Chapter 15

Illianna was walking in front, Marny lagging behind, tired out. They came within sight of a rundown city. It was dark, and Marny didn’t bother to look at the signs bearing the name of the town. She was too tired to think, but there was some sort of nagging feeling in the back of her mind that something wasn’t right, as it had been for the last three days. Marny had stayed despite this, truly believing that Illianna could get her out of the mess she found herself in. She had learnt to ignore the nagging feeling when Illianna said that she was just being paranoid, and her mind turned to concentrate on her hunger and tiredness. Even the normally ever-present topic of cute boys wasn’t in the foremost of her mind, ever since she had met the other girl and her iron-cast will to rescue the boys trapped in Cairo.

Illianna continued to march on, and Marny tried doggedly to keep up as the other girl passed over the border into the city. That’s when the first alarm bells started to ring in her head. There was something eerily familiar about this city, a fleeting memory of fear. She walked past the rundown bell tower, seeing its bell lying on its side.
“Illi?” Marny asked, slightly scared.
“We’re nearly there.” The other girl replied without turning round.
“No, where are we?”
“Somewhere, I don’t know where.”

Marny stopped dead, and folded her arms. Her face was stubborn, the tiredness having vanished as an adrenaline rush started to creep through her muscles. She looked around, and saw that they were in the Red Square. She pushed her fear back down into herself, trying to summon up all her energy into open defiance.
“I’m not going any further until you tell me.”

Illianna stopped as well, her head bowed. Marny heard a small click. Illianna turned round and pointed a small colt pistol at Marny’s heart. There was no pity, no sorrow, no remorse in her eyes, just wells of cold, steely determination.
“Come on Marny, don’t make me shoot you.”
Marny swallowed hard, fear welling up in her mind again, threatening to take over.
Illianna put her finger on the trigger, threatening to shoot.
Marny’s mind screamed at her to run, to get as far away from Illianna as she possibly could.
Illianna took aim, looking down the short barrel of the gun.
Marny could do nothing by stare, feet stuck to the ground. She stared at Illianna, disbelieving that someone she considered a friend would be capable of shooting her. With a millisecond’s notice, anger started to boil within Marny’s mind, and her feet came unstuck from the ground. She turned and fled back the way they had come.
A shot rang through the Square as Illianna squeezed the trigger, firing the shot.
Marny heard the dull thunk of metal on wood as the bullet hit a building in front of her. Something scarlet splattered onto the snow beside her, and a warm liquid ran down her arm, and Marny knew that she hadn’t been completely spared from the bullet as a raging fire seemed to take up residence in her upper arm. She turned a corner quickly, the forest back in sight again, and left Illianna far behind.

Chapter 16

In a clearing, a black wolf lay, half covered in glittering white, standing out against the white glare of the snow. Its teeth were bared in a snarl of pain, and a trail of blood-stained snow marked where she had come from. Her fur had frozen into icy spikes, glittering red where the crimson blood had stained it. An ear twitched feebly as she heard someone in the distance crashing through the undergrowth, but she paid no other attention to it.

Marny, in Manticore form, crashed through the undergrowth, the cut on her arm stinging, but she ignored it. She was heading back, looking for Allyssianne. She could smell the blood, and that lead her to the clearing. Morphing back, Marny knelt beside the wolf.
“Ally, it’s Marny, come on.” She said, quietly begging her friend to be ok. Slowly, the black wolf changed back into her human form. Marny took one look at Allyssianne’s shoulder and winced.
“Who did that to you?” She asked but Allyssianne shook her head.
“It’s nothing,” She said, putting one hand lightly over the wound as it twinged in pain again. Her icy eyes found the bloodstains on Marny’s once white shirt.
“Illianna?” She asked, her gaze turning to Marny’s. Marny nodded silently, looking away from Allyssianne’s eyes, scared of hypnotising her. The sorceress groaned as she stood up, her joints having stiffened with the cold. She cleared a patch of snow from the ground before gathering some wood, careful not to use her injured arm. She created a small fire and summoned a small sphere of her magic, setting it under the branches, hoping to cause the dry pine needles to catch fire. After several minutes, it began to smoke, and then flames started to lick up the wood.

