Loki was determined to reach his destination, and Elise, injured and deprived of sleep, feared that if she couldn't keep up, she would lose him again. She wasn't worried about just where they were going until they reached the edge of the forest. From behind the trees, she could see the road's pavement and hear the cars as they whipped past.

"What kind of appointment is this?" Elise asked, apprehensive about the possibility of being spotted.

"Where are they?" Loki mumbled to himself, scanning the road without stepping too close to it. "He will be after us soon..."

"Who, Thor?"

"Yes, Thor," Loki snapped. He was enraged, clearly, and nervous. "I thought you were clever, and yet, you continue to ask these stupid questions. Always questions."

His nasty response stung, but Elise was far too tired to respond to the insult. Instead, she tried to comfort him. "Whoever it is, I'm sure they'll be here soon. Don't worry."

"I cannot rely on anyone," said Loki as he stared at the cars that failed to stop. "At least you are consistent, if somewhat naïve."

That makes one of us, Elise thought.

Loki took two steps toward the road and looked left and right.

"Don't let anyone see you," Elise cautioned.

"I know just what I-"

"Loki," Thor shouted from far behind in a raspy voice that was almost unrecognizable. "Loki..."

Loki took another step forward and turned his head frantically to the left and right. "Damn," he said. "Damn it all!"

As the sound of footsteps grew louder and nearer, fear clawed at Elise. She moved forward to stand closer to Loki, and when she was within reach, he reached for her and grabbed her upper arm, holding onto it with a strong, painful grip.

"They are coming," he whispered urgently, his eyes fixed on particular piece of oncoming traffic, his gaze breaking only to glance back in the direction from which Thor could be heard. "Prepare yourself."

Elise made a face. "How can I prepare if I don't-"

"There!" Loki yelled. "Run!"

He dashed out into the road from behind the cover of the trees, and Elise prayed that her feet would carry her a few yards more lest his iron grip on her and the distance between them conspire to yank her arm out of its socket. The erratic movements of the approaching SUV marked it clearly as the getaway car. It slowed only slightly as they sprinted alongside it. No door opened for them; there was just the familiar flash to mark the moment of teleportation, and then, they were in the back seat.

Beside the driver was a passenger. Elise gawked at the feathery black hair on the back of his head until he turned to shout at Loki.

"What are you doing out here?" The man's voice was low and smoky, and though his accent was heavy, he was easy to understand. "And who is this?"

"This is Elise," Loki replied. "We were admiring one of Midgard's many lovely forests."

"This is serious," the passenger scolded. "The General-"

"I do not answer to your General," said Loki. "I answer to no man."

The man in the passenger's seat relented, shaking his head and, presumably, rolling his eyes.

Elise leaned in toward Loki and asked quietly, "Who are these guys?"

"Friends of friends," be replied before turning his attention back to the passenger. "Tell him to drive faster," he ordered. "We are being followed."

"By whom? " the man shouted.

"Just tell him," Loki said.

The man sighed, then turned to the driver and spoke to him in a language that Elise decided was Korean. With a loud whir, the vehicle accelerated, and Elise's head lurched backward into the headrest.

"Where are they taking us?" she asked as the car sped down the road.

"If we cannot outmaneuver Thor, then nowhere," Loki replied."Otherwise, we are going someplace where we will not be bothered."

"Do you really think he'll catch up?" Elise questioned. "It didn't seem like he was going anywhere fast."

"Perhaps."

The conversation seemed to have come to its natural end, but Elise felt compelled to keep it alive rather than sitting in silence and contemplation. "So,what do we do when we get there?"

Loki smirked and chuckled softly to himself, then lowered his head slowly to graze Elise's ear with his lip. "We begin where we left off," he murmured.

"Oh." Elise's skin was warm, but she shuddered as though she were freezing as he closed in on her. Whether he was referring to the moment before he scrambled her brain or the point at which Thor found them in the forest, she decided that it was best to feign ignorance and hope that he would forget. "Where did we leave off?"

With his hand on her cheek, he turned her head. With his nose touching the tip of hers, he stared, his unblinking eyes full of a cocktail of rage and greed while his voice revealed neither. "With your back against a wall and your feet off of the ground," he answered. "Unless you would prefer-"

"Is this an appropriate time to be talking about it?" said Elise. She was embarrassed, though no one else in the car seemed to be listening.

"I care not," Loki breathed, seizing the flesh on her upper thigh and squeezing painfully.

Elise winced at his grip. "But don't you have other things to worry about?" she asked in a pinched tone. "You said you had a plan. Don't you have to... do that?"

"In good time." His hand wandered upward.

Elise heard the passenger shift in his seat. He was hearing them. He was just afraid to comment.

