Chapter Fifty-Eight—Diversion

The night did not turn colder, but preceding events had caused the sweat to rise on his skin and soak into his clothing, a dampness that drew the heat away from him to be lost into the air in a gentle, curling evaporation. It set a chill deep into his flesh that his muscles sought to temper by tremors.

It could not be the sickness that afflicted him before...there had been no mental contact between them other than what normally occurred. Normally. Snape's mouth twisted. As if anything that occurred tonight had been normal!

He turned from the street where Parr had fled from him, as intent on leaving place as well as circumstance, passing through insipid pools of street light and stretches of shadow. Little this night had been anything but disastrous, and it wasn't over. There was still the dangerous task of masquerading as the fat apoth ahead of him. It had been a less than ideal run up to such a delicate task, but circumstance dictated that Snape had little choice in the matter. When in such situations, there was little advantage in stewing on his inability to control events. All he could do was deal with what crumbs were left. It had been a difficult lesson to learn, but one that had proven to him that the chance to obtain something more substantial than crumbs was possible...one could always use them to lure bigger prey.

A flicker at the edge of his vision halted his swift progress down the quiet street. It had been low to the ground, soundless, and heading in the same direction as he was. A cat, perhaps. Snape resumed his path toward the small park that he and Parr had stopped in briefly before Apparating to the dead Unspeakable's home. It would provide enough shelter for him to Apparate back to Hogwarts for the Polyjuice Potion. The apoth would undoubtedly be already waiting for him at his shop in Knockturn Alley.

The second flicker confirmed that something other than a cat was following him. There had been enough distinction to the shadow this time: bi-pedal and not much larger than a small child, but no child could move so soundlessly. Instinct screamed at him to Apparate, but to do so midway down a street with houses that showed too many lights was too much of a risk. He would have to wait until he reached the cloaking screen of the park.

Snape lengthened his stride incrementally so as not to alarm his follower but to also hasten his approach to the park and eventual safety. A crawling sensation between his shoulder blades was a nasty development of his suspicion; whomever it was that was trailing him was far more likely to be foe than friend.

He turned a corner. Odd, though. If the shadow had stayed behind him, he might not have ever known he was being followed. So, the individual was either careless or cunning. Was it possible that he was being herded in a particular direction? Hard to tell, since the eventual destination would be the same in either case.

The park slipped out from the dark ahead. A car drove by, heading in the opposite direction on some unknown errand. Snape waited just long enough for it to pass him by before he crossed the street, heading for the cover of the scrubby hawthorn bushes in the park.

The figure standing by the pitted wooden bench stopped him dead.

The lighting was poor here. Although the plane trees had shed their leaves some weeks ago, their bare branches, coupled with the scrubby hedges, were able to block out enough of the feeble street lighting, leaving the centre of the small park mottled in various strengths of darkness.

Although the height of a small child, it was definitely no child. The proportions and volumes were all wrong. The manner in which the figure was standing was too poised, too confident. The problem was that such a manner was also incongruous with whom, or what, the figure seemed to be. Heavy shadowing around the eyes failed to occlude the size of the eyeballs, and the head was tilted enough to one side to show the length of the nose. The diminutive figure remained just long enough to be certain that Snape had seen them before it turned, the dark hair gathered into a single plait flaring out from its back as it slipped back into the deeper shadows.

Snape didn't know what was more disturbing: that this figure had been the one following him and had managed to travel ahead to meet him at his destination or that this figure was not the only one of its kind that concerned itself with his whereabouts. Regardless, the involvement of such an individual alarmed him. They never occupied themselves in the affairs of anyone beyond their immediate masters, and they were never seen unless they wanted to be. Even rarer was one who was no longer indentured in servitude, but the clothing he had seen could not possibly have been worn by one who did not determine the course of their own life.

The incongruity of the facts gave him pause enough to allow him to see the object resting on the seat of the bench, right next to where the figure had been standing: an envelope. Meant for him? There was only one way to find out, but he wasn't prepared to go over and fetch it. Far too much of what was occurring here was suspicious. A Summoning Charm set the envelope in his hand a fraction of a second before he Apparated to safer ground.

