Time. It is a callous, fickle thing Thea was sure took pleasure in seeing the people wading through it suffer. Though it was nigh impossible to gauge how long had truly passed, at best, she figured no more than two days could have gone by since she last endured what inevitably lurked beyond the large, double doors of the massive lab. However long it really was, one thing was for sure: they had never brought her back so quickly. 
	Thea felt sick. She dragged her feet as the guards gripping her pulled her forward. Further down the hall lined with lamps, she could make out the corpse of a burly man discarded against the wall across from the door leading to the lab.
	They had not even bothered to fully dispose of their most recent victim yet. 
	Thea scrunched her eyes shut and grit her teeth for a moment. She would [i]not[/i] go back there. She had promised herself that much. 
	Gaillard jerked her forward, making her groan. “Hurry [i]up![/i]” His voice turned the last word into more of a squeal than a threat. 
	At last, her opportunity to escape drawing to a close with each passing moment, Gaillard moved his hand from her neck and swiftly slid it down her arm to grip the organic metal, ready to toss her inside the lab.
	She let out a shaky exhale and opened her eyes. Her jaw set, and she tried to prepare herself for what she knew her next actions would cause her.
	“Sorry, Skunk Breath,” she growled, a tremor sneaking into her voice, “but I’m done.”
	Before the guards could fully register her words, Thea planted her feet firmly on the floor, hunched back, and yanked her arms back and down out of their tight grasps.
	The unfamiliar guard’s gauntlet dug into the soft skin of her right arm as it pulled free, leaving white lines in their wake that bled where they intersected with her raw wrist. Her left came easily from Gaillard’s grip, the scrape of metal sliding against metal ringing around them. The moment she was free, she balled her left hand into a tight fist as Gaillard, cursing, reached for his sword.
	Before he could back off enough to safely draw it, she slammed her fist into his face, the metal bulging slightly with the tensing of the muscles beneath.
	No amount of mental preparation could have readied her for the pure, white-hot agony that exploded down her arm on impact. It radiated up to her neck and down her side, making her stomach churn, dark spots speckle her vision, and head pound with a vengeance. It felt like every bone in her arm had shattered. But she knew better.  Her scream rang loud and shrill in her ears, echoing down the stone halls as Gaillard was sent sprawling back from the force of her attack, and smacked hard into the wall behind him. He slid to the floor with a clatter of armor against stone, either unconscious or dead, blood gushing from his crushed nose. 
	Body trembling and vision blurred, it took all her willpower to remain standing, each heavy, groaning breath escaping loudly through her clenched teeth. She turned on the second guard, who had backed away toward the lab door. The hazy sight of him swam in front of her, darkness toying dangerously across the edges of her vision.
	With a quick glance to his fallen companion, the guard turned and bolted toward the lab.
	Thea knew at least some of her limits. There was no way she could catch the guard, and even if she could, the Sages had likely heard her cry and would be there any moment. Without wasting a second, as soon as he turned his back, Thea ran as fast as her burning legs would carry her in the opposite direction, her right hand clutching her left arm to her side where it hung limply, fingers curled stiffly, claw-like.
	Each step sent an angered stab through her side and weary legs. They threatened to give out each time her feet slapped against the rough floor, barely capable of holding her own weight, but dire necessity urged them on. If she was in the open when the guards came after her, that would be it. She could [i]maybe[/i] outrun a caffeinated slug. And once the Sages got involved in the search…
	The thought made her already queasy stomach threaten to empty itself. She did not want to even imagine what they would do to her if they found her. She needed to find somewhere to hide. And fast.
	She turned down the corridor leading to the other cellblock. If she remembered right, there was a door there that did not need magic to open, and the only science necessary was the knowledge of how to turn a handle. As long as it was unlocked, that was.
	Angered voices rose down the hall. Voices that made her blood run cold and her heart forget to beat.
	“She WHAT?” the orotund, pompous voice of the Sage Scientist reverberated down the halls, the sound enough to make Thea’s knees at last give out.
	She fell to the floor, hard. Her vision turned black for a precious second when her landing jarred her body, making the internal flames consume her. She clamped her mouth shut against the scream that tried to make its way out, but fear the Sages would hear and follow the echo to her was enough on its own to keep her suffering in silence.
	“FIND HER!” the Sage Scientist roared. Thea was sure his words had carried to every part of the dungeon within a half mile radius.
	Breathing heavily, her world spinning in a haze of grays, browns, and the glow of the lamps, she forced herself to her hands and knees. Her stomach lurched, and she swallowed back bile that burned in the back of her throat. She avoided using her left arm, every little twitch reminding her of the cost of her impromptu escape plan. If she could even [i]call[/i] it a plan at this point. Part of the metal-like plates encompassing her left leg like a second skin from a couple inches atop her foot to where it extended beneath her nightdress scraped against the stone floor, making her flinch, but the Scientist’s voice carried over it.
	“[i]Bring her back.[/i] ALIVE!”
	“But make it known,” the softer, yet sinister and chilling voice of the Sage Mage reached her. Thea had never been sure whether it was more feminine or masculine. “If anyone so much as scratches her, I’ll see to it personally their fate’s worse than [i]that[/i] pathetic fool’s!”
	Not sure if the Mage was implying Gaillard or the corpse of the Sages’ last victim, Thea managed to get to her feet. Trembling violently, every muscle and bone in her screaming in agonizing protest, she miraculously made it to the door to the clatter of guards’ feet from off in the distance as they rushed to see what had caused the Sages’ outburst.
	The door was a rickety looking thing, its wood partially rotted out in the top corner. And probably the first place the guards would stop to look. But it was better than nothing, and she felt herself fading. She could not hold up much longer.
	Holding her breath, she turned the knob and pushed the door open just far enough to slip inside. Once it closed behind her, she leaned against it carefully, momentary testing her weight on it before she slid to the floor with a soft groan, her face twisted in pain. She tried to listen as the footsteps grew nearer, confused voices of the guards running together in a disorientating jumble, but she could not focus on them, the sounds seeming distant in her ears.
	She did not have the time to take in her new surroundings before unconsciousness won the fight she waged against it. As the guards passed obliviously by her hiding place, she slipped unwillingly into the familiar dark abyss of pain-induced slumber.