Appearances can only be kept for so long. Lori didn't imagine her collar to be anything but a blessing until one day someone pushed her buttons. Just for funzies.

It was nice, all fun and games in the women's latrine until he realized she wasn't wriggling on the floor. This one seemed to like watching people wriggle on the floor. He was forcing her hand. She wasn't ready.

Clumsy grab. She ducked and imagined her fist going three feet past his family jewels. It didn't make it that far, but by his reaction it was good enough.

Hand on head, crook of arm at the neck. This was all very precise work happening here. Pressing on the carotid artery would have been enough to put his out, but using her power to fry his brains just added that much more insult to injury. Plus he was clawing at her arm. Blood was moist. Moisture was bad.

Lori pulled the buzzer out of his hand. Wonderful. No way was this the only one, but it was one less they had and one more for her. Now! To strip him and see if he wasn't too big for his britches.

He was heavy. She didn't want to let someone else take the blame for him, but he wasn't exactly the kind of scarf she was hoping to come across. She'd put on his clothes, well the jacket and the boots anyway. She'd taken his buzzer and his stun gun and his chewing gum. She didn't entirely look like a guard or a prisoner. He didn't look anything but dead.

Maybe he would have made a good shield, but Lori decided mobility was better. The extra coat would help with the cold. The boots would help with the snow. She didn't have any food. No water. No Army. Nothing that she'd hoped to leave this place with except a full tank of charge and a little back up battery.

She'd just have to bring the other things back with her when she returned... Assuming that getting away was still an option. She couldn't spend forever locked in the lavatory with a dead man.

Right. Okay.

No time like the present.

She held out her hands toward the tiny window that was slated with iron bars... and pushed.

She had to run to catch up. It had been a long time since she had run.

And a long time since she had wriggled through a tiny window to escape curfew. It would have been nostalgic if she weren't afraid that she might get found, shot or wet from the snow.

The cold burned in her lungs and it was good, fresh air worth the biting chill. Shouts. Gunfire. A trigger of her shock collar. Too little, too late, suckers. Lori gripped the metal slats that had once been barring her exit from the camps. They were now her freedom.

As soon as she was sure of her grip, the magnetic field directing the metal bars' movements went up, up and up, the metal bars following. The sudden change in direction was enough to make them miss. The continued shock of her collar only spurned her on.

She was quite vulnerable just hanging from a metal slat by her hands. (Hands that were now officially frigid exposed in the cold air.) Even if the bar was moving up and away as fast as she could manage, it could only be a matter of time before someone got a bead on her.

A bullet whistled past her ear as if it had been waiting for her mental cue.

It was tricky and a little scary this high up, but Lori hooked her knees over the bar and let her body hang down. Through the flurries of snow she could see the tiny ant hill she had pocked with a stick before leaving. As a parting gift she made a massive magnetic field next to the fence and the closest guard tower.

As far as she was now she still heard the crumple of metal.

Her witch's broom faltered and she quit bothering the Romanians and started curling up so that the blood would stop pooling in her head.

It was a long and miserable flight, but once she was far enough away to feel safe she continued on foot. Begging, borrowing, and stealing was second nature. She knew where the resistance was and since it was unlikely that she was followed she ditched her collar (had a heart-felt goodbye with its battery) and went straight there.

Sebastian was waiting. Not that he had been expecting her and she certainly must have looked like hell, but he was there, pacing in the entry way when she stumbled in.

He was happy to see and heal her, but happier to hear where the concentration camp was. Lori didn't grudge him that. His brand new wife was in there.

The resistance gears chugged and turned well enough without Lori. They didn't need her for planning. Someone else could scout and confirm the location. Until the actual day came when they wanted to turn off the collars and seriously murder someone, she would be sleeping in a bunk.