The two girls curled up side by side, sharing their warmth as they fell asleep. Neither of them heard the near-silent moving of a small group of people in the bushes. One of them used a pair of binoculars to check if it was indeed those two girls that they were looking for. He nodded once, using two fingers to silently signal an advance. The two other soldiers drew out rifles, but everyone froze as Marny stirred, but she only curled into a tighter ball on the ground. Taking a deep breath, the soldiers fired brightly coloured darts, tranquillizer darts, at the pair, hitting their targets. The three men walked out into the clearing, picking up the two girls before turning, taking them away.

Chapter 17

The girls came round in a cell, not unlike the one they had vacated barely a few days ago. It was bright as they opened their eyes, too bright. At first, they merely thought that snow had fallen during the night, and decided to get up and stretch. Allyssianne tried to stretch her arms above her head, but a manacle around her wrists stopped her. Growling low in her throat, she started to battle them, alerting Marny to the danger. The two girls battled against the restraints, but to no avail.

The door opened, revealing three people who walked into the cell. One, seemingly the leader, was unarmed, but the other two, guards, were armed. The two girls were confused, as the guards were wearing a black uniform with a strange emblem and the word GRAIL written across the left breast.
“Welcome! Welcome to GRAIL.” The first man declared, arms outstretched as if to welcome them, but the gesture was met with steely silence and glares. He seemed undeterred, and signalled for the two guards to release the girls. A boy leant against the doorway, about fourteen in age, with reddish blond hair and calm, emotionless grey eyes. As soon as he had appeared, an aura of calm swept over the angry pair, soothing all the worries and calming the stress.
“Thank you Alex.” The leader said, smiling at the boy. “Now, I understand that you are all wound up after your time spent with the GH, and your journey in the wilderness. I must admit you survived extremely well for people with no training.. I will leave you to rest.”

The man left the room, Alex following him. As soon as the boy had left, the aura of calm disappeared. Allyssianne paced around the white-walled room in an agitated manner, her face looking like thunder. The other girl, her friend, watched her from her place sitting on the floor with her back to the wall. There wasn’t much else to do until they came back. No, not much at all...

Two days passed in seemingly slow motion before the man came back again. They were kept occupied, given books to read, but they mainly sat on the beds that had been put in the room for them, thinking or talking about their experiences in quiet tones in case anyone was eavesdropping on their conversation. Allyssianne had taken to pacing the cell while Marny preferred to sit quietly in a corner, humming along to a tune that she had stuck in her head.

The two girls were in the middle of a meal when he knocked and entered. He smiled at them, but the girls were wary, and his smile faded at the cautious looks he was getting. He wondered what it was going to take for the girls to be able to trust him. The boys has trusted him almost right from the start, but the two girls seemed to be a lot more cautious, as if something had happened to shatter their trust in anyone outside of those that they knew already. He took a deep breath before addressing them.
“I’m going to come straight to the point here. I need you to help me.”
“With what?” Allyssianne asked suspiciously. Her head was turned slightly to the side so that she looked at him out of the corner of her eye.
“With bringing the G.H down. I understand that one of your number is still with them.”
The two snorted quietly. “Only the traitor.” Marny muttered.
“Traitor?”
“Illianna.” She clarified.
“Anyway, will you help us bring them down and save your friend? Whichever one you choose, we’ll get you safely back to your families.”

The girls conferred in low voices for a few moments, before the agreement was reached. Allyssianne felt uncomfortable about leaving Illianna with the GH, despite all that the girl had done to prove that she wasn’t a person to trust. They looked up at the man before nodding once in synchronisation. They would help him.


