New Species 01 Fury (16 page)

“‘Almost’ won’t save that female.” Justice jerked his chin toward the screen showing the kitchen. He softly cursed. One of the intruders had just stepped into the kitchen.

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Laurann Dohner

“Kitty, kitty, kitty,” a male voice called out, as if she were a cat. He started yanking open cupboards on the other side of the kitchen.

Ellie’s entire body trembled and her hand clutched the knife hard enough for the wood handle to dig into her palm. She closed her eyes and listened as he slammed things. Suddenly something hit the counter above her. She bit back a moan of terror.

Maybe he won’t think to look inside the lower cabinets,
she feverishly prayed.

Her luck ran out as the cabinet door jerked open next to her. He reached inside and grabbed her left arm. A brutal grasp dragged her out of her hiding spot with one hard yank.

“Got you, you little cat bitch.”

“I’m not a cat,” she informed him in a shaky voice. “I’m as human as you are.” He jerked her painfully to her feet and glared down at her. He appeared to be in his mid twenties, stood about five foot eight, with a stocky build. A tattoo peeked out from his T-shirt collar.

“I don’t care what you are, bitch. Now you’re dead. This is our country and you damn two-legged animals need to die.” He reached behind him to the waist of his jeans to withdraw a handgun.

Ellie saw the weapon and understood he planned to just shoot her. Pure terror flashed through her as she plunged the knife at his chest. She stared into his eyes when the blade struck him, slid through the shirt, into skin, and watched his green gaze widen with shock. He stumbled back, dragged her by the arm, and she tore her hand from the knife handle imbedded deep in his chest. Blood poured down the front of him and onto her. His arm with the gun rose as he tried to make a last-ditch effort to shoot her. Ellie grabbed his wrist with both hands and struggled to keep him from pointing it at her.

His hold on her arm tightened, caused her pain, but then it eased as he weakened.

His knees gave out and he collapsed onto them to the tiled kitchen floor. A horrible moan, along with bright red blood, poured from his mouth. Ellie moaned in horrified distress as the man’s gaze locked with hers, his pain, terror and rage clearly displayed there. He lost his hold on her arm. He also released the gun, which crashed to the floor a second before he slumped backward.

Ellie stared down at him mutely. He sprawled on his back with his calves twisted under his thighs in that awkward bent position. His eyes were open wide, blood pooled on the white tile and he took a few more ragged gasps. A slight bubbling noise reached her ears. His hands jerked, twitched, and he blinked before he took his last breath. The 80

Fury

knife handle protruded from his chest by his heart where she’d stabbed him. She swallowed the bile that rose up just as glass broke nearby. The sound had come from another room, forcing her attention from the dead guy at her feet.

Instinct took over. She dived for the gun on the floor. She grabbed it with both hands, the weapon cold and heavy, and struggled to her knees behind the island, peering over the counter at the only entries into the kitchen. The open archway to one of the living spaces and the archway to the dining area were her only escape routes. She used the island to shield her body and pointed the gun between those two openings.

She planned to shoot anything that moved.

She didn’t have long to wait before someone made a noise from the dining area when they knocked over a chair. She trained the gun in that direction, made sure her body remained behind the island, and used the top of the counter to hold her hands steady in the double grip she had on the weapon. She trembled, scared,
and
she’d just stabbed a man to death. She pushed those facts from her mind, knowing she’d fall apart if she dwelled on it. She didn’t have time to face repercussions of what she’d had to do to survive.

The guy with the shotgun stepped into the kitchen, just waltzed inside as if he didn’t have a care in the world. That changed instantly when he saw her with the gun trained on him. His mouth opened, his eyes widened and then he reacted. He seemed to move in slow motion when he started to lower the muzzle of the shotgun toward her.

His mouth compressed into a tight line of determination to shoot but Ellie pulled the trigger first. The sound deafened her when the weapon fired.

He threw himself back into the dining room and disappeared from sight. The shotgun poked around the wall and he fired it but it ended up hitting the ceiling somewhere behind Ellie. Something soft that reminded her of snow rained down over her head. She screamed in reaction and fired at the wall he hid behind, next to the arch.

