Meeting Her

One word to define the current situation, STUPID - the only thought running through Alpha Ryan’s head. His whole body hurt like hell, transpiring in and out of consciousness. ‘Shit, Shit, Shit,' he damned himself. To fall into an obvious trap was unforgivable. Being an Alpha, he could not afford to make mistakes, but here he was in a cell, God knows where the place was? Ryan shook his head a few times trying to focus and peered through the dark, trying to figure out where he was held. A few whimpering sounds were heard making him realize he was not the only one in the dungeon. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he slowly made out the silhouettes of a few prisoners. He tried to move his arms around, Pain shot through his whole body again.

‘Damn these Bastards!' he cursed. They had chained him with cuffs made of silver, preventing him from accessing his wolf's strength. He felt his whole body drained of energy; his wolf was unable to heal him.

Luka, his beta, lay chained to one side of the wall on his right, with Sam and Daniel - his third and fourth in command. He found a few other wolves tied up in the same way. Ryan was unable to recognize them. Further surveying the place he saw there were three female wolves among them. His rage was starting to build up noticing the state of those girls. All three were young, presumably going to middle school. Luka stirred beside him, a low growl emanated from him, recognizing the handcuffs he started cursing.

"Ryan!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah, I'm right here."

“Where the hell are we?” he asked.

Before he could answer the whimpering turned into crying. They turned their heads around to find two of the girls crying their hearts out, but the third girl remained quiet. Grunts erupted from a few other people who were coming to their senses. Ryan finally took note of the place they were in. At first, he thought it was a dungeon, but as his eyes adjusted he found it was more of a cell and it looked like it was in a basement. There were no windows, only one iron door, locked. The only light coming into the room was a small ventilation shaft near the roof. The walls and roof were quite old with lots of dust and paints worn out. The stench of mildew made him gag. If one can look closely, there were lots of dried blood stains on the walls and floors; they were not the first ones to be held there.

Daniel - his third in command tried to start a conversation with the prisoners next to him, but none responded.

"Looks like, they were here long before us," Luka observed. Their eyes had a deadpan look like they have given up all hopes of escaping this place. Ryan counted a total of twelve people, including him.

"Damn! We should have realized it was a trap; the bait was just too easy," remarked Daniel. "I am sorry guys," Sam apologized ruefully. "If not for me, we would not have been in this mess.”

Sam was quite impulsive out of all of them. He jumps into a situation without thinking and always gets into a mess. Ryan couldn’t blame him, though. As an Alpha, he should have waited to assess the situation first, but threw caution to the wind and followed the bait. He was in a hurry to uncover the mysterious disappearances in his pack.

“It’s alright,” he assured him. But was wondering, how they were going to get out of this mess, considering they were all practically helpless. The silver handcuffs, cut off their wolf's senses, it was like they were wandering blindly. Ryan almost resented how much they all depended on their wolves.

Then they heard it. Sounds of boots walking down the stairs. As if on cue, all the crying and whimpering stopped. Ryan could effectively smell the fear rolling of these wolves. All were silent when the door opened. Two men stepped in; they were dragging a body behind them. The scent of fresh rain and earth hit Ryan strong. He did a double take and almost leaped out from his crouched position. They threw the body in the middle of the room, laughed and walked out. Ryan let out a growl involuntarily, seeing the way they handled the prisoner.

The girl was lying on her stomach and facing away from him. Her messy short hair, spread loosely around her. For some reason, Ryan desperately wanted to have a look at her face. His wolf, who was dormant till then started to stir weakly, getting restless. He wanted to get out of the bonds and help her, but failing to do so was making him very annoyed.

"What's gotten into you man?" exclaimed Luka.

But Ryan could not explain his actions; He did not understand it himself. The girl stirred a few minutes later. Turned around a bit, sat up too suddenly - let out a string of curses and caught hold of her head. It was then that Ryan saw it. Her head was bleeding furthermore, it was already bandaged. Her blood soaked through the bandages, spreading out. He remained too stunned to speak. The sudden smell of her blood was an assault to his senses.