Two guards brought the boys to see them, and then the three adults left. Allyssianne made the first move, hugging Jamie tightly.
“You do know that she’s never going to let you go now?” Marny warned jokingly, and Allyssianne glared at her friend, and let go of the boy. Jamie gave a pretend gasp of air before smiling at Allyssianne.
“Sorry, but do you know if there was a girl in Moscow, red hair, called Illianna?” Asked one boy, the same one that the girls had seen two days prior.
“This is Alex,” Jamie explained, “Illianna is his sister.”
“You mean the traitor?” Allyssianne said.
“She’s not a traitor!” Alex snarled.
“Eh, yeah! She tried to kill me!” Marny spat.

A seemingly endless fog of sadness drifted over the teenagers assembled in the cell as Alex lamented his sister’s choice. It lasted for a few minutes before one boy, with pale blond hair and almost red eyes recovered.
“Alex! Snap out of it!”
The fog vanished as Alex shook his head, clearing his mind of the emotion. “Sorry Daniel.” He murmured, taking a deep breath before setting his face in a determined look. “We have to get Illi out of there.”
“Count me out.” Marny said. None of the others seemed too keen on the idea until Allyssianne stepped forwards.
“I’ll go.”

Chapter 18

The team started to protest, but Allyssianne raised her hand for silence, a few sparks of magic sparking from her palm. The team fell silent, watching her.
“I have to go back for her. Illianna tried to turn Marny against me. I need to show her that I don’t bear any grudges against her.” Allyssianne explained, praying to whatever god there was up in the heavens or down in hell that the rest of the team understood that it was just something she had to do to feel at ease.
Jack sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Ok, you can go on this mission, but someone has to accompany you. Not into the MMRL itself, but at least somewhere nearby so that whoever goes can radio back with any information needed.” A few murmurs whispered around the team like a ghostly wind that would only bring despair. Jamie looked up, flicking his dark brown hair out of his eyes.
“I’ll go with Allyssianne,” He said, throwing a smile at the sorceress, who’s heart flipped at the sight of it. She smiled back somewhat shyly. Marny shook her head jokingly, grinning at her friend.

That very evening, Allyssianne boarded a helicopter that would drop her a few kilometres away from Moscow. Jamie and Marny were with her, Caleb having preferred not to accompany his sister. Allyssianne was just making a few last minute checks on her parachute.
“You can still turn around.” Jamie told her, but Allyssianne grimly shook her head.
“I have to bring her back.”
Jamie smiled at her, the same smile that had made Allyssianne’s heart falter for a second. He took his parachute, strapping it on before checking that Allyssianne’s was on correctly, as this was her first time jumping. He turned to Marny.
“Make sure the other guys don’t kill each other, ok?” He said, winking at her just as the light in the helicopter turned green, signalling that it was time for the two Gifted to jump.

The hypnotist jokingly saluted the pair just before they leapt out of the helicopter, aiming to land in a small clearing just below them.

Chapter 19

Allyssianne felt the cold Russian air streaming through her black hair as she fell, counting in her head. On the count of eight, she yanked hard on the release cord, glad when she heard the rustling of the parachute billowing out to slow her descent.

It was oddly peaceful in the air, floating down towards the Earth. It gave her the much needed time to think over the things that had happened to her over the past two months. She had been kidnapped and observed like some sort of lab rat. She had escaped, been shot, travelled through a Russian forest, and then been found by GRAIL. Now she was part of a team, a team of people like her, the Gifted, and she was off on a rescue mission to save someone else who was like her.

The sorceress couldn’t help but smile as she enjoyed the flight down, but it was only then when she realised that she was off course, heading for the trees next to the clearing that she was supposed to be in. She pulled hard on the directional cords, trying to pull herself back on course, but the branches were so close, so close, she was going to land in them!

Jamie landed cleanly on the ground, and took off the parachute before looking around for Allyssianne. Seeing no parachute around, he started to worry slightly, but was reassured by the sound of swearing from the edge of the clearing. Striding towards the sound, he saw Allyssianne suspended from a tree, the ‘chute having caught on a branch. She was just undoing the final strap, and fell to the ground, where she picked herself up to see Jamie’s laughing face.
“No comment,” She warned, and pulled out a compass. Taking a reading, the sorceress then morphed into a wolf and loped away, followed by a sleek black panther.

