Aila walked back down the hallway, her hands and legs tied back up with the silver chains. She more like stumbled through the hall; every couple of steps she took, Connor would yank on the chains harshly, and she would fall over each time and need to crawl on the dirty floor until he would stop and yell at her.

“Get up, mutt!”

Ahead of them, Chase escorted Finn in a much politer way by holding onto his arm, but after the first couple of times Aila fell to the floor, he looked back at her with a sullen expression on his face. When they reached the stairs that led back down to the basement, Aila felt relieved when she wasn’t pushed down the steps. However, when they approached the cells with Ajax and Gabriel gripped to the bars on their arrival, Aila was kept back while the cell door closed on Finn.

Her brows furrowed as she glanced up at Connor, then darted them away when his own lifeless ones caught her looking. He slapped her across the face, the force jolting her head to the side. She watched Chase’s back as he continued to walk towards the stairs. Once she turned her head back, that was when the beat down started. A punch to the gut and immediately to the face sent her flying to the floor.

Aila heard a growl and another inhuman noise echoing through the basement. Still, her primary focus at that moment was the pain radiating through her body as, kick after kick, her muscles screamed out from the onslaught Connor brought on her.

Well, at least it wasn’t her face?

“AH!” She screeched out; tears spilled down her face.

Connor was continuously kicking her in the ribs. The sharp pain turned into a feeling of needles cutting through her; she screamed in agony and begged him to stop. Connor grabbed her by the hair, so they were now facing each other.

“What was that?! Music to my ears, darling! Beg me some more!” Connor spat as he tightened the hold on her hair and smiled while glancing at her tear-stained face.

Another growl and some shaking on the bars caught his attention, giving Aila some time to breathe through the pain.

“Shut it. Or I use wolfsbane on her!” He bellowed to Finn, who paced across the cell. Ajax’s eyes were shining a bright green, and his nails grew into small claws, grasping against the bars. Gabriel was also leaning against the cell, his stare intense, and after focusing on him for a while, Aila could see his eyes going red and veins protruding out from under his eyes, with his fangs out on show.

“Please, Connor, please stop it”, She cried; every breath she was taking became unbearably painful and talking zapped her of her energy.

Connor smirked and raised his free hand, forming it into a fist. As he swung it down, Aila closed her eyes and braced herself.

“ENOUGH!”

Her eyes fluttered open to see Chase holding back Connor’s arm, their eyes locked in an anger-filled battle. Connor shook him off and released Aila’s hair, letting her head hit the floor like a rag doll. She didn’t care; all she wanted to do was crawl into her cell and hideaway.

“Just because you are his son doesn’t mean I take orders from you.”

Connor’s face changed from a red to an unusual beetroot colour, his anger bubbling to the surface as veins pulsed on his neck.

“You will when I am in charge,” Chase answered through clenched teeth.

Aila glanced in the hunters’ direction from the fetal position she was now in on the floor. Connor and Chase were squaring up to each other, chests puffed out; they were both well built, muscles bulging out from their crew neck shirts. For some unknown reason, a tattoo on Chase’s wrist caught her attention, her fog-filled brain zoned in on how it looked; it was a small symbol, the same symbol from the flag she saw. When she looked at Connor, she narrowed her eyes as she saw the same tattoo on his wrist. So, the hunters marked their own, she thought.

“She’s a werewolf, or did you forget? Stop letting her pretty human form fool you. She is not innocent. She is the same kind that murdered your mother!” Connor barked at him.

“I SAID ENOUGH.”

The two men had inched forwards; their hands fisted by their sides.

“Fine. You wait until Silas hears of this,” Connor snapped as he charged away, giving one final kick into Aila’s back before continuing, stamping his feet up the stairs and shutting the metal door with a slam.

“Come on.”

