THE SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE

29 FEBRUARY, MONDAY, AFTER REHEARSALS

{Pretty Alpha, what are you doing here?}

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Fluffy's voice popped in my head. I turned to find him just behind me, my script in his hand.

{Shhh... Fluffy, not so loud!} Even though Fluffy was mindlinking.

Fluffy smiled and managed a theatrical whisper through the mindlink, {Is Pretty Alpha looking for her script?}

{Yes, but not now, Fluffy.} I told him, {I think Ki is in trouble.}

I'm not sure why Ki didn't seem keen on taking Madam Silvia out for dessert. Maybe he had a long day and just wanted to go home.

Fluffy joined me behind the curtain to listen in. We weren't really evesdropping. We were just looking out for Ki. I wasn't sure what the big deal was, but I remembered the way Ki's smile had been wiped off suddenly just now and worried.

It wasn't easy to wipe of Ki's smile, especially when he was in his professional mode.

"Hmm...tempting, but Silvia it'll just be dinner tonight." Ki smiled, "You know how my work is like. I'm afraid I'll be pulling another all nighter."

"How about you pull it over at my place after dinner then?" Madam Silvia asked.

{She's so persistent.} Fluffy commented on my head.

I nodded silently. That's true, but why her place? Did she have dessert at home?

Ki laughed, it was a very polished light laugh that I had never heard before, "Silvia, you are a vixen."

Madam Silvia laughed too. Their laughs were matching.

"Then it's a yes?" Madam Silvia asked.

{Don't worry Pretty Alpha, Ki is very experienced at warding off unwanted advances.} Fluffy signalled for us to sneak away about now.

I hesistated. Unwanted ad-what now? I thought we were talking about dessert? Although I doubt anyone could make any dessert that was better than Ki's. Unless she was Esther and it was a bake off, but otherwise, Ki would win hands down... And suddenly, I flashed back to the other time when Harvey was driving me home and I saw... Or at least I thought I saw Madam Silvia put her hand on Ki's butt in our school carpark.

It could be a parallax error. I wasn't sure.

But Ki wasn't smiling then too.

O.o was my beta being sexually harassed by his former high school teacher?

I looked at Fluffy in alarm and grabbed his shirt sleeve, {What should we do?}

{I would recommend giving them some privacy.} Fluffy suggested with his usual smile.

No, but...

And then I heard something I could not quite unhear. A low gutteral growl. Was that Ki? But Ki never growled like that! Madam Silvia then? But female wolves were not usually so... so... This was follow by a purring - which was probably Madam Silvia.

{It's going to be awkward explaining this in my report if we get caught.} Fluffy warned me.

I wanted to leave, I truly did! But my feet wouldn't move. Neither did I let go of Fluffy's sleeve. It was like I just froze there.

And then it stopped. The growling and purring and everything stopped on the other side of the curtain. Had we been caught? I felt my blood run cold.

"Why did you stop, beta?" Madam Silvia whined a little.

"We have reservations at Momoshiro's, and the traffic would slow us if we delay." Ki answered lightly.

"Oh!" Madam Silvia gasped, "You didn't!"

"I wanted something special to thank you for your time." Ki answered smoothly.

Madam Silvia was extremely pleased, "Oh, beta! You really know how to spoil a lady."

Ki laughed, the light and airy laugh I didn't recognize again, "It's my privilege."

Not his pleasure. His privilege. Like spending and afternoon healing random strangers in Winderhill was a "privilege".

I suddenly broke another one of Ki's coded phrases. I only realised this because I had thought he would say it was his pleasure. He often said such to Mum or to me, or Savy... But he said privilege, like he did in the video to the crying mum at the hospital.

I let go of Fluffy's sleeve to storm in and slap some sense into Ki. So much for being an adult and knowing how to take care of himself!

I mean, an afternoon of community service was one thing, but I'll be damned if I let my wolves have to put up with their butts being touched for my sake!

