Ashley didn't awaken until someone pounded at the door. She jerked, surprised by how little she was able to fight Jonny's sleeping spells. It was evening, and dusk rendered the lighting of her bedroom barely enough to see.

I really, really hate you, Jonny. She rubbed her face, furious he'd knocked her out when she had shit to do. "Come in," she called in a gravelly voice and pushed herself up.

Charles opened the door. "You coming with us or sleeping like a lazy fucking Natural?" he asked with his usual abruptness.

"Like you'd be successful without me!" she retorted somewhat moodily.

"Come on then." He tossed her gym bag full of clothes into her room then left her door open and disappeared into the bright hallway.

Despite the day of sleep, she felt miserable. Her eyes were puffy, her body lethargic. Ashley refreshed herself the best she could in the bathroom and changed, groggy and unhappy. She hadn't planned on sleeping so much or going out on another raid, though she began to suspect a raid was the only chance she'd have of escaping. Jonny likely had wards like Xander's that weren't going to let her ride come get her when she needed it if she tried to leave from the headquarters.

She chanted the coordinates in her head over and over to keep them fresh and left her bedroom for the hallway. She followed the sounds of movement, radios and weaponry being issued out to the open foyer of the mansion, where Charles the vamp named Tasha were double checking the equipment of the raid parties.

Ashley needed a cell phone in order to figure out where the coordinates Valon provided her led to and to find a ride. She watched the vamps milling and walking in and out of the busy space, waiting for someone to leave his or her cell unguarded for the split second it'd take for her to grab it. The vamps were too disciplined to set down their sole means of communicating with their commanders, but several carried theirs where she could reach them, in baggy cargo pockets or tossed in the outside pockets of backpacks.

Narrowing down her target, she maneuvered through the vamps and bumped the vamp she planned on robbing. Muttering an apology, she snatched the phone visible in his unbuttoned cargo pocket and slid it deftly into hers.

"Natural!" Charles called.

"Coming!" she said and rolled her eyes. She approached the table where he stood with several vamps. "I hope there are more to take out than last night."

"We're doubling up with Tasha's team to take out a warehouse," Charles reported. "Hector, with the Natural."




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