She had seen him from around the corner of one of the store shelves a few feet away from him and had felt an unnatural surge of panic so strong that she had been about to topple the shelf on top of him and run like hell, but stopped herself because Kakashi was in the way. She watched warily as Kabuto, that monster that used to give her nightmares at night.
That killer that had stolen over ten years of not only her life but her late mother's life too. The one who had spattered the blood of an innocent man across her face when he had shot him point blank and killed him; he was here. Standing just a foot or so from her adoptive brother.
Looking for her.
Wanting to kill her.
She looked around and saw one of the store employee's a few feet away working on something. There was a tool box laid out on one of the bottom shelves at the employee's feet and she could plainly see a box cutter with a very sharp blade and made her way over to the employee and pretended to need to tie her shoes as the person turned their back, giving her the chance needed to grab the box cutter and stuff it in her jacket pocket before standing up and lifting one hand to pull up the hood on her jacket so that she could partially hide her features.
Stealth and cunning were the only things standing between her and certain death now. And by god she was not going to die to day. Not now that she had a home with five wonderful, silly and feirce brothers and her wonderful and loving biological father.
She refused to let Kabuto kill her.
She pulled the hood up over her head and tucked her mid back length silvery blond hair inside of the hood and tugged it down over her eyes and grabbed the item that she had been looking for before Kabuto had shown up and went jogging over to Kakashi and tossed the stuff into the buggy drawing his attention away from the killer. "Why are you wearing your hood?" Kakashi asked as he looked at her.
She put her index finger to her lips indicating that he should be quiet and grabbed the buggy with her other hand and started to slowly pull it and him, away from the killer. Her heart thudding in her chest, her palms started to sweat and she was having trouble breathing. The farther she got away from Kabuto the more her panic spilled over until they were in the front of the store paying for their things and she was trying desperately to hold by herself together.
Kakashi kept giving her funny looks as he paid for their things then pocketed the credit card again and started out of the store to load up the car when Kabuto came out of no where and bumped into her.
Her heart stopped for that one terrifying second as he turned his head to look at her. He muttered an polite apology then walked out of the store and she ran around the buggy to Kakashi and snatched the keys out of his hand and ran to the car and stood there shaking and sobbing and trying to find the key to the car. Kakashi came up behind her and reached for the keys and she reacted without thinking and tried to hit him.
He jumped back away from her and narrowed his eyes at her and swore. "Uzu! What the hell are you doing?" He was just a little suprised that she had just tried to hit him. Well, okay, scratch that. He was very surprised that she had just tried to hit him. In the past month he had seen all types of behavior patterns from Uzu, but none of them had been violent. Which was probably why he suddenly felt so alarmed when he noted that she was shaking and hyperventilating and crying all at once.
He reached out again, this time distracting her before he grabbed her and she let out the most god awful, terrified scream that he had ever heard and thrashed around in his grip. He quickly subdued her and held her pinned against the car as her hood slipped down away from her face and he was finally able to see her.
She looked so scared, her eyes looked much too wide for her face, her skin was as pale as chalk and she couldn't seem to tell who he was.
Why? What the fuck had happened between now and the time that they had spent in the store?
Something had obviously happened, but what? What?
No time to think on it. I need to try and calm her down before she passes out from lack of air. He thought darkly as he leaned his head down a little bit and crooned in her ear, in a voice barely above a whisper. "Hush, hush baby girl don't you cry. Big brother will make everything alright."
She started to shake her head and he shifted his hold on her so that he could pull her up against him and hugged her tightly. "Don't try to think. Don't try to speak. Just close your eyes and let everything slip away-" Her breathing pattern changed and he smiled slightly, knowing that he was starting to reach her through all of that panic and fear.
"Your getting drowsy and want to sleep, so just close you eyes baby and start to dream-" His voice had a bizarre hypnotic quality on her frightened mind. No sooner than he said the words than her eyes slipped closed and her legs buckled and she started to fall.
Kakashi knew it was coming before it even happened, it was the one constant that occurred when ever someone was absolutely terrified and stressed to their breaking point. They lost consciousness. It was a defense mechanism that protected the heart and mind from further damage.
He caught her easily, using one of his arms to hold her upright wile he unlocked the car and opened the door and then picked her up and carefully put her into the passenger seat and buckled her in. He didn't know what had caused her to freak out when she had been acting normal before. But he would find out.
And someone would pay for freaking her out.