Great plumes of mist formed in front of me every time that I exhaled. My thin, tortured body strained with the effort as I ran for my life. Sticks and leaves crunched under my feet cutting and slicing my tender soles. The pain didn't slow me down. In fact, I barely registered it.

     I wore only a black sports bra and a pair of very short spandex shorts. More like underwear really. Cold rivers of sweat fell from my chin, ran down my back and between my breasts. My long blonde hair is matted and tangled, flying behind me like a cape as I pounded my way through this unknown forest.

     He was coming. I just knew it. I couldn't hear anything but the frantic beating of my heart. That didn't matter though. I still felt as if icy fingers were about to wrap around my neck. I still felt as if he was right on my heels. I increased the pace.

*FLASHBACK*|
    "It's fascinating!" The doctor exclaims. His face looking almost giddy with excitement. No matter how many times that we've done this.

     "She's the same on the inside as any other human on the planet."  He says this as his hands once again dip into my chest cavity. Moving vital organs this way and that. I screamed. Intense, mind numbing pain consumed me but no sound escaped my throat. I was on an operating table. Large, bright lights illuminating my body. The medicine that was injected into my IV was not meant to knock me out. I was wide awake. I couldn't talk. I couldn't move. Not even blink. That did not stop the tears that slid out of my eyes and down the side of my face unnoticed. I watched my own vivisection. My chest busted open like in an autopsy. But I'm not dead. I am very much alive.

**********

     My muscles burn and my breath forms clouds in the cold air as I pant harshly. The trees in this forest feel like watchful sentinels waiting to see my intent. My vision blurs for just a moment and that was all it took. I felt the tree root as my foot caught and down I went. I hit the floor of the watchful forest and laid where I landed. Any oxygen that I had was knocked from my lungs. For a few second I could neither inhale nor exhale. Then suddenly I could! Taking in greedy gulps of the icy air. If I wasn't a werewolf I wouldn't have made it this far.                                                                         "Just a little farther Charlie." My wolf, Lyra, urgently whispers. She is weak in my mind. Wolfsbane has been apart of our daily diet for as long as we can remember. She was weak and tired."Just rest Lyra. I'll protect us." I replied. I quickly regained my footing and sprinted. My weak body protesting. Still, I did not give in to that exhaustion. 

     I ran for what must have been hours. The sun had been descending in the sky when I'd made my escape. Without my fellow prisoners.

*FLASHBACK*

    "Charlotte! You can't do this! If this doesn't work they'll kill you. Heck! They might kill ALL of us!" Avery whispers. The fear in her voice amps up my own. The fear didn't matter though. I could not stand to live like this anymore! 

    "Charlie, the guard will catch you before you even hit the treeline." Maddie says. Fear did not radiate from her with quite the intensity. Her voice was more matter of fact. It just was what it was. The truth. Because if this plan did not work I could very well be dead. Or at least wishing that I was. 

     We'd been together for as long as any of us could remember. We were family. We were a pack. Avery, with her chestnut hair with cork screw curls that cascaded down to her shoulders and soft doe brown eyes. A rich caramel complexion with full pouty lips. Maddie, with her fiery locks that she currently had braided in a thick rope down her back. The tail touching her shoulder blades and moss green eyes. Her pale complexion a perfect back drop for her freckles. Freckles that she hated intensely. Then there was me. My blonde hair, straight as a pen, reached to my waist and my eyes seemed a pretty normal shade of blue.  To me anyways. 

     Having this conversation was their last attempt to change my mind. I wasn't going to though. I had already decided. We had lived our whole lives in this building. In these white sterile rooms. All we knew of the outside world was what we saw in the movies that we sometimes were allowed to watch. 

The plan had originally been for all three of us to escape at the same time. 

     It just was not possible. There were no allies for us here in the godforsaken place. The scientist saw as only as a means to an end. Humans. They cut and sliced and poked and prodded. Looking for answers. To the human problem. A devastating illness had swept through the human population decades ago. Very few surviving. Men, women and children. No one was immune. Except for the immortals. It's what finally outed the supernatural world to the human one. 

     Humans were a dying race. Small pockets of civilization were all that remand. And we were not the only prisoners here. Others were here too. Other Weres that were not wolfs. Creatures that smelled sweet with an undertone of death. Others too. I had caught their scent here and there. We never saw them though. We were born here and they wanted us to die here.

**********

     Now the night had taken over the world. A waxing moon shone brightly in the star speckled sky but I did not stop to admire the moon goddess in all her glory. The adrenaline high that had kept me going was bottoming out.

     My steps started to slow and my feet to drag. I slowly came to a stop. I dropped to my knees. The twigs and leaves crunching under the impact. My eyes closed, I panted heavily with my face tilted towards the moon. 

SNAP!

     The snap of a twig had my eyes popping open and scanning the trees. Six pairs of eyes stare at me from different directions. I was surrounded.