Standing inside the heavy iron gates to the school grounds, Snape read the letter once more. There was no indication that the information it contained was for him, but the cipher in which the message was written left him in little doubt that he was the intended recipient. It was a cipher that he was familiar with, one that he could translate with little effort, having become acquainted with it over the years. It was an idiosyncratic language that marked a particular contact: a reliable one that had saved his neck a number of times. It had been Snape's responsibility to learn the cipher, for the contact refused to communicate in any other form. "User specific" they had described it in the first and only communiqué that ever been written in English. Snape had taken that to mean that only the two of them that could translate the cipher, but as his eyes travelled over the well-known symbols transcribed in a foreign hand, he realised that his assumption had been incorrect. Determining whether it had been incorrect from the very start or the cipher had recently been broken by a third party could involve little more than guesswork at this time. Of more pressing concern was the content of the message.

Come fast or she dies.

The words demanded a response from him that ordinarily he would have eschewed, much as it would pain him to abandon someone to their death. To walk into a situation where the identity and purpose of the third party was unknown to him would be foolish in the extreme, and he had already taken far too many risks this evening in doing just that. Yet the symbol inked at the bottom of the page gave him reason enough to override his hesitation.

A slender crescent contained in a circle, poised atop a cruciform mark.

The lyc-females had caught his spy, and they expected him to come and fetch the transgressor. They gave no indication that his own safety was assured. They left no clue as to where he was supposed to go. Snape had no idea as to the identity of the captured contact...he had never met the person, did not know their name or even their gender. It had been irrelevant to him, information that now could prove critical.

The five words and the symbol were all he had to go on. Perhaps it was a deliberate attempt to frustrate him. A mortal punishment exacted upon the captured spy that Snape could not possibly hope to prevent. Had the five words been all that had been carefully marked onto the page, he would have had to accept that maddening fact, but the symbol told him two things: that the lyc-females expected him to be familiar with its meaning, and that they were deliberately identifying themselves in order to tell him where he needed to go. The connection was shaky, but it was all he had.

Snape was already overdue to meet the apoth, and unless he ignored the letter in his hand and returned to the original plan set for this evening, he would fail to meet Greyback's lackey, who would take him to where Parr's Handler was being held. The welfare of two people hung in a precarious balance that his decision would destabilise. One of them would surely die: a faceless person he had sent into a danger that until now he had not fully appreciated, their life forfeit unless he paid whatever mysterious ransom had been set. The other still had the chance of remaining alive, however slim that chance was. She would not die solely if he failed to go to her. That alone would have determined his choice, but in weighing up to whom he had the greater debt, Snape could not ignore his conscience. He would deal with the ramifications later.

The sight of a slender figure at the mouth of the lane-way called into question the wisdom of trying to sneak into the building. Snape had thought that his visit to the abandoned werewolf den last night would have been his first and last, but considering the contents of the message left for him, this seemed the only possible destination. Given that he had only seen the female lyc cruciform sign twice, he had to draw a line between the two, which is what had brought him here. The derelict edifice was not the sort to encourage people to linger outside it unless they had felonious intent, and the manner in which the silhouetted figure held itself suggested calmness, an ease with being where she was. Waiting for him?

Snape dithered in the shadows, somewhat confident that his guess had been correct, but equally cautious at making an assumption. Coincidence didn't always work in one's favour, and now might be one of those times.

A burst of drunken shouting a few streets over made him flinch. Too edgy, too tired and too rushed―far from the ideal mental state to be in to deal with such precarious matters. Every nerve felt scraped raw. The tinkling of broken glass and another cloud of inebriated swearing drifted through the night air before the revellers moved on.

The waiting woman remained a silent statue, little more than a silhouette.

Was she the only one? Surely not, and he could wait no longer, asking himself questions he had no definite answers to; the tenseness in his body betrayed the deep anxiety he was attempting to suffocate.

Snape's feet had carried him several steps towards the woman before he became conscious of it. A clutch of alarm cramped at his insides. He was walking once again into a situation that was opaque to him, one that could hide all manner of pitfalls and traps, but he had a debt to pay, and little time left to do it in.

The woman turned her head slowly toward him, evincing no surprise or anxiety at his approach. Her plain features resolved themselves as he neared her, her clothes a perfect match to her manner. Simple, perhaps a touch vague. Deliberately chosen, or designed, to be overlooked.

A prickle of static ran up his spine at her gaze, and for a fleeting moment, Snape seriously considered turning on his heel and heading back the way he had come. It was rare that he ignored a gut feeling, but tonight had thrown him into a boiling pot of nerves and adrenaline. Given the choice, he would have bolted back to wherever he felt safe, until he regained some form of dispassionate composure. The smell of damp concrete almost smothered the gentle breath of spice from the woman's perfume: subtle and soothing. It did nothing to calm him.