Jamie relied on Allyssianne for the main part of the direction, because he didn’t know where he was going. She was carrying the bag with maps and the compass. He couldn’t help but notice the limp in Allyssianne’s foreleg getting steadily worse as she ran over the ground. He didn’t want to stop her and point it out, as she seemed so determined to complete this mission. He wondered why it meant so much to her.

Allyssianne trotted into the city, ducking and avoiding the busy streets. Her rough, thick coat was flecked with snow, but it didn’t bother her. Jamie, on the other hand, with his thin, sleek black coat was shivering slightly as the cold wind cut into him.

They stopped in the ruins of an old church, near the research centre. The two teenagers morphed back, and Allyssianne passed her backpack to Jamie, flicking her hair out of her face as she looked the boy straight in the eyes.
“If I’m not back within 24 hours, then go home. Do you understand?”
“I won’t leave you!”
“You must.”

Chapter 20

With those words, Allyssianne strode wearily towards the base. Jamie watched her go until she was lost from his sight. He took a blanket out of the bag, morphed into a panther, and lay down in a fairly warm pocket of air, blanket tucked around him to keep off the chill, to wait out the twenty four hours. His gaze was firmly fixed upon the point where Allyssianne had vanished from his view, hoping that she’d reappear soon.

Allyssianne’s pace flagged as she approached the entrance gate, heavily guarded as always. She was glad that she had never thrown out the white uniform they had worn before escaping, despite the fact that it was now varying shades of brown and green as well as ripped in several places from the hard trek to the clearing where Jack had found them. She took a deep breath, trying to set a determined face but her stride became slower and slower, and the fear started to mount, taking over her mind.

A guard jumped as he saw Allyssianne, and immediately pointed his gun between her eyes. The girl tiredly raised her hands in surrender before her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she collapsed in a heap on the ground. The guard, having recognised her as one of the Gifted, immediately radioed for back up. Several more armed men ran out of the base, and one picked the unconscious girl up and carried her inside.

Now lying on a bed in the medical wing of the base, Allyssianne came round again. There was a stabbing pain in her shoulder, where there was a scar from the bullet wound she had obtained a week or two back. She looked around groggily before coming back to her senses. Blade was there, watching her. She watched back, no expression on her face and no words escaping her mouth. As much as she hated his guts for locking them up for so long, she was back. She had returned to save Illianna, and she would complete this task, no matter the cost.

Blade watched her carefully as Illianna stepped into the room. Allyssianne made no move. Blade nodded curtly and left. Allyssianne laid her head back again before attempting to get up. Illianna walked towards her, and pressed down gently on her uninjured shoulder. Allyssianne narrowed her eyes.
“Don’t,” Illianna said. Allyssianne looked at her, and tried to move her arm, but it was strapped down. Panic started to creep up into her mind, paralyzing her.
“Calm down.” Illianna said quietly. Her voice gave Allyssianne something to hold on to until she could pull her mind back into sensible thinking.
“Why did you come back?” Illianna asked quietly.
Allyssianne sighed. “We debated about leaving you here, but Alex was really upset.”
Something sparked in Illianna’s eyes. “Alex? He’s alive? Is he ok? Tell me!”
“He’s fine,” Allyssianne assured the other girl. “He’s with the others.”
A weight seemed to be lifted from Illianna’s shoulders. “He’s my twin,” She said, “I haven’t seen him for two years now...”
“I can take you to see him.”
“You can’t...” Said a voice.

Chapter 21


Blade was leaning against the doorway again. Allyssianne cursed under her breath as she remembered the room of screens, her eyes wide as she watched him. He must have heard their conversation. He walked towards her, stopping a few metres away.
“We have removed the bullet from your shoulder, and installed a little device that will stop you having any more rebellious thoughts or plans.”
Allyssianne snarled at Blade. “You have no right to keep us here.”
“But I do,” Blade said with a small smile. “You see, I wiped your records clean. None of the Gifted exist in this world any more. Birth records, medical records, anything proving that you were ever there has been erased.”

