She didn't run for the forest; either way she went, she knew she didn't have a chance without divine intervention. And divine intervention wasn't coming.
She was weak. She was tired. She could feel her muscles giving out on her; weeks of exhaustion and too little food had caught up with her.
She had a million excuses, but what it came down to was the fact that she had known it was a useless effort. She had made it no more than perhaps thirty feet when she felt the hard manacled arm that came around her waist, restraining her, and felt herself lifted up and back against a hard, broad chest.
"No!" The rage that tore from her throat was harsh, tearing at her vocal chords as she felt tears of anger falling from her eyes.
"Lass, ease up." Gentle, crooning, his lips at her ear, the Scots Wolf restrained her arms at her side and turned to head back to the cabin.
She kicked, she screamed. Rage and terror whipped through her system as she tried to fight, only to find each move blocked, the training she had gained over the years ineffective in the face of her own weakness, and the strength of the Breed holding her.
"Tell you what, we'll get some food in you, a few cups of coffee, some rest, and you can try it again," he suggested, and she was certain the good-natured tone of his voice was no more than a lie.
He was enjoying this; she could feel it, sense it. Just as he would enjoy killing her.
"You bastard! Fucking monster," she screamed. "I hope you die. I hope all of you die. You should have never been created ..." She sobbed as he stepped onto the porch and moved into the cabin. "Just kill me now."
"Would you stop the damned caterwauling, lass." He strode through the cabin before yelling behind him, "Jonas, get Nikki up here. She's bleedin'."
She tried to claw at his arms, his hands, but the hold he had on her kept her from scratching. She slammed her head back and only met his shoulder, not his chin or his face as she'd hoped.
She tried to kick, but he evaded each swing of her legs until he reached the bed and threw her onto it.
"Like hell!" Coming off the bed, her only thought was to go back through the window, to escape the only way she knew how.
With a casual little push against her shoulders, he effectively managed to put her on her back as she fell.
Rage was burning inside her like wildfire. It whipped through her exhausted mind, stealing her ability to do anything but to hate and to fear.
They were playing with her and she knew it.
She rolled to the other side of the bed. There was another window, another way out.
Hard fingers at her ankle jerked her back, holding her to the bed as she flipped to her back and tried to kick furiously at the restraining fingers locked around her, keeping her on the bed.
"You could always tie her to the bed," an amused male voice pointed out.
Storme's gaze sliced to the doorway. "You monster!" she screamed at the Bureau director. "You won't win. You won't be able to kill everyone who knows what you are."
"It's a very nice thought though." He shrugged as Storme collapsed in exhaustion, hatred still spilling through her as she regarded him with a bitter sneer.
"Jonas, you're no' helping matters," Styx muttered, her lungs laboring as she fought to breathe through the panic assailing her.
"I'm not trying to help matters, Wolf." Irritation filled his voice as Storme kicked once again at the Breed holding her. "You're not going to be able to reason with her. Do you smell the terror rolling off her? She's beyond reason, Styx."
"Enough, Jonas."
She was not beyond reason. She was never beyond humanity.
"There's no reasoning with you," she sobbed, coming halfway off the bed to slap at the Breed holding her, only to have him push her back once again. "You're animals.
Rabid, vicious animals that know nothing but killing. Nothing but death."
"Because we were given nothing but death." Styx was suddenly in her face, his lips pulled back from his teeth, canines sharp and wicked, snapping mere inches from her. "Your father helped create us. Your brother helped train us. We were given nothing but death, horror and pain, and you expect us to lie back and politely ask for more?"
"I expect you not to kill those helping you," she screamed.
"Call another Breed an animal again in front of me, and as God is my witness I will paddle your ass red." Those teeth snapped again. "You have no fear of death from me, you vicious little wretch. What you should fear though is being treated as the child you appear to be."