Red String {EDITING}

Chapter One | The Way Back Home

Terrible things happened there, but the memories of that place had long since blurred into a painful mess of the red of her blood and the eggshell white of her bones poking through her pale pinkish skin. Though it hadn't been very pinkish when her blood was mostly spilled around her in large puddles.

Pushing those memories to one side, Lyra crept forward, ignoring the sheer coldness of the tiles beneath her feet. It would be far colder out in the snow, she knew that much. Though that would only affect her before she shifted. Furs and paws were tougher for the elements to affect than feet and skin.

Her fingers scratched at her neck, the phantom pain of her non-existent scars coming to life and whispering of what the consequences of defiance would be. "But only if I do not escape," she breathed, padding along the corridor, sticking to the shadows as best she could. She drifted like a silent ghost befitting of the nature of her job. Arriving outside another door identical to the one she'd just left through, she inserted the key and opened it with another loud click.

The sudden slapping of feet against tile made her wince. Lyra resisted the overwhelming urge to grimace. "Keep quiet," she hissed lowly, her brown eyes meeting the gaze of two so dark they looked almost black. Her hair matched, an inky shade of black, which only served to make her own brilliantly red locks stand out like a sore thumb. "Or do you wish to get caught?"

Gwen, otherwise known to her as Eleven, smiled sheepishly as she spoke far too loudly for Lyra's tastes. "Sorry about that."

"Keep it down you blithering idiot," she snarled almost silently. "Don't think I won't leave you or the other one behind if you make a racket."

In all honesty, Lyra wasn't sure entirely what made her want to bring along the other two captives Omega Taurus held. Actually that was a lie – they'd serve some purpose as a distraction should they get caught, and that was the only reason she'd allowed them onboard with her little plan. There was no way she was risking her chance at freedom for two idiots. Though she supposed she could hardly blame them for all their lack of stealthy abilities. The pair of them were grouped together when given their assignments, and more often than not they were those of melee and direct combat instead of the sleuthing she did in the shadows.

"Did the Weaver twist the threads in your knickers or something?" Gwen asked, still smiling like a fool, and Lyra wasted no time in wrenching the girl's scarf away from her neck.

"Talk too loudly, and we will all be caught," she said, all but gagging the irritating fool with her well-worn white scarf – a sharp contrast against her umber skin. "So don't bother untying that if you know what's good for you."

Gwen nodded, mumbling something but it was lost to the layers of fabric wrapped around her mouth.

"Now, let's go and get Three, whatever her real name is," Lyra grumbled, ignoring the pointed mutter of Gwen. "You have all your things packed, yes?"

Gwen nodded, blurting something else out, and Lyra stared back at her blandly, glaring daggers at the taller girl as she simply stood in the middle of the corridor. Stealth with her around was apparently a lost cause, though it was of no great matter. She'd already taken into account the plan for the melee imbeciles.

"I smuggled my supplies out weeks ago," she answered quietly, reaching the third and final door they needed to unlock. "They're stashed out by our exit point, now shut up and keep your damned lips shut."

She pulled the door open with barely a sound, revealing a shivering blonde who stood even shorter than herself. Lyra was about average height though, so it wasn't saying much.

"Come on then," she hissed, glaring down at the blue-eyed blonde who was simply standing on the threshold of the corridor with a stupefied look on her face. "We haven't got all day – there's a twenty minute window, and we're already five minutes in."

Three did nothing.

Lyra felt her face twitch. "We need to leave now," she said, but Three was still frozen and shivering in her metaphorical boots. She was wasting time they didn't have, and Lyra couldn't find the patience to deal with her at that moment in time. They needed to be decisive. Indecision let targets get away, and if Lyra's targets escaped, then it meant punishment. Indecision had been beaten out of her, though it seemed Three hadn't had the luxury of that treatment. "Get out, or I will shut the door and lock you back inside."

Gwen clamped a hand on her shoulder, all but shoving her out of the way to rest her hands on Three's shoulders. She mumbled soothing sounds underneath the scarf, and Lyra fought the desire to leave them behind and be done with it. It hardly mattered to her that one of them would no doubt take her place as the plaything of that man and all his schemes. It didn't matter at all.

"Move it," she hissed, the sound of a ticking clock invading her ears as she waited for Gwen to pull Three out of whatever stupor she'd wound up stuck in.

It couldn't have taken longer than a minute for Gwen to persuade her, but to Lyra it felt like an eternity. Her patience was worn thin, as were her nerves. Every slap of their feet against the tile beneath them made her want to leave them there. They knew nothing about stealth, and Lyra was only thanking the gods their luck held out as they reached the exit point she'd decided on so many moons ago.

She pulled the window open, nearly sighing in relief when no alarms sounded. They were still in the clear, and still safely on their way to freedom.

Gwen wasted no time in leaping out into the icy winds, landing lightly on her feet. The sound was still far too loud for Lyra's tastes – though it was barely a whisper compared to the squeak and thud made by Three as Lyra grew tired of her indecisiveness. Shoving her out the with her foot made everything that much faster, even if the quivering idiot made too much noise. A small bit of noise was a tiny price to pay for not missing their window of opportunity.

Lyra clambered out onto the windowsill, quietly pulling the window to before she jumped down to join her companions. Snow crunched under her bare toes as she landed even more quietly than Gwen, breath misting in the chilly night air. "Shift," Lyra ordered, her voice carried away on the howling winds as she pawed through the thick layer of snow until she found the small waterproofed bag she'd stowed there so many weeks ago. Hurriedly, she peeled off her thin layer of clothing, stuffing the threadbare clothing into the bag. It wasn't much – just a simple grey shirt and white trousers. They looked more like pyjamas than anything substantial.

Wind and snow pelted against her bare skin for a few brief moments before the change took over. Porcelain white skin was concealed by a thick hide covered in brilliant red fur, hands becoming smaller paws, her line of sight dropping to half of that of her furless form. She became a wolf, though there was no possible way she could be mistaken for one of the moon-born natural wolves. Werewolves were larger, with a far more intelligent gleam to their eyes.

A low growl rumbled in her throat, dark brown eyes narrowing on the slightly smaller black wolf and the even tinier blonde wolf staring back at her. Lyra ducked down, picking her bag up with her teeth, inclining her head towards the pair before she slunk into the neat row of bushes between the building they'd jumped out of and the road still between them and the forest.

Her paws were even more silent in the snow-covered ground than her feet would have been. They were that much warmer too, and Lyra padded through the thicket. Her eyes were narrowed, ears pressed flat against her skull as she poked her nose out from under the cover of the bright green leaves. Clear. The road was clear, and it would be for another three minutes.

Lyra wasted no time in slinking out from the bushes, glad the snow had been cleared otherwise their tracks would've been that much more obvious. As it was, Lyra darted over the road, diving into the bushes overhanging the road ever so slightly. It would be enough the cover their tracks going to and from the road – at least until they realised they had escaped.

Her measures would never fool a trained tracker, and those were who would be sent after them. But by that time they would be far away from there. Sparing a glance behind her at the quivering blonde wolf and the black one all but dragging her along by the scruff of her neck – Lyra only sighed. Well, she hoped they would be.