Chapter Twenty Three: Here We Are
Anna shuffled along behind Elsa as quietly as she could, though the continuing deterioration of the building around them was making things difficult. Whereas the lighting had been at least dim before, there seemed to be nothing in this portion of the building. No power, or else no lighting fixtures to receive power.
"This is odd." Elsa whispered, "The outside is relatively new, as is the rest of the building that we've seen. So why is this area so..."
As Elsa trailed off Anna picked up her sentence, "Incomplete?"
"It's like they just...stopped building in this area." Elsa confirmed, "And that bricked off hall? Why block an area off in the more well built section of the building?"
Anna hadn't the faintest idea why anyone would do such a thing, but she was spared having to admit it by the sound of two women conversing echoing down the halls. The pair skidded to a halt and Anna found herself pressed back against the nearby wall by Elsa's outstretched arm.
"-just what do you suggest we do?" It was the woman they had overheard speaking so horribly to the children earlier, and she sounded no less frustrated now than she had then. "Nothing is working and we have a deadline to meet!"
"Now, now, Medusa calm yourself." The second voice was also female, but sounded far less concerned. "There's no problem that a little more money can't solve."
"Money?" The woman called Medusa hissed, "We've shelled out thousands to those charlatans and now you want to give them more? To what end? We should cut our losses now before there's nothing left for us."
"Really, are all the dramatics actually necessary? Don't you see the potential in this venture?" The other woman practically purred, "Clients will salivate at the chance to get their hands on these coats, and a little delay makes the waiting all the sweeter."
"I swear to you, Cruella, if this doesn't pay off-"
"Come now, have I ever disappointed before?" Cruella's laugh sounded eerie as it reached them, then there was a heavy sigh from Medusa.
If she had any more fight left in her Medusa didn't show it, the sound of two sets of footsteps clacking down the hall and fading made it clear that Medusa had given in. Even after the sound of their steps faded Elsa maintained her position, keeping Anna pinned to the wall with her arm.
"Shouldn't we follow them?" Anna asked cautiously.
"I doubt they're heading toward the kids." Elsa whispered back, "If the last room was any indication they don't make a habit of checking in very often."
"Still..."
"Come on." Elsa whispered.
"Wait up." Anna shuffled along behind Elsa pitifully, wishing she had been more pragmatic in her choice of gear.
Anna hadn't even heard Elsa stop moving, but the feeling of running into her solid form was more than enough of a clue. Anna readied herself to snap at Elsa, but the protest withered in her throat as she felt a hand grip her own.
"W-what are you doing?"
"It's not..." Elsa paused, clearing her throat in the silence. "It's pretty obvious isn't it? You can't see in here."
"I mean," Anna hesitated, hating that she was going to have to admit this weakness. "no. Not really. But I can manage, I just need-"
"Just let me help you, okay? We need to move, there's no telling when they'll be back."
Anna took a moment to consider Elsa's words, her tone. She couldn't decide if Elsa had sounded flustered or not, but she was certainly feeling something akin to frustration herself.
"Of course." Anna shook off the unsettling mixture or nervous butterflies and fear as she nodded at Elsa, "You're right."
As Anna trailed along beside Elsa she found that her enthusiasm at feeling Elsa's hand in her own was fading rather quickly into an overwhelming feeling of childishness. Elsa's stride was confident in the dark, but even with Elsa leading her it was difficult for Anna to just trust that she wasn't going to step on, or through, something. She couldn't fathom how the women they had heard speaking had been navigating this darkness, but it became clear as they approached a room off the hallway they were navigating. Light trickled into the hall that they were in, flickering this way and that as if caused by a flame.
"This building is so fucking weird." Anna whispered under her breath.
She was surprised to hear a snort come from Elsa, "That's an understatement."
Anna nodded her head, conceding Elsa's point.. Rounding the corner into the candle lit room was both a relief and a loss. Her eyes adjusted right away, grateful for even the softest of lighting, but her heart crumpled a little at the chill left behind when Elsa's hand slipped quickly from her own.