Chase brought his hands down and helped Aila to a sitting position; when she could barely hold her own body up, he put his arms around her and lifted her up to her feet. Her knees buckled under her weight, so he bent down and put his hands under her legs, bringing her in towards his chest. Now she was cradled like a baby. Her head fell to the side as she gasped for breath.

A loud growl erupted from inside the cell.

“I’m just bringing her to the cell Finn.”

Chase opened the door after a little fiddling with the keys and shifting Aila’s near limp body about. Once the door was open, the pacing Finn stopped and instantly came forwards, gently collecting Aila in his arms.

“You’re warm”, Aila murmured, making Finn chuckle.

He walked to the far end of the cell, out of the sunlight from the window and crouched down whilst still cradling Aila and sitting on the floor.

“Thanks, Finn. I can go from here” She mumbled a thanks.

Her face then turned to Chase as he locked the cell door. His face was hard to read as he glanced at her, but he turned around and left without another word. Finn loosened his arms around her, letting her legs go; she was now sitting sideways on his lap. Her eyes widened, and she jerked forwards to move off him, but hissed in pain and automatically fell back; luckily, Finn’s arm was still bearing the weight of her back.

“Let me help you” He sighed.

After some awkward movements between the two, Aila now leaned against the wall, her hand rested on her ribs. She looked at Finn quizzically. She wondered why he placed her on his lap.

“I thought you would prefer to use me as heat, and it’s more comfortable than the damp floor.” He said, his eyes round with innocence.

“Uhuh, sure you did,” Ajax voiced from the side; Aila looked at him and smiled.

“I missed you guys,” She breathed.

“You were only gone for the morning,” Gabriel’s deep voice resonated from the shadows of his cell.

“It felt like an eternity,” She muttered, her eyes stared ahead at nothing in particular.

Gabriel scoffed, “Talk to me when you’ve lived for an eternity.”

Noted.

“Question is, what did you do to be at the hands of Connor’s wrath?” Ajax queried.

“Breathe?” Aila replied, earning a chuckle from Finn and Ajax.

“She turned down a room?” Finn added.

Everyone’s attention was now on Aila; even Gabriel stood in view by the dark end of the cell’s bars. Aila sighed then grimaced, regretting it as pain reshot through her. She hoped her recovery would be quick; she had a plan and could not wait to tell the guys about it.

“It’s a long story,” Her answer warranted a silence as all eyes were still on her, waiting for her to explain. Her eyes flickered up to the high grey ceiling as she put all the information she learnt from today together in her head.

Finally, she spoke, “They need my blood to recreate werewolves they can train. To wipe the earth of all creatures.”

“They are building an army,” Ajax murmured.

“There’s more,” Her voice dropped down to a whisper while her eyes surveyed their surroundings. “I was able to look outside, openly actually, with Silas in the room-“

“Who’s Silas?” Ajax interrupted.

“The boss,” Finn responded.

“Anyway, we are on some type of a military base; there is CCTV across a fence surrounding the perimeter. Guards were placed at the entrance of an empty parking lot, and trees spread far past the entrance, a long road leading to here.” Aila continued in her hushed tone; she caught her breath and pushed past the constant pain.

“So, you are giving up on your escape plan?” Gabriel guessed.

Aila turned her head to his direction, her brows furrowing together.

“We knew you were putting one together. We all did it in our first week here.” Gabriel continued.

“I have not told you MY escape plan,” Her eyes gleamed with a mischievous smile on her lips.

“Please do tell, oh, chosen one.” Ajax fake bowed, making her roll her eyes.

“I found a room with a bunch of equipment. Monitors for the CCTV cameras, controls for the air ducts, for everything. I have also been exploring the air ducts from the female toilets upstairs, but I can only go so far in three minutes,” Aila whispered, “There is also a camera in here.”

“Best to keep whispering. We can hear you,” Ajax spoke softly.

“So, my plan is to get to that control room, turn off the air ducts, CCTVs, unlock the basement door, then leave through the air ducts?” After hearing her say it out loud, she questioned her own plan. It was a lot.