The car took a sharp turn, and it was immediately evident that they were speeding down a gravel road.

"Seriously," Elise said, her voice shaking, "where are we going?"

"Hush." Loki's fingers swept up her torso and rested on her throat, gripping lightly. "You trust me, do you not?"

"Yeah." Elise's toes tingled, and her vision blurred. "Why?"

"You must." Loki kissed the juncture between her jaw and her neck. "I could do anything. I could take your life."

There was a ringing in both of Elise's ears, growing louder, but never loud enough to drown out Loki's threats. Her heart raced uncomfortably; she coughed, just in case it would somehow regulate its rhythm. She was moving, squirming, but everything had gone numb. The panic was familiar, but newly terrible each time, and now, it seemed to be doing its worst.

"I can't breathe," she squealed. "Can you... can you take your hand off? Take it away?" She was hyperventilating, and before she could think better of it, she was attempting to wedge her fingers between Loki's palm and the skin of her neck to pry him off.

"You are breathing." His hand remained firmly in place. "I could stop your breath. I will not, though I could."

"Stop it, stop it, please," Elise babbled. She closed her eyes tightly and tried not to hear his words. "I need you to stop. Stop it."

"You want me to stop it?" Loki laughed. "Stop your breath? Very well, then..."

"No!" Elise wailed. "Let go!"

He laughed again, but before he could say anything more, the brakes squeaked, and the vehicle stopped.

"Here we are," the passenger announced. He didn't turn around, but his voice was different, breathy and shaking. "Quickly. Go inside."

Loki moved toward the door and pushed it open. He turned his head before he stepped out, ginned at Elise, and said, "I was only toying with you, but this reaction..." He chuckled as he started up the driveway, and he left the car door hanging open.

Elise lingered for a moment, waiting for the excess adrenaline to leave her body. The driver had left the vehicle, but the passenger remained. Elise saw him shudder as though he had swallowed cough syrup unexpectedly. Finally, he turned around and addressed her.

"You must be a tough lady," he said, "to deal with him for so long."

Elise exhaled a deep breath to cleanse what was left of the panic. "No," she sighed, "not so much anymore."

The passenger looked over his shoulder and out the window. "He is... unpredictable," he said. "We are lucky to have him on our side."

"Who's we?" Elise asked.

The man smiled knowingly and unclasped his seat belt. "If you do not know, you were not meant to know." He opened the door, but paused before exiting. "You should get inside, too, before he misses you."

Elise wasn't sure what he meant by that, but he was right; Loki expected her to follow him inside. She slid across the back seat to the door that Loki had left open and placed her feet firmly on the ground.

"What was your name again?" Elise asked the passenger as they walked to the cabin at the end of the long driveway.

"Call me Ji," he replied.

Ji held the door while Elise entered the cabin. To her surprise, several strange men were already gathered inside the small living room. They were all relatively short in stature and, Elise assumed (though she felt somehow guilty for doing so), Korean. They were behaving as though they were at a "business attire requested" event instead of a safe house, chatting at polite levels as they opened a bottle of scotch, poured, and passed.

Elise didn't notice Loki at the back of the room until he stood. Tall and still speckled with dirt and blood, he contrasted against everyone around him. The person nearest him handed him a beverage and said a few words, gesturing toward the door and Elise's location. Loki lifted his head, and he spotted her. He didn't beckon her, but she knew she had to go to him, and to that end, she budged past men standing in her way.

When she reached him, Elise just stood at his side and waited for him to speak. He didn't do that right away; he didn't even glance at her. It wasn't until she had been staring at Loki for a long few seconds that he finally asked:

"What is it?"

Elise flinched, and she could feel her pulse hastening again. "Nothing."

A quick and quiet laugh escaped him as the corners of his lips lifted. "Have a drink," he said.

"I really shouldn't," Elise replied. "Not with a concussion."

The smile turned to a frown. "Have a drink," he repeated as he offered the glass in his hand to her.

She took it from him, took a sip, and cringed. Anything would have been better than scotch.

"Finish it," Loki demanded.

"What?"

"Finish your drink." He was serious; the look on his face made that clear.

Elise braced herself, pressed the rim of the glass to her lips, and drank until the bitter sludge was gone. She wrinkled her nose in disgust, and she felt Loki's hand above her elbow.

"Come."

He led her away from the party and into one of the small cabin's few bedrooms, closing the door behind them and locking it. As soon as he let go of her arm, Elise sat down on the bed and rubbed her eyes. The drink was already hitting her hard; she swayed as she tried to sit up straight. Loki stood in front on her, and when she first tilted her head up to see his face, she saw two of him.

"I really don't feel well," she complained. "Can I lie down?"

"And miss all of this?" Loki touched her hair and grinned, and the light in the room cast a sinister shade over his eyes. "Before a day passes, you will be a queen. You should be overcome with excitement."