"Well this room is..." Anna paused, feeling a little queasy as she realized she was looking at a shelf of what looked to be skinning tools. "interesting."
Papers rustled from somewhere else in the room as Anna continued to scan shelves, then Elsa sighed heavily. "This is all coded."
"Want me to take a look at-"
"There's no time." Elsa interrupted, looking more frustrated than Anna felt she should. "Come on, we'll have to keep pressing on before someone realizes we're here."
Anna nodded in agreement, "Or that their other batch of kids is missing."
With no hints as to the whereabouts of the children to be found Anna followed as Elsa led them down the only other path out of the room. Cruella and Medusa were likely somewhere ahead but no footsteps could be heard in the hall. Thankfully this path seemed to be one that was more frequently used. It was lined with tiny lights fixed to strings running along the ceiling, reminiscent of what Anna thought lights in a mine shaft might look like.
Elsa pressed on, but her pace had slowed significantly. Her shoulders slumped uncharacteristically as she walked just ahead of Anna. After much consideration Anna found that there was likely no smooth way to admit that she had noticed such a tiny difference in Elsa's posture, so she settled for instead trying to figure out what might have caused it. During the first half of their rescue Elsa had been as confident as ever, but when Anna had to convince her to look for the other kids...
The realization quickly hit home, Is she feeling guilty for doubting that they might be here?
"You know..." Anna began, picking up the pace to walk alongside Elsa and preparing herself in case Elsa snapped at her. "...we're going to find those kids."
After a brief silence there was a response, raspy and spoken barely above a whisper. "...Yeah."
Anna nearly jumped as something warm touched her hand, but a quick glance down told her that it had been Elsa's hand brushing against her own. It was a brief touch, but not so quick that Anna might mistake it for an accident. The thought of Elsa willingly reaching out, seeking some sort of comfort from contact with her, was enough to send Anna's heart racing.
Even as she tried to slow the blossoming feelings inside of her, Anna found that she simply couldn't help herself. "Thanks. For letting me come with you, I mean."
"Letting you?" Elsa asked quickly, laughing once. "I'm beginning to believe that no one but you lets you do anything."
"Is that really such a bad..." Anna's voice trailed off, eyes going wide as she realized that they had reached their destination.
XXX
The first room seemed a paradise in comparison to this secondary holding chamber. It was as if the designer of the room had taken a page or two from the books of horror movie writers during their drafting process. The walls and floors were concrete, but splattered here and there with some darkly colored substance that looked suspiciously like blood. Heavy iron chains ran through rings bolted straight into the ceiling, the links taught with the weight of their anchor – a single child.
For a moment it looked as if the child hadn't survived the stress of the situation, but as Elsa continued to stare she realized that there were small signs of movement. With hands bound above their head it was no wonder the child was nearly motionless, and given that the head of the child was obscured by some sort of sensory deprivation device there was no way of telling anything more about them.
"What the fuck..." Anna breathed the words behind Elsa, she may have not even been aware that she had said anything at all. "What purpose could this possibly serve? There's no way a child could warrant this kind of restraint."
Elsa wanted to remain calm for Anna's sake but she could feel her heart hammering away in her chest as the memories flooded in. This scene certainly wasn't a new one, it was something that she had seen in her nightmares too many times to count. It could have been an image right out of S.N.O.'s extremely early protocol manuals for handling werewolves, in their words 'teaching' them to control their powers.
The presence of outdated company equipment here and now this? Elsa thought back to her visit with Facilier and the way the cards had focused so hard on S.N.O. before he had dismissed them. Were they trying to tell her something that Facilier had glossed over? Had he intentionally misled her, or was he simply not as aware of the messages his friends needed to deliver as he claimed to be?
"It's for stress testing." Elsa replied quickly, swallowing back some of the initial nausea that the sight had brought on. "Adverse conditions can sometimes make a new werewolf change. That kid is either really resilient or still human."