Allyssianne was stunned. She watched him, her expression obviously betraying her thoughts judging by the pleased look on Blade’s face. Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “You’re talking out of your arse.”
Blade’s smile turned into a scowl as he took a small black remote out of his pocket. Adjusting something on it, he then tapped a switch.
Allyssianne gasped, electricity coursing through her nervous system, blinding her with pain. She twisted and struggled against the bonds, thinking that they were the reason for the surge. She begged Blade to stop the electricity, and he obliged a few moments later. Her anger started to boil in the back of her mind, and she struggled desperately to keep a hold on the magic she could feel
“You will address me as ‘sir’ or ‘master’.” He snarled.
Allyssianne summoned up her courage. She might manage to get herself thrown out. “You’re still talking out of your arse, sir.”
Blade flicked the switch again.

Allyssianne kicked out at the door of her new cell before hopping away, nursing her toes and making a mental note never to kick a reinforced steel door again. She looked around the cell again. Bare concrete walls and floors, about three metres by three. There was no furniture. Allyssianne curled up in a corner, and hoped Jamie was ok, and that he had had the sense to radio GRAIL and get himself back to them.
Allyssianne was still sitting in the corner, her knees tucked up to her chest when Illianna was thrown in as well. The girl lay there, shaking, for a few moments before she stood up and sat next to Allyssianne.
“How can we get out of here now?”
“There’s someone outside who can contact the others. We won’t be here for long...”

In the screen room, Blade scowled. Pressing a switch on the intercom, ordering a squad of guards to search the surrounding areas for anything suspicious.

Chapter 22

Jamie curled up into a tighter ball beneath his blanket in his corner, listening to the church bells toll the twenty third hour since Shadow had gone in. His ears pricked up as he heard the sound of snow crunching under boot, and pricked up his ears. Was Allyssianne coming back? But then he listened more carefully. There was more than two pairs of boots, and they were moving in formation. He musy have been found out!

The radio was carefully between his paws, but he moved it under the blanket and tried to resemble a dead animal of some sort as the torches flashed over him. He held his breath as they walked by. They hadn’t seen him for now, but he didn’t know if they’d be back. He listened to the bell tolling quarter past.
Only forty-five minutes... She should know that, she’ll be out with Illianna soon... He thought to himself, turning his gaze to fixate upon the spot where Allyssianne had vanished.

Jamie breathed out again, silently. That was a lucky break. He heard the bell toll the twenty fourth hour since Allyssianne had gone in, and with a heavy heart, he morphed back into his human self, and picked up the radio. He swallowed hard, and pressed transmit.
“Panzer to Hanger, Panzer to Hanger.”
“Hanger reading you,” Jack’s voice responded.
“Twenty-four hours past, no sign of Blackie.”
“Withdraw immediately, chopper sent to meet you.”
“We can’t leave her!”
“We don’t have another option. Hanger out.” And the radio went dead.

Back in GRAIL, Jack pushed his chair away from the radio equipment, his head in his hands, mentally kicking himself.
“This was a stupid mission. I never should have authorised it!” The Gifted were all gathered round, looking at each other. No one knew what to say. “I put two Gifted at risk for the sake of one more.”
“Jack,” Alex said quietly, “it’s my sister. Ally seemed to know what she was doing.”
“Yeah,” Marny agreed, “No one could have seen this coming.”
“Gwen would have...” Jack murmured.
The Gifted looked at each other again, but said nothing. This wasn’t their territory.
“So what do we do?” Holly asked.
“We wait for Jamie to get back here, and then we plan our next move.”

Chapter 23

Back in Moscow, Illianna watched from the sidelines as Allyssianne twitched on the concrete floor, Blade standing over her. She had never felt so helpless as she did now, watching one of her own friends, who had risked her neck to come back for her, tortured like this. In all her years at GH, she had only seen this spectacle once or twice.
“Where is GRAIL located!?” He demanded for the fourth time.
“I don’t know!” Allyssianne replied pleadingly, eyes squeezed tightly closed.
Blade gritted his teeth, and twisted a small dial on the remote controlling the device he had implanted into her neck. The girl cried out, begging him breathlessly to stop, but he refused. She held her head tightly, the electricity sending wave after wave of pain through her.
“Tell me where they’re located!” He ordered.

