Tina Skeldon, also known as Spider, had always said that the 141 needed a womans touch.
She was it.
A lighthearted woman who could handle her own and had learnt that her size and gender could be used to her advantage, even in such a male dominated...
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What Tina did remember was the terror at the mere notion of getting caught, what would happen, how it became difficult to breathe.
She remembered balling that piece of barbed wire around her left fist and blinding one of the guards who first noticed her with a feral nature. She must have stolen his jacket and weapon.
She remembered firing a gun and missing a few times, and how time had stood still as they did, her bloody, torn hands barely able to hold the weapon steady; a weapon she had once had no problem with shooting perfectly every time.
She remembered running. And being so cold it hurt to breathe.
She remembered the sound of gunfire and pain and the air from the outside hitting her skin. Barely able to see straight, her vision blurring, warping into colours that didn't even seem to exist as she dragged herself across that snow covered ground. Blinking and wiping her eyes didn't make the blurriness go away.
She faintly remembered feeling like a rabbit being hunted by a pack of dogs.
She had used what was ingrained in her blood and snuck away in the shadows, taking a moment alone hidden behind the giant wheel of one of their trucks to wipe her tears with her forearm and pull the hood up to cover her matted, long hair from any torch lights.
There was a huge wire fence surrounding the compound that went under the mountain and as she neared it, the buzz of electricity had seemed a death sentence. She was running out of time, the faint barking of dogs and shouting of men in the distance driving her panic. Barbed wire hung at the top and the exit was no where in sight, but even in the dark she could hear the rustling of trees just beyond that gate.
She had been so close.
Desperation had driven her to freedom.
Looking back, the main thing she remembered about that night had been the beeline to the gate, half hidden by the rows of vehicles had left her exposed both to their search lights and the elements. The snow, although lightly falling was like needles against her skin.
She had no choice; she dug through that hard, icy dirt with her bare, bloody hands. Frantic and not giving up, not when the shards of hard snow ripped open her already torn open skin, not when the dirt embedded itself into her open wounds, not when she felt her finger bones snap under the pressure and her nails break apart. Shivering so hard it was difficult to coordinate her movements, breath clouding in front of her face, skin practically grey and blue.
The buzzing of the fence was a war cry. She was crying, sobbing quietly, moving the dirt away as best she could through the agony and fear until there was a small gap underneath with just enough space for her to crawl under.
She did so quickly, on her front and barely breathed as she dragged herself out from under the metal just an inch away from her slashed open back. She was amazed her arms carried the strength to drag herself out, the wet, cold snow seeping in through her thin, torn clothes.