Once the girl got her bearings, she looked around the room, her eyes passing over the men and landing on the three girls huddled together. Instead of being frightened or delirious at where she was, she rose, dusted off her pants and walked purposefully towards the girls and asked in a calm voice, "So, which one of you is Erza?" The three girls froze, but none of them answered. "Well?” she waited impatiently; they just stared at her blankly.

She gave an exasperated sigh. "You girls are making me do this the hard way." She pulled up each of the girl's chin to have a look at her face. She stopped with the third girl and asked "Erza Hart?" The girl looked very scared, spoke in a small voice barely audible, "Ho... How do you know? Who are you?”

The newcomer simply smiled, "I'm here to get you out." She removed her left shoe, slipping out a small phone.

"Great! She has a phone, I wonder how they missed it," said Daniel. She dialed and said just two words "I am in."

Evelyn looked around and flinched a bit placing a hand over her stomach, Damn! Those men had hit her too hard; her stomach still hurt from the wounds of her previous battle. The bandages held them good, but if she pushed too hard, she might reopen her wounds. For now, she had to concentrate on her current task. Step one of her plans was complete. She had approached these two rogues patrolling the area, like a helpless victim, stumbling around the woods with her bandages. They took one look at her and thought she was from the group that tried to escape the previous day. Caught her and dragged her to the cell, just as she predicted. Now the only thing left to do was to get the girl out, return her to her father, the mission will be completed.

She looked around the cell after informing the girl’s father. There were several other wolves imprisoned. She took a deep breath, pausing to sniff the scent that kept assailing her senses, demanding her to look behind since the time she had woken up. It was a unique scent of musk and lemons; belonged to one of the male wolves. She curbed her urge. She was here only to get the girl, anything else was not important.

Evelyn pulled Erza to her feet, cut the ropes binding her hands behind her using her pocket knife which she always carried. "Get ready to leave, follow my instructions. We will be out of here in no time." She moved towards the entrance of the cell to check for the guards. The girl named Erza just froze and looked at her like she had grown two heads.

"But... But..." she stammered.

"But what?" asked Evelyn in a tone that bore no arguments.

Erza gulped at the harsh tone, "What about the others? Are you not going to help them?"

Evelyn narrowed her eyes at her, "I came here only to get you and not the others." The other two girls gasped at her reply.

"No you can’t leave us here," one of them yelled.

"Please help us. Don’t leave us here," they begged.

Evelyn did not bother to acknowledge and started to drag Erza to the entrance. Ezra was frightened, but stood her ground. She refused to budge and snatched her hand from Evelyn's grasp and yelled, "I'm not leaving them or anybody else here. If you don’t want to help them, I am not coming with you."

An irritated look crossed her face as she stalked closer to Erza, speaking in a deadly voice, "Listen, your father paid only for you to be rescued and not the others. I did not get any payment to help the others, so shut up and leave here with me.”

Witnessing her cold gaze, Erza backed away two steps shivering, but held her ground. "If it’s money you want, I can ask my father to pay for the others, once you get all of us out of here. I give you my word... he will pay," she pleaded.

Evelyn raised one of her eyebrows, 'Hmm, the kid did have a bit of backbone.'

"Look! You don’t have to help us, just cut our chains and we can help ourselves," one of the four guys chained to the wall yelled.

Evelyn refused to acknowledge him and started to drag Erza to the entrance. She started to hit and scratch Evelyn's arm, but it seemed to have no effect. Her frantic actions to stall,  triggered the urge to get free in the other inmates. Within seconds there was an uproar within the cell. They began to yell and shout, begging her to get them out.

‘Shit!' Thought Evelyn. All that noise was going to get the guards to them faster.

Abruptly one voice was heard above all, "Why do you refuse to look at me?" The voice held so much authority that Evelyn couldn’t control her reaction and turned to look at one of the guys chained to the wall. She stared straight into a pair of aqua-blue eyes and froze.