Perhaps the woman sensed his mood, poised as it was on a knife's edge of indecision. Perhaps the slight thinning of her even lips was unrelated.

"It's rude to keep a lady waiting, kushëri."

An unremarkable voice. Every element of this woman was aligned in order to avoid notice, to slip through observation and wriggle out of memory.

"Especially a lady with her hand on someone else's throat," Snape replied.

A twitch at the corner of her mouth marked the barbed comment as having hit home.

"I've never claimed to be a lady," she corrected him mildly. "I merely wait to bring you to where one will be handed back into your care."

Careful words, delivered with an almost mathematically even cadence. Was there nothing of this woman that deviated from a grey average? Snape's eyes travelled over the lines of her face: symmetrical, soft like a blurred charcoal line, a median of shape and measure.

"And who are you?"

She exhaled gently. And evenly, of course. Snape got the distinct impression that she weighed the words of his question very, very carefully.

"A bargaining chip."

His slightly raised eyebrows told of his mild surprise at her answer.

"We're not unreasonable people. This is a delicate matter, and a dangerous one for you. People under stress react unexpectedly. I will... stand as surety to your safety. At least, for now."

"A hostage."

Now it was her turn to be surprised, but the reaction moulded her expression so briefly that Snape wondered if he had seen it at all. Her face was schooled back into neutrality, if indeed it had ever shifted from it in the first place.

"As good a name as any," she replied faintly, as if to herself. "Yes, you shall call me Hostage," she decided, her voice firmer.

Why did he think she was amused by that? There was no crease or wrinkle of flesh to betray such an emotion, no glint to the eye or subtle tightening of the facial muscles that would hint at it, but he was sure... no, certain that his label for her met with a humoured approval.

"Come."

She turned into the dark lane-way behind her, clearly expecting him to follow without hesitation. It took her the passage of a few steps to realise that he lingered behind. She was nothing but shadow here, her outline almost blending into the blackness that the cobbled ground slipped into.

There was a faint sigh. "I realise trust is something unreasonable to ask of you, but your safety is guaranteed by my presence. It has been agreed." Hostage paused. "Unless you wish us harm." There was the taste of a question in those words. That Snape did not respond caused her to elaborate. "We wish only to hand back someone who was looking where she shouldn't, with the understanding that it is not to happen again. There is too little time, for all involved, for your hesitation. Come now or not at all. The choice is yours."

Of course, she was right. Forward or back...that was before him in this very instant. He could vacillate no longer. Snape approached Hostage cautiously until the features of her face became clear against the night-shrouded lane-way. He felt the darkness close about him like a blanket, and reflexively his hand found the wand in his pocket.

"You won't be needing that," Hostage pointed out, her own hand resting on the splinter-wood doorway, one eyebrow lifted a hair's breadth.

"You expect me to surrender what means of advantage I have against you? Rather unfair, don't you think?"

His slightly bitter accusation drew a laugh, full throated and rich. It echoed down the lane-way, bouncing back and forth against the slightly damp brick walls, resonating through his body as if it sounded from both outside and inside him. It was a notable deviation from every other trait she manifested: an undulating vein of gold through a panorama of washed out grey.

"Keep it, if it pleases you, but it will find no use here."

Snape's eyes narrowed. An intriguing choice of words, ones that suggested that any attempt at magic on his part would be unnecessary. Or even ineffective. Would there be the tell-tale drop in temperature that betrayed a Nullifier, or the give-away falling sensation in the gut to mark the border to an area blocked against the use of magic. Who could possibly achieve such a neutralisation? A Nullifier needed several individuals of not insignificant skill at wielding magic, whilst a charm to restrict the operation of magic could not fail to escape the notice of the MLE for very long. Such areas were closely monitored once established, and any unauthorised restrictions were a beacon to Aurors. Protected areas were either those that the MLE itself had determined necessary, or areas where something illegal was occurring.

Whoever was here already undoubtedly outnumbered him. It was possible that their skill also exceeded his. He couldn't risk an attempt to determine if his magic was useless, or if it was neutralised. His summoners might interpret the attempt poorly, regardless of whether it was successful or not. If all else failed, he still had the serpentine blade given to him earlier that evening by Parr, though Snape doubted he could even draw it from its hiding place in time to either defend himself or to threaten Hostage.