Fluffy caught me by the back of my collar. He was surprisingly strong, {Pretty Alpha, please don't blow our cover.}

By now, EJ was leaning against the wall behind us. (When did he get here?) The gap between the thick curtains and the wall wasn't all that big, but it could conceal a large set piece... Or 3 evesdropping wolves.

EJ shrugged, looking bored, {Can we go now? Big brother beta is waiting at the carpark.}

{Once Keys leaves.} Fluffy promised.

I guess there wasn't any way we could easily slip out now that Ki and Madam Silvia were at the backstage door.

"Beta, I mean what I said about your young Alpha Princess. When she arrives at the Lorent Girl's School this Spring, I'll be sure to recommend her for the gold scholarship badge." Madam Silvia promised.

"As you know, our Alpha Princess is already Lady Amber's personal student, and although I'm uncertain of her sustained participation in theater due to her alpha schedule, I believe your support would certainly be invaluable." Ki said.

"But she has talent, beta! Her stage presence was incredible, I could feel the thrill in my spine - as if I were the one in her shoes! You must be able to work her schedule around the school production in the new semester..."

The lights went out and the backstage door shut...and locked.

I looked back at Fluffy and EJ's equally shocked faces.

What now?

Hahahaha.

"Mou, pretty alpha. Don't laugh!" EJ whined, "We're so dead."

Ikr. We're so dead it was funny.

"Perhaps pretty alpha has a plan to get us out?" Fluffy asked hopefully.

Nope. No plan. I didn't even have a plan to save Ki. How would I know how to save us?

But it turned out that getting out of a locked hall was much easier than getting Ki out of his sticky situation.

Even though the backstage door had a large strong lock that worked from the outside, if we hopped off the stage, the exits of the rest of the hall was locked from the inside.

We got out where the archery club usually assembled if we had to wait for our turn to use the hall for practice. The washrooms where we changed before each practice was on this side of the hall too.

"Whew!" EJ sighed a big breath of relief, "For a moment there, I thought Big Brother Beta was going to chew us out again."

"He still might. We are late." Fluffy smiled.

Actually, Harvey was really going to chew you out. I felt a little bad remembering my plan to ditch them and run away, so I said, "You can tell him that it was my fault. I asked to go to the washroom and made you wait a long time."

"You did?" EJ asked.

I nodded.

"Please wait here." And then I slipped into the girls washroom.

EJ and Fluffy laughed. Sorry, guys! But I'll be heading home on my own today.

Blocking out my mindlinks, I headed straight for the window. We were on the second floor, but I felt quite sure I had seen a ledge run around our school building.

The window took a bit of effort to push open, but it opened wide enough and then the ledge lent itself quite nicely. I carefully made my way around to the back of the school. Here I knew there would be an awning and then the side gate with stairs.

It was a rather quick and uneventful tumble down to the ground. Once my feet hit dirt, I made a run for the side gate, down the long flight of stairs down the side of the hill and across the empty street.

At the last minute, I remembered to turn off my handphone - because, you know, GPS.

And then I was home free in the twisted alleyways - the good old shortcut to Winderhill Station.

Everything was seriously going my way! Even though my short cut through the estate was quieter than usual, the train station was quiet too. There wasn't even a line at the ticketing machines, or the counter where I checked in my visa and ID. In a blink of an eye, I was sailing through the mechanical passenger gates and down the escalator to my platform - to freedom!

Boo howled victoriously inside my heart. Howling out loud would have been stupid. But wow, I had never felt as triumphant as as did right now for outsmarting my three betas.

"Sam?"

I jumped, and then I brightened at the sight of the three guys. Jules, Matt, and Bra was on the otherwise empty train platform.

"Guys!" I beamed. How lucky! This really brought back good memories.

The guys looked around as if searching for ghosts. And then Jules frowned in worry, "Where are your guards, Sam?"

"Not here. I ran away!" I grinned.

"You... ran away... Hahaha." Bra laughed nervously, "Heads are going to roll."

"No, no." I shook my head, "I gave them a good excuse."

Bra didn't look convince.

"Sam, it's dangerous to run around by yourself right now." Jules worried, "Matt says..."

And then Jules caught himself and looked at Matt.

