Sarah ran through the rainy streets like her life depended on it.

Because it did.

If they caught her… it didn’t bear thinking of.

With a graceful leap, she caught the upper edge of an 8 foot wire fence and vaulted over, flipping into a somersault on the gritty wet asphalt before rolling to her feet and taking up her sprint again in one smooth motion. A dead-end brick wall at the back of an alley was no obstacle as her high-top converse propelled her like a ricocheted bullet off the adjacent side wall, then it was a quick, two hand pull up onto a bakery roof. As she padded along silently, picking her way between startled pigeons and humming AC units, she almost chuckled to herself at the irony.

They’d probably never imagined she’d be using the skills they so mercilessly drilled into her to escape from them.

No one in their right minds would dare consider such an insane idea as to attempt an escape from The Ringmaster.

And Sarah had to admit, it was insane.

But not as insane as it would’ve been to stay. Stay in the glaring, unforgiving lights of the ring, dancing ballet 100 feet off the ground on a slip of razor wire. And that was just what she did for the audience. Her other assignments were far more deadly.

People had laughed when she told them what she did as a day job. They never believed her. And who would?

A circus performer. In this day and age of technology and sensibility. They always thought she must be a frustrated barista with an overactive imagination.

That was when _they_ had still allowed her to speak to people from outside.

It had been fun at first, when they’d taken her in off the streets and had begun to train her. She’d thought it was because of her natural grace and agility.

But that was before her …. Other abilities began to surface, and she’d begun to realize they weren’t an ordinary traveling circus at all. (Well, as ordinary as any traveling circus can be.)

The circus was just a chameleon shell to cover a group of singularly unique and strange people and beasts in plain sight. A place where oddness was expected, and given amused glances that slid past without second thought. A place where the Ringmaster could move about from city to city, looking for the next addition to his collection.

She understood now. They hadn’t taken her in for her dancing abilities. Somehow, they’d known, even before she had that she was… different. Other.

She wasn’t even sure what to call herself in her own thoughts.

Mutant? It wasn’t a very complimentary word. She grimaced, picking the lock of a utility door that led down into the building below. Evening was coming on, and a hidden stairwell was as gos as it was going to get tonight, at least for a few hours.

She couldn’t stay in one place for long.

The Ringmaster would find her.

And then she’d never be free again.