“First part of the plan sounds good. The second part sounds terrible. We cannot climb through air ducts. One, you are a lot smaller than us. Two, it would take far too long, and three, it’s filthy up there,” Ajax complained, his emerald, green eyes flickered to the ceiling in disgust as though he could already see the dirt in the air ducts.

“Afraid it will ruin your fashionable coveralls?” Finn smirked.

“Ah, I see. Okay.” Ajax directed his words in Gabriel’s direction before turning himself to face the wall while he stretched his arms up and leaned his body one way then the other.

“Gabriel said there is another flaw in your plan.”

“Oh?” Aila glanced in Gabriel’s direction, but he disappeared again into the shadows.

“How are you going to get to the control room? You turned down staying in the room upstairs,” Finn commented while he lied down on his back, staring at the window behind Aila.

“I needed to tell you guys about this plan. The only way to do that was to refuse the room. But I can always beg to have it back. Once we have a full-proof plan,”

“If you can last through Connor’s beatings,” Ajax added.

“He can’t kill me. I am ‘too important to them’. ” Aila pulled her hoody and tank top up to reveal her already bruised up ribs; the darkened area was spreading across her body from where she was kicked.

“Doesn’t mean it won’t hurt though, Aila,” Finn said gravely; his eyes were full of concern while he looked at her bruised body. She pulled the hoody back down.

“Gabriel says if you turn the air ducts off first, then the drug keeping him weak will be out of his system, and he can help us all escape. With vampiric speed and strength. He says he has been here so long that they have become lazy and forgotten who he is. Their weapons are solely for werewolves.” Ajax said as he assessed his nails.

“There were at least fifty people out there today. You can’t take on that many,” Aila whispered, she glanced back at Gabriel’s cell, and he appeared at the bars with a smug smile on his lips,

“Want to bet?”

Aila’s eyes widened; if he was so strong, how did they capture him.

“Gabriel, how did they take you?”

“They caught me in a compromising position,” He mused.

Aila’s eyes widened at the thought of him being in bed with someone, and the hunters busted down the door or-

“No, it was nothing like that.” Gabriel tutted.

What the fu-

“I was siring a new vampire. The process takes 24 hours; they, unfortunately, caught her and used her as bait.”

Why would he give his life for hers?

“We become very attached to our newborns. For the first month anyway. It is similar to a mother’s indistinct. Once our blood is in their veins, we are always connected and become protective. So, I surrendered, stupidly and in the hopes of killing them in the car, but they injected me with that drug, weakening me, and in front of me, she was staked through the heart.” He looked away and removed his hands from the bar.

“I’m so sorry, Gabriel.”

After a moment of silence, Aila’s mind caught up with her again.

Wait, can he read minds?!

“Yes.”

Still not entirely convinced, Aila asked another question in her head.

Can all vampires read minds?

“Only ones from the royal bloodline.”

Her lips parted in shock, and she looked back at his darkened cell.

Royal? What does that mean? How many royal vampires are there?

“That’s confidential. Vampires only.”

She sighed, grimacing again at the shooting pain in her ribs.

“Okay. So, do we have a plan?” She asked.

“If Gabriel is as strong as he says he is, and it isn’t just his arrogance talking. Then yes. Yes, we do,” Ajax smiled like the Cheshire cat out of Alice in Wonderland.

“When?” Finn asked.

“Give me until tomorrow. I think that will be convincing enough for me to beg to go back to the room and away from Connor. We can go through the plan again tonight after lights out?”

They nodded their heads in agreement.

“Who would have thought, all we needed was a girl.” Ajax brought his hand through the bars and pretended to lightly punch her jaw.

“A woman, Ajax. I am a woman.” She corrected with her head held high.

Ajax chuckled then lied down on the floor. Aila stared up at the dull ceiling; excitement began to brew in her now slightly damaged body.

“It’s not going to be easy, but it’s the best chance we have.”