like that to have happened, and so quick either.

Anastasia felt like her world was spinning as she glanced down at the now unconscious wolf next to her, a thin stream of blood flooding out of his nose, down the side of his face. It stained the collar of his shirt before pooling on the ground underneath him.

When she glanced up, she locked eyes with Thea who had watched the whole thing but instead of panicking like Anastasia had expected her to do, she finished off her sandwich and reached for her water bottle.

"You need to put him in the chains." She instructed in a quiet voice, not wanting any nearby wolves to overhear but with the loud thump of his body hitting the ground and nobody having rushed over here already, the both of them were confident that there was probably no one on their side of the building right now.

With her middle stull clouded, she worked hard to cuff the wolf's hands but with the way he had landed, she couldn't quite reach his legs. Not willing to take any chances in case he woke up, she scurried over and grunted quietly as she pushed his body closer until finally, he was close enough to be completely and utterly chained.

Unwilling to even bend slightly on the promise she had made to Thea earlier, Anastasia curled her fingers around the cold metal of the scalpel and rushed across the room to free the woman. With her brain currently running in overdrive and his actions jerky, she was able to uncuff and free Thea in record time.

Not willing to waste any more time, Thea followed behind as Anastasia shot one last glance at the unconscious wolf before reaching for the door handle, very aware of the fact that the door was currently unlocked.

Squeezing down gently, Anastasia had never been happier to open a door before in her life.

After having been stuck in the darkness for so long, both of the women winced and covered the eyes, struggling to get adjusted to the harsh brightness from the overhead lights.

Neither of them felt any remorse or guilt regarding the werewolf that they had just maimed and chained up in the dark room that they had previously been locking in for an unknown amount of time. Instead, a deep scowl took over Thea's face as she turned around to lock the door behind them.

If they weren't in such a rush to escape, Anastasia would have paused to commend the woman for finally taking the lead and doing something without worrying too much but that would just have to wait until later.

"Which way do we go?" Thea asked in a quiet whisper, her eyes wide and frantic as she glanced up and down the hallway which thankfully, was empty.

"I don't know." Anastasia murmured in a distant voice as she glanced up and down, holding her breath as she tried to slow down her breath in order to hear better.

The both of them remained deathly silent for a few moments as they heard voices sound aloud from both ends of the hallway which suggested that either way they decided to go, they would still have to sneak out past their captors.

"Let's try this way." Anastasia murmured after a few moments, opting to head down the way where it sounded like there was the least amount of people.

Reaching a hand out, she nodded back at her ally as she accepted and together, they rushed down the hallway as fast as possible hand in hand, both of them holding their breath in fear of someone walking in on them.

As they reached the middle of the hallway, both females came to a stop and Anastasia leaned forward to glance through the open doorway, needing to be able to walk past it so they could make it to the stairs.

Very much aware of the fact that they were currently in a building full of werewolves, Anastasia worked hard to keep her breathing as quiet and possible, fearful of the fact that they would be caught straight away. As they had been lucky enough to not have been scented out already, she was determined to keep it that way.

Tipping herself forward a little more, she was glad to see that the room was empty and in fact, the noise had been coming from downstairs.

"Come on." Anastasia whispered quietly back to Thea and squeezed her hand tightly before she rushed to move past the open doorway and continue down the hallway however, they were barely able to make it a few steps before they heard something sound audibly from the bottom of the stairs; heading right in their direction.

"Fuck!" Anastasia couldn't help but swear under her breath, knowing that if they were to head back now, they wouldn't be able to make it far without being spotted and going forward wasn't an option either as they would run right into whoever was coming up the stairs. When her eyes landed on a door slightly in front of them, Anastasia squeezed Thea's hand tightly before pulling the girl behind her.

With her eyes trained ahead, she rattled the door knob forcefully and when it finally opened, she literally threw her body into the room, dragging Thea behind her. Turning around, she was much quieter as she closed the door behind her, afraid that they had been too loud and whoever was about to come up the stairs right now had heard them and would come to investigate.

If that was the case, then the both of them were far more than royally screwed.

Knowing that they wouldn't be able to last much longer without one of the wolves eventually finding out that they had both escaped and were currently on the run, Anastasia rushed across the room and pushed at the window. A sigh of relief escaped her as she found for it to be empty.

"Go on." Anastasia reached out for Thea's hand, pulling her toward the window.

"You go first." Thea insisted with a fearful expression on her face. "I'm scared of heights."

Even though she feared that after she had gone out the window Thea would bottle it and become too scared, she knew that now was not the time to argue and instead, she braced her hands on the edge of it and began to lift her legs.

"Don't be scared, okay?" Anastasia tried to assure her as she now stood outside the building with both of her feet planted on the slope of the roof, only able to stay upright because she was holding onto the window pane with all of her might. "I'll be down there to catch you. I promise."

Thea nodded and glanced over her shoulders as the chatter outside the room faded but when a loud roar sounded a few moments later – no doubt after having discovered for one of their own to be locked up in the room and not the two human surrogates whom they had kidnapped – a shiver ran down her spine and she gulped painfully.

"You need to go now." She demanded but by the time she had turned her head forward again, Anastasia had already dropped herself.

Anastasia was too afraid to admit that she, too was afraid of heights however, she needed to stay strong for the both of them. they couldn't both be afraid as the longer they hesitated, the quicker their captors would be able to find them and judging by the sound of the loud roar that shook even the roof, Anastasia knew that they had finally run out of time.

Forcing herself to let go and slide off the edge of the room, she closed her eyes tightly and braced herself for the impact of her body hitting the ground, knowing that she couldn't afford to get hurt as she would need to catch Thea. However, the ground never came as instead, she all but dropped herself into a pair of strong, awaiting arms that wrapped around her immediately.

Instead of tensing up or trying to fight her captor off, Anastasia all but melted into his arms as they wrapped around her, her whole-body erupting in a series of delicious tingles.

Unfortunately, the moment didn't last long as another loud roar sounded through the air just as a second body landed on the both of them, forcing the unsuspecting trio on the ground in a pile of tangled limbs.

-

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Layla Knight

21.11.2020