When Elsa didn't move Anna took the initiative, kneeling down before the locked door and getting to work with her lock pick. She looked expectantly up at Elsa when the lock finally clicked open, and as they shared a lingering glance Elsa took a steadying breath.
Anna pried open the door for her and Elsa passed through, nearly retching as the stench within hit her. Sweat, excrement, and vomit all mingled in the air to form an unpleasant, overwhelming smell. As Elsa struggled for composure Anna appeared at her side, prompting Elsa to get herself together and form a plan.
"Help me with the locks, you'll carry the kid back to Kris and I'll stay behind to-"
"No." Anna's response was instantaneous, an edge of anger to her voice. "I'm not leaving you in here by yourself."
"That is an order, Fields." Elsa spat the words with more venom than she had intended, putting a sour look on Anna's face.
For all Anna's normal fire though she didn't argue as the pair got to work on the child's restraints. After a few moments of heart-wrenching sounds coming from within the headgear Elsa was able to work it free, revealing a dirty, soft face beneath. The child appeared female and the sight was enough to further unsettle Elsa, another unnecessary similarity to her own experience.
"Straight to Kris, no detours." Elsa ordered, passing the child off into Anna's waiting arms. "We can't afford to waste time and-"
"I know." Anna snapped, but her expression softened as she looked Elsa up and down once, "Are...are you going to be okay alone?"
The words were out before Elsa considered their implications. "I'm always okay alone."
"I don't like the idea of-"
Anna's resistance to Elsa's plan only served to put a dour look on Elsa's face. "What are you trying to say? You don't think my plan is the right course of action?"
"I'm trying to say that I'm worried about you, idiot." Anna snapped again, more fiercely this time. Her gaze fell to the floor at Elsa's side. "What if something happens and I'm not here to help you?"
"That girl is top priority." Elsa retorted almost mechanically, "Now get going, the kids were only the first part of the mission you know."
Anna looked as if she was considering the viability of staying and keeping the girl with them, but after a few seconds she relented with a sigh. Elsa expected some sort of quip, something witty and needling, but Anna was surprisingly gentle when she whispered, "Please be careful."
Once her shuffling feet could no longer be heard a wave of stress washed over Elsa, the intensity of which surprised her. Elsa couldn't recall a time when she had felt this on edge on missions with Kris. There had been plenty of times where splitting up had been necessary, but she had always been confident in the times of his absence. So what was it about Anna's absence that was so different?
Waiting around was not an option so Elsa slipped out of the room, nearly laughing at how happy she was to be breathing the stale air of the hallway again. The scent of construction and dust was far preferable to the room she had been in, but it didn't do much to tell her what direction Medusa and Cruella had gone.
While the paths before had been relatively straightforward the path ahead was anything but. Unlike previous halls this one branched out in two directions. Neither of the hallways looked more or less promising than the other and both were in various states of construction, both were easily passable too.
"Of course." Elsa whispered to herself, crouching to the ground and trying to look for signs of wear down one of the two paths. "Aha!"
It wasn't much, but the sight of a scuff on the ground was enough for Elsa to make a call. Elsa smirked and looked over her shoulder without a second thought, ready to make a witty comment about her brilliance. She enunciated a single syllable before remembering that no one was there, a fact that made her frown.
"Whatever..." Elsa huffed, starting down her chosen path with determination.
XXX
Breathless and panting Anna shouldered her way through the door they had entered previously, a manic laugh escaping her as she spotted Kris rushing from the treeline to meet her. Gratitude flooded in as he took the child from her arms, the strain of carrying her through the building so quickly had taken its toll. While he settled the girl among the other children Anna tried to slow her breathing, all while patting herself down and double checking that she hadn't lost any of her equipment in the rush to get here.
"Where's Elsa?" Kris demanded in hushed tones as he returned to Anna's side.
The fact that his first, and seemingly only, concern was Elsa's safety was telling. Clearly he and Elsa had become accustomed to the idea of death in and around their missions, but for Anna the question stung a little.