No matter how high Blade twisted the dial, her answer never changed. Eventually, he gave up and left. Illianna waited for a few moments before kneeling next to Allyssianne, hugging her. Allyssianne closed her eyes, wishing she could leave, and go back to a normal life, life before she knew about her magic. Life when the only excitement was getting up in the morning to go to school. She even wanted to go back to those boring Monday morning lets-all-fall-asleep-because-it’s-eight-in-the-morning-in-history classes.

The next morning, in Romania, where GRAIL was based, Jack walked into the room that had been set out for the Gifted to play in. Everyone could tell just by the look on his face that the news wasn’t good. He was holding a newspaper in his hands. Jamie looked up moodily from his book. He had been like that ever since he got back from Moscow. Marny stood up, and took the newspaper. On the page it had been opened to, there was a small picture of the Medical Research Centre that hid darker secrets in its sterile rooms. Marny read out the start of the article.
“In the early hours of this morning, a death was registered in the Moscow Medical Research Lab. Fifteen-year-old Allyssianne had been flown to the MMRL, suffering from a severe case of pneumonia lasting several weeks. The research staff did all they could to save her, but Allyssianne died at 4:03 this morning...”
“Rubbish!” Jamie yelled, throwing his book away. “She was fine just before she left!”
Jack rubbed his temples. “We need to get both of them out of there as soon as possible, but we have to consider that this case of pneumonia was just to cover up for her death in a different way...”

Chapter 24

Allyssianne and Illianna sat on a helicopter two days later, flying out to Romania. They didn’t know where they were headed until they were half way there. Both girls were on edge. Blade was keeping their chips activated, but at a low frequency so that they had an uncomfortable reminder of their situation. Allyssianne moved her hands, trying to keep the blood circulating through the rope binding them together. She was nervous. Attacking the others? It was practically a suicide mission! Nevertheless, Blade had ordered them to carry out the task.

Marny was restless, and her Manticore side wasn’t helping. She paced around the room, trying to think. She looked at the other girls, worried. And her worries were confirmed by one of the guards yelling about an attack.

Allyssianne and Illianna were walking towards the GRAIL complex, faces impassive, flanked by several soldiers. Their white uniforms were torn in a few places. Allyssianne’s face contorted into a look of pain for a split second in reaction to the chip in her neck.

On the other side of the yard, the GRAIL side stood in a line, ready to face their friends. No one smiled, no one showed any emotion. An aura of fear descended on the GH side, causing the soldiers to shift restlessly. Allyssianne was battling the fear, but Illianna was completely unaffected. The two GH Gifted wanted to shout out what was happening to them, but they knew the price. Death.

The advancing party stopped about thirty metres away from the defending party, and the battle of nerves began. Blade’s voice whispered through communicators fixed in the girl’s ears, telling them to attack. No one moved. He repeated the order, his voice becoming more threatening, and then the electricity grew until Allyssianne obeyed. She raised a hand, and shot a bolt of magic at the line of Gifted opposite her.

The bolt of magic missed the intended target, but it sparked off the fight. Marny was the first to retaliate on the GRAIL side, leaping forwards, morphing as she went. The other Gifted started to take care of the accompanying soldiers. It didn’t take long, and the GRAIL side now advanced on the two Gifted.

Allyssianne and Illianna put their hands on their heads in surrender, knowing that it would be suicide to attempt to fight their friends, and that they would rather be held captive here than with Blade.
“Kill us...” Illianna said quietly.
“We’re not quite that pissed off at you,” Daniel said, confused.
“If you don’t, he will,” Allyssianne murmured.
“He?” Caleb asked, but he didn’t get an answer as several GRAIL soldiers stormed out of the complex and took the pair inside.

Chapter 25

The GRAIL Gifted were on a rota. Two of them watched over Illianna and Allyssianne at any given time. Marny and Jamie were on duty when Blade made his move on the two he thought were under his control.