"A word of warning." The measured cadence had returned to Hostage's voice, lowered as it was into a gentle murmur. "It is something that I strongly urge you to consider before we go any further. Whatever you have been told, we are not violent by nature, but we must submit to the contamination of our condition, no matter how much we would struggle against it. The time is too close, but we had little choice. This exchange can go swiftly. In fact..." Snape heard her take a step closer to him, and he swayed back away from her judiciously, the grip on his wand tightening sharply. "... I advise you to let it go as smoothly as you are able. Beta is, ordinarily, a placid person, but her condition agitates her disproportionately, and she is easily angered at this time, even over trivial matters."

"Not the best representative of your group to have been chosen, then," Snape pointed out acerbically. His blunt statement did not seem to ruffle Hostage.

"As Beta, it is her right to stand for us," the slender woman explained patiently. "She is not foolhardy, and her counsel is well-regarded amongst us." Hostage let the words settle their admonition into him, crystallising the need for prudence and a gentler manner than Snape was accustomed to manifesting. "Now, let this thing be done."

With that, she entered the abandoned den.

The smell was not nearly as pervasive as before, but Snape could still detect the rotten despair that had sunk into the concrete and steel, like an echo of a nightmare dimly recalled in the heartening light of day. There was no illumination here...the luminescent band that Lupin had placed along the walls long gone.

He could see nothing of the wreckage-strewn cargo bay that lay inside. Not even the scant light from the sky showed through the gaping hole that he recalled had been punched out of the roof. The breach had either been patched or by deliberate intention all light had been sucked from inside this place. The darkness was too absolute to be natural. But if such a thing had been done by magic, it suggested that Snape was not left defenceless.

Then, why Hostage?

Maybe not defenceless, but certainly at a disadvantage. And there was always his captured spy to consider. No, they had thought this out too carefully.

A shaft of bluish light flickered on, falling from the jagged hole in the roof, too strong to be naturally occurring and hurting Snape's eyes briefly. By rights, this light should have thrown enough of the surrounds into visibility, but it stopped as dead as if a solid barrier encircled it. Whatever lay beyond it had been determined not to be for his eyes.

"The door will remain open," Hostage assured him.

"Unguarded?" Snape's voice sounded too unsettled for his liking. Nerves were understandable, but he had no desire to broadcast his unease.

"None may enter, but you are free to leave at any point." She turned and led the way towards the light.

The darkness seemed squeeze in towards him, pressing him forward. Out of the corner of his eye, Snape thought he saw figures hidden in the blackness, but when he turned his head, that opaque and unnatural absence of light made a lie of such impressions. The ghostly figures skittered back into his peripheral vision: watching, measuring, waiting.

Hostage stopped just off centre in the column of light. Snape found it troublesome to look straight ahead as he waited next to her. With nothing to affix his eyes on except that fathomless black, his focus slid and slipped in a valiant attempt to lock on to something, anything. In order to dispel the dizziness, he dropped his gaze to the floor, the pitted, stained concrete providing something for his eyes to latch on to. It also had the added benefit of bringing those elusive figures back into his awareness. With a slight shifting of his eyes, he could count at least eight figures in front of him, fanned out into a crouched semi-circle. He had no idea how many stood behind him. Eight was already far too many.

"Why do you spy on us?"

The question came abruptly, harshly. Authoritatively. It was a voice used to commanding, accustomed to receiving answers without delay. Snape had heard such a tone before, but rarely so honed in its ability to elicit compliance. Some people were able to wield it in fits and starts, saving it for certain occasions that required an additional means of control. Often its usage was accidental and consequently sporadic, but some had managed to call it into service with some degree of aptitude. Dumbledore was one such practitioner, but he favoured a more subtle manipulation than a commanding tone could achieve. That did not mean he was unfamiliar with its advantages, only that his employment of it was not as frequent as it could have been. The Dark Lord had been that way at the start, carefully choosing when and where to use such tone, like a goad that snapped across a recalcitrant animal's flank. Then, he also had favoured manipulation rather than outright tyrannical oppression of opposition. It hadn't taken long for him to brandish it more and more readily once he realised it got him precisely what he wanted in a fraction of the time that manipulation did. The dominance was addictive, luring the baser nature in him to the surface until addiction became indistinguishable from outright arrogance. Who knew how his shadowed castigator used such a tool?

"I have been instructed to discover the cause of certain circumstances. Doing so has led me to question your potential involvement." Not a lie. And certainly not an apology on Snape's part.

"Your suspicions are of no interest to us." Beta's voice contained an odd harmonic: a metallic grind of steel nearly disguised under the huskiness. Such timbre was unusual in a female, but Snape suspected it an indicator of her approaching transformation; one that grew closer with each second that ticked by. "Your surveillance of us stops now."