"She made me bring you the girl and stayed behind." Anna explained, "By now she's probably after those women."
"Oh." Kris looked aghast, then his face contorted as he thought their situation through. "Okay. Okay. You stay with the kids and I'll go back her up."
"No." Anna hadn't intended to be so loud or so forceful when she declined his suggestion but she wasn't about to backtrack now.
Kris' expression hardened as he firmly began to explain his view. "Anna, it's the smart move. Someone has to-"
"If anyone is going back in for her it's going to be me." Anna asserted, brows coming together as she frowned at Kris. "How could you even doubt that?"
"Anna." Kris sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Look at yourself, you're clearly exhausted. Yeah, the kid was small, but you carried her a huge distance in sub-optimal conditions. I've had time to rest."
Anna mulled his words over silently, considering what he was saying and what Elsa had said inside. Even as she had been escaping the building Anna couldn't get the words out of her head, Elsa had so quickly and so confidently stated that she was always fine alone. How often had she ended up alone that she could be so sure of herself?
"Yeah, well." Anna's voice tightened as her frustration boiled over into anger. She spat the accusation with only the slightest bit of guilt. "You always leave her alone, I'm not going to do that to her."
"What?" Kris scoffed, "I leave her alone? Anna, she's more than capable of taking care of herself. If she wasn't she wouldn't be the lead for our team. She could probably handle this-"
"Don't." All traces of earlier tiredness disappeared as Anna stepped forward, jabbing a finger into Kris' chest. "Don't you dare tell me that she can do this alone."
"She can though, Anna." Kris had begun to shout, but quickly quieted himself. "I know she can."
"Well, I don't give a damn what she can do alone." Anna's voice shook a little as all semblance of
control flew out the window, "She wound up alone in that vampire's house because of me, and then again in the woods. I'm not going to let her believe I'll abandon her every time-"
"Don't be ridiculous Anna, she would never think that. She's not like that." Frustration had begun to ebb into his tone again as Kris forcefully interrupted, "You won't let me go, and you're clearly exhausted so you shouldn't go. If that's how you feel then you're just going to have to-"
Anna shook her head as she took a couple of steps backward, putting distance between herself and Kris so that he couldn't stop her. "As long as I'm here she's not going to be put into a position where she has to do anything alone. Not ever again."
Kris had shouted something at her as Anna turned on her heels and rushed back toward the door, but the sound of her own racing heart drowned his words out. She wasn't nearly as careful on the second entry as the team had been on the first, stealth was no longer the objective for her. Top priority in Anna's mind was locating Elsa before anything happened to her, she knew that if she could just find Elsa before anything happened that would be the best way to continue the mission.
Retracing their steps through the building seemed easier, the lighting situation hadn't changed and yet somehow Anna thought maybe she was seeing things a little more clearly in the darkness. Anna was at the first of the holding areas quickly, and by the time she reached the second it was clear that Elsa had left almost immediately after Anna had.
"Okay, think like Elsa." Anna muttered to herself, looking between the two hallways.
Anna's stomach dropped as she realized that both halls looked like they hadn't been used in ages, but she didn't have time to dwell on the uncertain. She took a deep breath hoping to calm herself and instead found herself feeling confused. Had she created a phantom scent that resembled Elsa's perfume in her mind or had she simply briefly imagined the smell of it?
Anna shook her head, One crisis at a time, brain.
"She wouldn't have left a sign." Anna muttered to herself, "She didn't think I was coming...back?"
As she thought aloud Anna's eyes landed on a two by four that appeared out of place. Unlike the other scraps of building material that were lying around this one seemed to have been purposefully placed. It sat parallel to the hall, placed nearly perfectly in the center. Anna took a step down the hall, peering cautiously at it and finding that at the top someone had marked two diagonal lines in the dust on the floor– the shape came together as a perfect arrow.
The little back flip that her heart did was impossible to suppress. Elsa knew, or at least hoped, that her team wouldn't leave her alone here. Anna exhaled a short, happy laugh as she stepped nearer to double check and make sure that she wasn't imagining it, but once the sign was confirmed she didn't second guess her choice.