Allyssianne rubbed the back of her neck, feeling the chip activate. Illianna flinched. Then the realisation dawned on them as the voltage increased. Jamie sprinted to find help as the two girls collapsed, trying not to scream. Marny knelt beside Allyssianne, reaching out to stop her thrashing. On contact with her friend, the electricity shot up her arm. She tried desperately to pull away, but she couldn’t. Jamie ran back into the room, closely followed by Jack and two soldiers. Jack grabbed Marny, pulling her away while the two soldiers tied up Allyssianne and Illianna to limit their thrashing. Marny lay trembling on the ground, watching the two soldiers pick up her friends and stride away. Jack swiftly picked Marny up, following them.

The soldiers led them into a small room with four beds, almost like the medical bay in the complex. As soon as Jack had shut the door, the two girls stopped twitching, their eye half closed. Jack put Marny down, and the girl blushed slightly. Had this been a normal guy, she would have punched his lights out, but Jack happened to be rather good looking, so being carried by him wasn’t all that bad...

They both looked at the two semi-conscious girls, and Marny wondered what had happened. Jack knew. He glanced at Marny, meaning in his gaze. The teenager realised what he was saying.
“Oh no, I didn’t take the full force of the shock, I don’t need to be hospitalised!”
“Marny, I don’t know if there are any secondary effects from this. I just want you in observation.” His tone demanded obedience, and Marny reluctantly lay down on one of the beds, her face betraying how annoyed she was. Jack ignored this face, walking over to Allyssianne. Drawing back her black hair, he looked at her neck, where the small scar was visible. With a scowl, he checked Illianna’s neck too, seeing the same mark.
“What’s that?” Marny asked, having seen the cut on Allyssianne’s neck.
“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” Jack assured her. “Just lie down, and try to relax.” He seemed to think for a moment before he left.

Marny laid her head back, trying to get her head around what had just happened. It seemed to be so surreal, so out of place. What was she doing here, in this mad world of prisons and escapes and fights. This wasn’t where she wanted to be! She wanted to go back to her life of getting up at half-past six in the morning to go to school and fall asleep again! Was this just a dream? No, it wasn’t a dream.

Ooh, that is so cute!
Anyway, there are a few things you need to work on though.
First, seeing as you eddited the first part making it only Marny and Allyssianne, some of the vocab still hints to the fact that there was actually a group and not just two girls. Also, you need to explain more. For example, you suddenly come up with something about a manticore when you havn't said anything about it before. Im guessing this is just the first draft and nowhere neer finished, but im telling you all the same.
Apart from that, I love it! lol
Can't wait for the rest, may it come soon! lol

Alba xx

Good piece of writing, Ally, I have to admit.
But, as Alba said, there are a few errors in the first posts, but then it gets changed. Also, it seems it has some not-really-human-like reactions to it, such as... Well, basically, by the way I read it, it seemed that Allyssianne hugged Jamie the first time she saw him in real life, and not through the television screen. From what I saw of the first posts, I only read that Ally and Marny were the ones taken away.
If Ally knew Jamie before, which would then make her reaction understandable once she saw him, why didn't she recognize him on the television screen? And what about Marny and Killian? I mean, if they knew each other before, also, that would make the 'both hand in hand' thing comprehensible, but here, if it's their first day/night together, I don't think it would be like that Marny would react, and I think that by now you should know that, eh, Jenn? =w=
BUT, then again, I don't know the whole story, and you have been working on it for more time then I can imagine. If possible, would it be plausible to make a short BIO of each character, on the first post? Or maybe, just add more precisions.
Anyways, good piece of work, it just goes a little too fast (in my opinion) without much description, which would make the story -and you know it- infinitely better.

Long post.

Lol, thanks for the views CnP. I'm still working on it, and before, there were a lot more characters in it, and I'm still switching around the roles to accomodate the loss of those characters.
BTW, I do have bios for them, lol. I'll put them up on a separate thread so that we don't get confused.

By the way, why did you take out the other girls? I thought it was quite good with the idea of a group.

Alba xx