"Why?"

"Because next time we will mete out a suitable punishment instead of staying our hand. Do not press us on this. We have retaliated more harshly for lesser errors."

Snape's eyes flicked back up to the darkness. A slithering whisper had lifted briefly at Beta's statement, but died like a faint breath of wind before he could make out any words. Hostage remained, silent and still, at his side, her own eyes set to some point several feet above where Beta seemed to be.

"Why have you stayed your hand this time?"

"That is irrelevant. Suffice that you know we will not stay it a second time."

Anxiety. Agitation. Perhaps a taste of uncertainty? It came not only from Beta's words, but from those hiding in the clotted darkness with her. There had been no sound to betray it, but a contraction of sinew, a sensitisation of nerve and tensing of muscle was palpable to Snape. Considering they moved nearer to transformation, such skittishness and emotional discord was to be expected. In fact, it would only intensify. He would have to be away from here, and soon, lest he find himself trapped, possibly with no manner of defence or escape. Magic could still not be an option. Snape had no means to test it without the situation blowing up in his face. Hostage would be useless to him. If anything, she was becoming more and more of a threat, a lyc-female less than a metre away from his throat, assuming Beta didn't get to him first.

Snape wasn't willing to trust in the rumour of their more disciplined nature in comparison to their male counterparts. Stuck right in the middle of them, Snape was beginning to have real trouble overriding common sense and the urge to back away and out of the abandoned warehouse as swiftly as possible. And yet... yet... He had considered himself lucky to have even seen a lyc-female all those years ago. Miraculous that he had come out of the situation unscathed, unbitten. Alive. It wasn't until much later that he had realised how much danger he had been in. At the time, he had been utterly focussed on his body's unexpected reaction to the bloodied, defiant, and captivating figure in front of him, as well as the cliff-edge precariousness they both found themselves in. It had been terror and hunger and bare-faced audacity on his part. Snape was no thrill-seeker. It just wasn't in his nature, but whomever it was that stood in his skin that particular night had been a stranger to him then. It was an increasing dread in him that he suspected that stranger was making an ill-timed return visit.

"If my investigations are proving an inconvenience to you..."

"Do not patronise me! We have tolerated your curiosity until now, but no longer. By necessity we remain apart from society as best we can. Outsiders are not permitted. It is a matter of survival. Our business is our own."

"A law unto yourselves."

Beta snorted derisively. "So like magicfolk to be deaf to the hypocrisy of your own words, but I will not be drawn into pointless argument. Nor will I waste time cautioning you further. Stick your head in a hornet's nest, for all I care! But make sure you do the dirty work yourself instead of sending an innocent. You've bought many concessions from us, but be sure when I tell you we will deal with any further spying without leniency."

"Murder does seem to come easily to you. One more throat would be of little consequence."

There was a tense silence.

"Needs must. Survival."

"A subjective opinion."

"We do not kill pointlessly! Our lot is difficult enough as it is. Deaths cause questions. Deaths bring prying eyes, but we will not permit any subjugation, imprisonment or violence to be imparted on us. But what would you care of this? Magicfolk have never looked kindly on us, and non-lycs could never understand. We have no one to protect us but ourselves, and we have been doing that for longer than you can imagine. Your snobbish dismissal is an insult and your ignorance pitiful!"

Hostage cleared her throat gently as if to speak, but she maintained her calm silence next to Snape, unaffected by the seething anger that hulked in the darkness in front of them.

"Take your spy and leave. She was good, but not good enough."

A limp form emerged from the black depths, limbs dangling and spine slack. The only thing holding the unconscious figure up was a long-fingered hand clutched around the elderly woman's upper arm as if her weight was that of a child's. The most that Snape saw of Beta was a bare forearm up to her elbow before she released the spy, causing Snape to reflexively reach out for the wilted body before it crumpled to the cold concrete. The woman was slight, with short grey hair and a lined face. Dark circles under her eyes.

"What have you done to her?"

"A blow to the back of the head. Nothing serious."

"Can you be sure?"

"We are not lyc-males, squatting in disused buildings, stealing what belongs to others and drugging ourselves! We live as others do, as best we can. We work. We earn. Our careers cross many fields. Medicine is one of them. She suffered no permanent physical damage, but it was necessary to Obliviate her."

Snape opened his mouth to respond, but Beta interrupted him quickly. "It was with her consent. We explained the situation to her. She wisely chose to forget. I suggest you do the same."

The whispering from the darkness swelled gently. Long-limbed figures stalked back and forth in Snape's peripheral vision. Watching. Measuring.