She hadn't quite reached levels of reckless abandon, but Anna certainly stormed down the hall with more vigor than perhaps she should have. Knowing Elsa could be right around the corner and in need of her assistance made her feel less cautious, less concerned for someone hearing her, and that would prove to be the cause of her near immediate downfall.
One moment Anna was rushing down the hall, peering quickly into darkened rooms and passing by when they appeared empty, but as she approached one of the rooms she heard a sickening crack. Pain shot through her head and before she knew it her eyes had slipped shut, plunging her into unconsciousness.
Anna woke to a throbbing pain in her head. When she pried her eyes open her vision swam for a moment before clearing, but the pain her head was only the beginning. As she tried to move pain shot through her shoulders, it was then that she realized her arms were bound above her head in a similar fashion to the child they had rescued earlier.
"Damn it." Anna hissed, "What is it with evil people and-"
"Well, well." There was no mistaking the voice of the woman that had been earlier identified as Cruella, and her contemptuous gaze spoke volumes. "How does your little organization function with so many rats scuttling around?"
Anna's eyes jerked up at the voice, spotting the woman in seconds. She was spindly from head to toe with overly manicured brows and cheekbones so high they seemed unreal. Her thin frame was draped in a fur coat that looked like it would be more at home on a movie set than a building hiding stolen children.
While Anna had no idea what Cruella was talking about, she knew that it had to have something to do with S.N.O., given the presence of their outdated equipment. With only a vague plan to gather information and a sneer Anna asked "Do you really have room to talk?"
"Put that unsightly hero complex away." Cruella rolled her eyes and reached into her coat to pull out a cigarette. "You're here to extort more from me than we agreed upon, aren't you? So who are you to talk?"
"What's the matter?" Anna openly struggled against the chains holding her, unable to find any weakness in it. "Don't tell me you don't have it?"
Cruella's lip twitched at the jab, but she recovered quickly as she took a drag, "You don't even know who you're talking to, do you girl?"
"Should I?" Anna set the bait, hoping Cruella would snag it and monologue long enough to allow Anna to find a way to free herself.
"Well, it certainly doesn't matter since you'll be joining the rest of our product soon but I suppose I could humor you." Cruella tittered and the sound sent a chill down Anna's spine. "Surely even a lowly peon like yourself has heard the name DeVil?"
They don't know the kids are gone yet. Anna thought to herself, carefully hiding her glee behind a mask of confusion. "DeVil? You mean to tell me a world famous designer is just pretending to be human?"
"How dare you, of course I'm human!" Cruella huffed, a hand on her hip. "Human and one of the most prolific innovators in the business. A shame you won't be around to see how wildly successful my werewolf fur line will be."
"You really expect people to buy werewolf fur items? How are you supposed to market those to humans?" Anna scoffed and shook her head, "The human world couldn't handle their existence, it would drive them mad. And if that didn't, then the idea of skinning another human for-"
"They truly do brain wash you at S.N.O., don't they?" Cruella's interruption was punctuated by the staccato sound of her loud, cackling laughter, "What a fucking waste. All that money just to maintain some idiotic status quo."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Oh, you poor dear." The false kindness in Cruella's voice was grating, "And to think, you'll die without knowing the truth behind S.N.O."
Anna didn't have the capacity to process the threat, the sight of Cruella removing a large, wide needled syringe from her coat pocket knocked all sass from Anna's mind. For the first time, fear shot through her. Not only would this fate mean possibly dying due to a faulty attempt at turning her into a werewolf, it could also mean that when the disappearance of the children was discovered her torture would be all the worse for the part she played in freeing them.
"Listen, can't we come to an arrangement?" Anna tried, and failed, to mask the little fearful quiver in her voice.
"Oh dear, we're well past arrangements now." Cruella smirked, "Do be kind and stay still, would you? It wouldn't do to damage your beautiful skin and tarnish our final product."