Escape:
Shortie by Lone Wolf
Starring: Ashley Williams

~I can escape~

	My head pounded. 
	My body ached. 
	And, to make matters worse, I was in deep trouble.

	The mission was supposed to be simple - go in, vanquish a few guards, 
and blow a drug lab sky high. We all knew that. We had everything surveyed, 
plotted, and ready to go. But we didn't accomidate for the sudden arrival of 
thirty extra men to help move a major load of drugs. Tabitha and I were 
caught off guard. And we were caught.

	"Ashley, you okay?" Tabitha asked me. I sat up and held my head. 
"Good. You're alive."
	"Tabitha, where are we?" I asked. My tail flicked angrily. I was not 
used to having my head pounded in.
	"We're in a cell." She looked around. "Pretty shabby if you ask me. 
The walls look frail." She gave one a knock. "Yep. They are." She sighed, 
her white and black striped tail lowering slightly.
	"What's up, Tabby?"
	"I dunno. I guess I'm just a little disappointed that we got caught. 
It feels strange to be on the captured end of the game." She huffed and 
rested her head on her knees. "I wonder what happens now."
	"That's easy," I said, removing the buckle on my belt. "We don't wait 
to see what happens and bust out of here." I played with it a bit until it 
turned into the standard issue "back-up" firearm we all carried. "You with?"
	She smiled weakly. "Yeah."
	I leaned against the bamboo bars that held us to see if anyone was 
around before I knelt down next to her and gave her a hug. "We'll be fine. 
Remember, we've been through worse."
	She unclipped her buckle and flicked it into it's firearm form. 
"Okay." I took careful aim at the lock to our prison and fired. The gate 
flew open. It would be a long fight.

	By pulling our buckles, we knew that a signal had been sent to 
headquarters to send assistance in our recovery. They had a lock on us and 
they weren't going to let us go. But we still had to go get our firearms. We 
knew where they were being held - the other side of the compound. The 
problem was getting them.

	The heavy, hot jungle air weighed down on us. Even at night, this 
place was horrible. So it really pissed us off when we saw troops heading 
our way. "This is really starting to bug me," I growled as I raised the 
small pistol and opened fire.
	"Tell me about it," Tabitha said. "This is murder on my hair."
	I chuckled. "Shoot now, joke later." I fired off another round. It hit 
a guy in the head, causing him to subsequently collapse. "C'mon, this way." 
I motioned towards a staircase, just as the other guys on the ground opened 
fire on us. We dodged shots as we ran - almost tumbled - down the stairs and 
into the darkness.

	We traveled around the perimeter of the compound. We knew the nearest 
Hunter force was a half an hour away, so we had to remain low profile for at 
least 25 more minutes. But we also had to recover our equipment. That was 
top priority. But how were we going to do it.
	"Take a look," Tabitha said, pointing to a building. People were going 
in and coming out armed. "That looks like a storehouse. That must be where 
they're keeping everything."
	"Agreed," I said. "But how do we get there without getting caught?"
	She set her mind to work on figuring out how. "The roof. It's thatched. 
If we can get atop it, we can slip in unnoticed. But how can we do that?"
	I looked up the building we were hiding behind. "Climb up here and hop 
over when the guards aren't looking."
	She nodded. "Gotcha." I gave her a quick hoist up to the roof, and she 
helped me up. We watched down below us cautiously.

	It took us a good twenty minutes to get to the storeroom roof. Lucky 
for us, we weren't caught. Even luckier was the fact there was a hole in the 
roof. Building material was strewn about to repair the hole. We slipped in 
quietly, landing gracefully and hiding behind some crates. My eyes quickly 
scanned the room in search of our weapons. "There," I said quietly, pointing 
to two heavily armed guards standing in front of a glass crate. In the crate 
was our firearms.
	"I see them," Tabitha said. "Let's sneak around, off the guards, and 
grab the guns."
	I nodded. "Sounds good." We started to move. The guards remained 
oblivious to our movement. But as soon as we got close enough, it became a 
problem. They turned and saw us. We didn't hesitate to pump a slug each into 
their skulls. A firefight broke out.

	Tabitha smashed the glass crate. "Ashy!" she shouted, tossing me my 
firearm. I caught it, aimed, and fired. Somebody on their side fell. We had 
less than two minutes until help arrived. We ducked as soon as we heard an 
explosion above us. Someone had thrown a molotov cocktail (or other such 
firebomb, I'm not sure what it was) onto the roof. The simple grass-roofed 
hut caught fire instantly.
	"Tabitha, through the wall," I shouted. We nodded and shoulder rammed 
our way through the soft wood, right into the path of an approaching 
batallion. We opened fire before they could respond, but didn't have enough 
time to save our skins. We were forced to start running. We kept firing as 
we went along. But everywhere we turned, we met up with troops. We quicky 
bounded from corner to corner, wasting who we could and running from who we 
couldn't.

	We turned our final corner for the evening and met with a dead end. We 
turned to see the enemy before us. Our backs went to the wall, our firearms 
in front of us. "Shit," I muttered. "This is it." I tried to take a deep 
breath, but the moist, hot air made it impossible.
	"I guess this is goodbye," Tabitha said.
	"Yeah. Thanks for being a true friend, Tabitha."
	She shut her eyes. "I love you, Ashley."
	I smiled. "I love you too."

	There was a sudden explosion. People screamed. We both looked up to 
see helicopters flying overhead. Missiles were launched and buildings 
exploded. People died. Suddenly, Hunters of all sorts leaped from the 
copters, landing and opening fire. The calvary was here. We added to the 
Hunter firepower, eventually decimating the pitiful drug runner forces that 
held us captive just a half an hour ago...

	I collapsed on my bed the moment I got into my quarters. I dripped 
with sweat and blood - most of it not mine. I was tired, achy, and a bit 
down in the dumps. That was one of the rare instances where I was taken 
prisoner. I went into the bathroom, stripped down to nothing, and dried off 
the sweat with a towel. I had no time for a shower, though I desired it. I 
shuffled over to my bed and crawled in.
	The door slid open. "Ashley?" Tabitha's voice asked softly.
	I shut my eyes. "Yes?"
	"You got a spare place?" She was as rattled as I was about being 
captured. We knew that would be the only thing the others were going to be 
talking about tomorrow. We could have used each other's company at that 
moment in time.
	I moved over. "Shut the door and crawl in. You're more than welcome." 
She did just that, curling up against me. I put my arms around her and gave 
her a gentle kiss. To care about what signals I was sending was to care 
about who won the 1992 World Series - pretty stupid considering it was 
almost 200 years later. She just needed a friend to comfort her about a 
moment of insecurity.

	I needed it too. I didn't mind sleeping with her that night.

End
Ashley Williams and Tabitha Evans are © Lone Wolf and <([ Lone Wolf Studios 
])> (30 min)
See you next time around folks,
	-Ashley Williams and Tabitha Evans