Matt sighed and put on his responsible public announcement face, "It's dangerous for you to run around by yourself AT ANY TIME, but it's even more dangerous right now."

Matt lowered his voice, "Don't tell anyone, but there are hunters in town. Just stay with your guards, and don't leave school without your escort.... Oh fudge it."

Bra laughed, "Too late for that Matt."

Jules managed a wry smile, "I don't suppose you'd tell us where you're running away to, would you?"

"Sure. I'm going home." I said.

"Wait, you're running away... to go home?" Bra asked.

I laughed. He made it sound so funny.

"Yeah. I wanted to take a train today." I said. (And punish my betas a bit.)

Matt's phone buzzed. He sighed, "It's okay. I got it."

I wasn't sure who he was talking to until Jules answered, "Thanks, man."

Then Jules said, "I bet your betas are worried sick."

"I bet your guards are worried to death." Bra interjected.

Our train came and we all got on at the last car, just as we always did.

"I can accompany her to Gate City." Jules said.

Matt nodded to his phone, but said nothing.

"I can go home on my own." I told Jules. I mean, I've been doing this from the beginning right?

"Opps, my stop." Matt looked up as our train slowed at the station. To Jules, he said, "One of her betas would meet you at Gate City."

"I got it. Take care." Jules waved him off.

"Thanks man. Ciao." Matt stepped off the train.

Wait a minute...

"Was Matt just texting with one of my betas just now?" I realised belatedly.

"Sorry, Sam." Jules laughed, "But did you just realized that?"

Grrr....

"Okay, sorry. I really am, but it's dangerous for you to be traveling in public alone now." Jules said.

I crossed my arms.

"Things aren't exactly like before, you know?" Bra nodded uncomfortably towards some of the passengers who were openly staring at us. Then he decided to do something about it and growled lowly so that they looked away.

Jules moved so that his back was to most of the passengers, pretty much blocking me from plain sight, "By tonight, this is going to be all over the internet."

I shook my head. I was sure there were more interesting things to post about.

"I wouldn't know." Bra was shaking his head too.

"Internet still down at your pack?" Jules asked.

"Yeah." Bra sighed, "We still can't get it up. Everytime any device is connected to the network, it blacks out. We've called up countless experts. The diagnosis had been the same each time."

"So you got the diagnosis. What's the hold up?" Jules asked.

"It's some kind of Trojan. Someone brought an infected device to our pack and connected it to the network. Now every device that tries to connect fails." Bra looked desolate, "The last guy that came lost hundreds of quids in equipment trying to crack it. He says it's a race against time, disarm the Trojan before it takes over your hardware."

"Now our last hope would be to find a really good hacker. I mean like a god-level programmer. There are only a few. We managed to get Number4 in but he failed." Bra bemoaned.

"Who's Number4?" Jules asked.

"Oh, it's his code name. I think they all go by code names. Number4's actually ranked number 2." Bra said, "Number4 told us about another guy who could probably beat the Trojan though... Code named Ben10."

"What's with all the numbers?" Jules complained.

"I know right?" Bra laughed now, "They're all geeks though... so... you know."

"So why not hire Ben10?" Jules asked.

"Ben10 is hard to get. He'll only take an order if you can beat him in a challenge. Number4 says he's beaten one of the challenges before, and can probably help us beat another, but it's going to cost us. And Ben10's fees are unpredictable too. My pack is going bankrupt paying these guys."

I'd say. Knowing Ben, he probably charged for whatever he wanted to buy at the time, no matter what the project was. Think super computer and lambo price tags.

"Anyway, it's been a while since Ben10 had been on the forums. Number4 says he'll notify us when he pops up again." Bra sighed.

"Wait, let me get this straight. Number4 couldn't solve the issue so you're going to pay him more money to get his friend to come get paid to try to solve it?" Jules frowned, "Sounds like a scam, man."

"It's not his friend, it's his rival..." Bra protested, and then he shook his head, "I don't know, I'm just the dumb bodyguard. My alpha and beta made the deal."

I felt sorry for Bra. He looked so miserable, "I know Ben10."