She wasn’t sure if she’d hit the bastard or not but she hoped so. She realized she must not have hurt him when the shotgun barrel extended again. He blindly pointed it her way as he pulled the trigger. The cabinet near Ellie blew to pieces. She threw her body to the floor, almost right on top of the dead guy.

She slipped on thick, wet blood when she tried to push up from the tile. Her knees skated in the slick substance, she gasped, and her hands shot out from under her. She slammed down onto her stomach with a grunt. She had to roll to get away from the blood staining the floor.

She saw movement from the corner of her eye and twisted toward the motion. The guy with the shotgun rushed her, ran right at the island. She pointed the gun and fired while lying on her side. He ducked behind the other side of the counter and slammed into the cabinets with a loud crack as the thin wood took the impact of his body.

“Drop the gun, you bitch,” he demanded. “And I won’t torture you before I blow your fucking head off.”

81

Laurann Dohner

Ellie’s terrified stare fixed on the cabinet he’d hit with his last gunshot blast, proof of its destructive force. The wood had a fist-sized hole in it and bits of it had exploded on impact to scatter across the tile floor. She took a deep breath, realized she had to get away and find somewhere new to hide. What she really needed, she decided, was for the son of a bitch with the shotgun to shoot himself.

“Ellie? We hear gunfire on the coms. Are you all right?”
Shit.
She had forgotten to turn off the com system. Breeze’s voice sounded worried but Ellie couldn’t answer her. She took comfort in knowing Breeze and the other woman were safely locked two floors above. Only the head of security and the director knew the codes to open those steel doors once they’d been activated. Ellie didn’t even have that kind of access once the Hail Mary doors were triggered. The men could torture her, but she didn’t have the information they needed to reach the women.

“Ellie?” He snickered behind the island but he’d given away his location. “What kind of stupid name is that for an animal to get?” Ellie eased open the cabinet door. He had to be right behind it on the other side. She peered inside and took aim.

“I’m going to fucking kill you slow for what you did to Eddie.” Ellie pulled the trigger and fired in his general direction until the gun clicked, empty after a few bullets tore through the wood. Ellie spun away in case he returned fire and crawled to the far left. The gun would be useless except as something to pitch at him.

Silence met her ears while she strained to hear anything. She hesitated at the corner to peek around the island, her heart pounding. A groan sounded from the other side of the island.

Had she hit him? She couldn’t be that lucky. She crawled forward on her hands and knees. The dead man’s sticky blood covered her hands, making it a slippery action. She inched forward, terrified, but knew there were two other men who could show up at any time, drawn by the gunfire. If she stayed put they’d definitely kill her.

The guy with the shotgun had to be messing with her, perhaps playing hurt to get her to stick her head out so he could shoot her. She had a bad feeling until she saw blood flowing across the floor along the grout line.

Ellie held her breath and then took the chance to stick her head out and glance at the side of the island. His body sat leaning against it. The shotgun rested on the floor next to his legs while he stared straight ahead toward the dining room. He blinked.

Blood covered his chest and ran down his left arm, revealing that she’d hit him at least once. She continued to watch him.

“Buck?” A man’s voice called from the living room. “Eddie?” She sprang to her feet and sprinted for the dining room. If Buck was the guy with the shotgun, she prayed he wouldn’t have the time or the ability, with his injuries, to grab his weapon to shoot her as she dashed away. She made it out of the kitchen without getting shot in the back.

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The safest place would be the library. If she could make it there without getting caught she had a chance to barricade herself inside. Heavy furniture filled the large room. She could shove it into place to block the double doors. With that new plan in mind, she made a mad dash for it. A man swore as she darted past an open doorway to one of the rooms. She knew he’d seen her and ran faster. All the other downstairs rooms were too open or had limited ways to seal off sections.

Ellie made it to the library and slammed the door closed. She leaned against the wood, heard the guy following right on her heels. She had no time to grab furniture after all. She panted, totally out of breath, looked down and grimaced at the sight of her hands, arms, and her shirt covered with blood.

“This way,” a man yelled. “She’s in here.”

“Buck and Eddie are dead,” a man screamed. “She fucking killed them. That animal bitch killed them both.”