"You would Obliviate only one of us?" It was a question Snape was compelled to ask, the still unconscious spy clutched awkwardly in his arms. The lyc-females had already made concessions for him, and had admitted as much. Why would they grant him another?

Beta hissed through her teeth. Her only response. The shadows tensed in a sinuous rhythm. Even Hostage held herself very still. Wary. They didn't like that question at all, and they were at liberty not to answer it. He tried another.

"The lyc-females you took from the warehouse in Battersea... from Macnair: they are safe?"

The silence stretched out, with not even a sound of disapproval from Beta winding out from the shadows. The stillness curdled further. An almost cider-like scent of apprehension.

For the second time, a static charge skittered down Snape's spine, making him shudder involuntarily. Too coincidental, and he realised that he'd felt it before...the lyc-girl at the safe house. Snape's unannounced arrival had unsettled her. He'd thought the sensation unrelated at the time, but it had struck him three times in one evening. And always in the presence of a lyc-female. What it meant, he did not know.

We take care of our own.

A whisper so faint Snape almost missed it, and so subtle he couldn't tell where it came from. It slid through his awareness, its path betrayed by the ripples it left in his mind as it slithered through thought and sensation. His arms tightened around the spy's limp body, warm and soft.

No! Not here. Not now, he thought desperately. There was no way it would happen again. The timing was wrong. Common sense screamed that at him, shrill in its madness to convince him, but the stranger inside refused to listen.

"There is a girl," Snape blurted out, struggling against an increasingly laboured breathing. "She is a lyc. If you do take care of your own, then she belongs with you."

The charge in the room changed from a pull to a push in the sucking pulse of a heartbeat. Beta barely stopped herself in time before she breached the barrier of unnatural darkness that separated them. The scrape of her feet on the concrete gave away her proximity.

"Where is she?" The vocal goad was back, striking deep across the flank of his resistance. The shadows roiled in agitation, surging forwards, threatening to break through the protective skin of light. They reached for him. Snape could feel it. Merlin, he could smell it! Hostage was the only one untouched by his words, silent and solid and sure. He nearly made a grab for her as if the contact would steady him, would ground his mind and emotions and allow the galvanism to pass from inside him and through her: the lightning rod that dissipated the voltage that would burn his resistance to ashen ruins.

"I cannot tell you," he gasped, steeling the muscles in his legs to prevent his knees from buckling under him. "I ask a trade."

The unseen hands that reached for him curled to tear at his flesh. Teeth bared to shred muscle to a ragged mess.

"What a piece of work you are, to come here and make demands of us!" Beta growled, furious.

"Not demand! Ask," Snape emphasised quickly. "You could find the lyc-girl now without my help." He couldn't loosen the grip his arms had around the limp body of the spy, and the effort not to crush her flesh set a tremor alive in him, a shivering of desperate strain. "Please!"

"Ask quickly," Beta hissed.

"There is a woman being held by Fenrir Greyback. I must find her."

"Why should we care?" Beta cut him off harshly. "Is she lyc?"

"No, but-"

"Then it isn't our business. And that between us is now ended. Go!" Conclusion hard and swift. Brutal.

"Would you allow one of your own to suffer under Greyback's hand?" Snape retorted, his words foolishly defiant.

"Never!"

"Then do not leave this woman to die!" Snape lifted the unconscious form in his arms. "You've made exceptions before. Why not this time?"

"I have made my decision!" Beta roared, incensed, the blast of her anger unhindered by the darkness that cloaked her. "Leave!"

"You would abandon an innocent?!" His incredulity drove him into bitter accusation.

"Leave!"

Hostage spun on her heel to face him, the control on her face poorly masking the alarm that twisted beneath. "We go. Now!" She almost physically dragged Snape by the arm, making it even harder for him not to trip over the slack, dragging legs of the grey-haired spy gathered awkwardly in his arms. At every step, Snape expected to feel the lancing pain of claws and teeth tearing into his back, but whatever restraint that prevented it held until he stumbled his way out of the warehouse.

"Go!" Hostage's hands pushed him out of the lane-way. Snape turned back to plead once more but she stopped him before he could even form the words, the lines of her face distressed but resolute. "I will do what I can, but I promise nothing." Her hands turned him back towards the main road and pushed him firmly. "Go!"

Snape's final regret was that he didn't get to thank Alpha before he fled, his burden the unwilling victim of his lack of foresight and caution, twisting over and over in the cold, crushing wrench of Apparition.