Escape

"NO!"

"I will ask you again, where are the others?"

"YAAAAAAAH"

She heard the screams, echoing down the lifeless corridor as if to punish her for not hurrying, as she crept forward, ever silent and alert. The bricks of the wall felt rough against her bare skin and served to keep her mind grounded on the task she needed to do. Creeping into the room she found a dark corner and hid, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits as she saw what was happening.

The source of the screams was the man tethered to the wall by iron shackles. His head hung as in despair, or defeat, and blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth to drip silently to the floor. He was illuminated by a column of light throwing him into stark relief to the rest of the room, kept in darkness. No doubt to give them a good look at him while he can't see them, she thought to herself. Let's turn the tables

A movement in another part of the room snatched at her attention and she evaluated her prey. The warden (and no doubt the torturer as well) was big. Not that it was a problem to her, the bigger they were the harder they fell...and they always fell. He was wearing a standard uniform, black sleeveless shirt and trousers. His face seemed neanderthalic in its appearance, giving him a greedy and selfish look. This was emphasised by his piggy eyes which gleamed disturbingly as they caught the light. Slowly and ponderously he began to advance upon his victim.

She had seen enough. Rising onto the balls of her feet she slowly drew her sword from its scabbard, relishing the hissing sound it made as if it was anticipating the bloodshed that was to come.

"Wha..?"

Intelligence's obviously not a requirement for this job she thought as her blade sliced through the air and connected with the warden's neck. Spinning on her feet she crouched into a defensive posture, drawing her arm back in anticipation of a counter attack. Not that there'd be any. She'd felt the blade do it's work and watched in grim satisfaction as his head slowly toppled from his neck. Blood spurted from the wound as the heart refused to believe that its work was no longer required and dribbled down the arms. She pushed the teetering body over and watched in satisfaction as the blood pooled by the astonished looking head.

"They need to hire better men", she muttered to herself, "This is beginning to get easy."

Prowling over to the inert body by the wall she lsiced through the shackles and caught the man as he fell. Sheathing her sword she held one arm round her shoulders and wrapped another round his waist and attempted to rouse him into some semblance of consciousness.

"Come on you bastard! Wake up!", she hissed, "They've barely touched you!"

With a jerk the man's head rose up and his eyelids flickered open. Concealing her sigh of relief she started him towards the door of the cell. His footsteps were sluggish at first, but eventually stopped their drag along the ground and he began to support his own weight. Refusing to show any sign of relief at the fact that the damage wasn't too extensive, she took advantage of his new found strength and scanned the corridors as they went. He was no where near as silent as she had been and to her heightened senses they sounded like a herd of elephants.

"Kat..", his voice was dry and parched and sounded like sandpaper.

"Shut up!"

"Kat."

"Shut up!"

"KAT!"

"WHAT?"

"Where's Jay?"

"Where she usually is", her voice was irritable and held a slight hint of fear of discovery, "She's keeping the guards occupied. I may be good, but I'm not that good."

Suddenly a siren filled the air seeming to switch everything on as its wails blasted down the corridor. Swearing luridly Kat dragged him into another corridor and broke into a fast run. At his protest she hauled him in front of her and stared him in the eyes.

"T, you're our field leader! I know you can cope with that kind of pace! So get off your lazy arse and quit feeling sorry for yourself or else we're all screwed!"

"We can hide and fight", he sneered at her, "There's no need to run, I wanna get a few jabs back at the gits."

"Well run now and jab later", she spat at him, "the organisation's sent it's assassins and we can't beat them!"

Giving T no opportunity to argue she grabbed his arm and ran with him towards the final door. Breaking into the daylight she pulled him over to the waiting van and climbed into the back.

"Jay we're in!", she barked into her earpiece, "Get going!"

The van lurched forwards and Kay stared out of the back windows. Narrowing her eyes she examined the man standing talking into an earpiece. A tight knot of fear twisted her insides as she realised how close they had come to not making it. Falling onto the closest seat she grinned at T.

"Well we made it...we escaped."

"What now?"

"We go to our safeplace...Jay you know the way?"

"Yeah, yeah", Jay's voice drifted from the front of the van.

They were free, but they all knew freedom came at a cost. What the cost would be they would have to find out.