One of the men tried to open the door. Ellie screamed and shoved back with all the strength she had. She heard a vicious curse and then someone slammed hard enough into it that the impact shoved her a few inches from the hard surface her back pressed so tightly. She frantically searched for something she could reach with her foot to drag over to help block the door but she had no such luck.

I need a weapon
. The large room contained a few couches, some tables, and comfortable chairs. The fireplace sat across the room. Books lined all the shelves surrounding the room. Her desperate attention flew back to the fireplace and the tool set next to it. Her focus zoomed in on the poker.

Both men slammed their combined weight against the door. The force was hard enough to send Ellie flying away from it. She hit one of the couches, slid over the side of it and tumbled to the floor behind it. She clawed frantically at the carpet to find purchase to get back to her feet.

“Get that bitch,” one of the men yelled.

Ellie grabbed the fire poker and spun to face her attackers. She struck the man closest to her using the metal rod as if it were a baseball bat. Pain shot through Ellie’s hands from the sharp impact when it made contact with the man’s body. He howled in pain and jumped back but stared at his torn shirt where blood appeared on the damaged material.

The man glared at Ellie. “You’re going to pay for that,” he hissed.

The other man unsheathed a hunting knife from his waist as both men moved apart. Ellie kept her back to the fireplace and waved the fire poker between the men, trying to keep them back. They inched apart more to make it harder for Ellie to keep an eye on both of them. Both rushed her. She swung. Ellie managed to hit one of them right before the second one tackled her. She hit the floor hard with a heavy weight crushed down over her. She gasped, tried to scream, but she couldn’t even draw breath.

“You bitch,” the one she’d hit roared. “I think she broke my fucking hand. You got her, Roy?”

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Laurann Dohner

The man on top of her grabbed her hair at the base of her neck and smashed her facedown against the carpet. She tried to fight but couldn’t get away from him. He shoved her harder against the carpet and a knee dug painfully against the back of her leg.

“I got the rabid bitch, Chuck.”

He adjusted enough for her to turn her head. Ellie inhaled air and instantly regretted it. The man had putrid breath. He kept her pinned down and held her head in place with his fisted grip on her hair. She couldn’t get out from under the heavy man.

He had to be close to three hundred pounds.

“Let me cut the bitch up,” Chuck whined. “I think she really broke my hand. It hurts like hell.”

Roy grunted. He shifted and Ellie cried out in pain when his body pressed flush with hers, pushed tighter against her until her ribs threatened to break. Something poked into her ass cheek. The other guy tore the fire poker from her hand.

“Help me get her up,” Roy rasped. “I know how to show this bitch her place in society and then I’ll let you slice her damn throat like she’s a rabbit. We’ll watch her twitch until all the blood drains out.”

Ellie could only manage to buck and squirm when she tried to fight. The object pressed against her ass wasn’t a mystery anymore. Roy was horny. She had a horrible idea what he planned to do to her to show her what her place in his messed-up idea of society would be. Sheep, rabbits, she guessed anything breathing was the asshole’s speed.

Hands grabbed her ankles and a second later Roy shifted his weight off her and let go of her hair to grab her other wrist. They hauled her up by her arms and legs, carried her between them, her back inches above floor. Ellie screamed and fought, tried to kick out at the man who held her legs, but they wouldn’t let her go. Chuck sure seemed to have no problems holding her ankles in a crushing hold for a guy with a suspected broken hand.

“Toss her over the couch. Then move on the other side of it to grab her hair.” Roy panted, out of breath from restraining her while she struggled.

They swung Ellie’s body and she hit a coffee table. Sharp pain exploded in her side.

She wondered if they’d broken her rib when it hurt to gasp air into her lungs. The men swung her again, this time she hit the couch, and they twisted her body with brutal hands. Roy had her arms and Chuck dropped her legs.

She attempted to kick at Roy when they bent her over the back of the couch. Roy slammed his body down on hers instead, crushed her under him again and pinned her tightly to the couch. She screamed into the cushion when hands grabbed her hair and pressed her face tighter into the material. Sheer panic shot through her when she realized she couldn’t breathe. They were suffocating her.