"But what's going to happen?" Elise asked. "What are we doing here?"

A change occurred in Loki's expression; his jaw tightened and his brow furrowed, as though he had just heard an insult. His tone changed as well, from one of cruel joy to one of suspicion and enmity. "Are you not pleased?"

"No. I mean, yeah. I'm happy, I think." Her doubt must have been obvious to him, but she couldn't summon the energy for a better performance. "I just want to know what's gonna happen."

"Liar." His lip curled as he said the word, and he shook with rage or hurt. "Nothing I have done for you has made you happy."

Elise noticed him clenching his fists at his sides, and she felt even dizzier. "I'm not unhappy," she explained, "I'm just afraid." As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew they were wrong. "I mean... I don't know how to explain it."

He lifted his hand and brought it to the back of Elise's head, unfurling his fingers and threading them through the strands of her hair. "You ungrateful girl," he said, lowering his voice nearly to a whisper, "do you like being afraid?"

"No," Elise said, matching his volume, "of course not."

"Then tell me..." His hand formed a fist once again, pulling Elise's hair and tearing at her scalp. His face twisted, and his whisper exploded into a roar. "Why, of all the gifts I give you, do you respond only to fear?"

Elise gasped, and unable to move her head, she stared helplessly at Loki, proving his point.

"This is precisely what I mean," he growled. "For fear, you thank me with this. You thank me with your lips apart, the way they are now, or with your tears, or with some noise or another, a whimper..." His expression softened, but his eyes devoured her; there was not a trace of innocence in the way he looked at her. He lowered his voice once more. "The way you beg me not to harm you, the way you throw yourself at my mercy... these are the things that stir me, Elise."

She didn't move a muscle. If Loki wanted fear, he would get it.

His hand migrated down to grasp the back of her neck, and its opposite encircled her upper arm, seemingly without purpose. "Why do you not respond with passion in equal measure when I give you what you desire?" he demanded. "Why?"

Elise continued to stare until the outlines of his face blurred. "What... what do you think I want?" she asked tentatively.

"I know what you want," Loki said, "but do you?"

"I guess not, but..."

"I can give you Midgard." Loki pushed on Elise's shoulders, pushing her until she lay on the bed. "I can give you my throne, and all that comes along with it." He straddled her, then reached down to hook his finger in the collar of her blouse. "You have reason to rejoice. It will all be yours." Slowly, he worked his thumb and forefinger around the top button of the garment and unfastened it. "No longer will you toil endlessly on behalf of the thieves and killers of this realm." He freed the second button from its hole, and then the third. "Your only obligation will be to me, and soon, to our son."

Elise shook her head weakly; the gesture didn't convey even a fraction of her concern. She knew that it wasn't worthwhile to argue, but in her stupor, she tried. "It's just a little... it's..."

"What complaint could you possibly have now?" Loki's hand paused at the bottom of Elise's shirt. "My request is simple."

"But it's a little premature, isn't it?" Elise partially shielded her mouth with her hand as though she were trying to stop the words from falling out. "I didn't think we were really... at that point."

"You may defer to my judgment in matters such as these," Loki replied condescendingly. His hands moved found the waistband of her trousers. "Now, do as I ask."

Elise let her head roll back and closed her eyes as Loki leaned down to kiss her neck. He lay down, resting his immense weight on her body, and she imagined her ribs cracking beneath him. She barely moved as he clawed at her flesh. The more he squeezed and pulled at her, the more detached she became from her surroundings. She retreated into her own thoughts, but even there, she couldn't escape him.

A savage grin flashed across Loki's lips as he rose above her and removed the outer layer of his clothing. "Yes," he growled, "you are mine, just as all else will be mine."

Elise took a deep breath as he descended upon her again, and she took refuge in his silence. A faint whirring sound filled her ears; her mind must have been emitting static to drown reality out. Quickly, however, the noise became louder – no longer a "whir," but a repetitive "whoosh" - and she felt faint. Something was wrong with her brain, she thought. She strained beneath his body in an attempt to jar herself back to reality, but when he paused and sat up straight, it became apparent that he had heard the noise, too. Then came another, clearer sound, one that sent Loki leaping out of the bed.

"We know you're in there!"

The cabin shook as a woman's voice blared over a powerful audio system and the violent, rhythmic swish of a helicopter's propellers grew ever closer. "Come out, and show us your hands," she commanded. "I repeat, come out with your hands up. All of you."

"Damn them!" Loki shouted. He seized Elise's wrist and yanked her to her feet. Before she knew it, they were running, half-dressed, through the house.

The living room was already emptying. The men who had been there filtering out of the front door and out into the yard, their palms open and in the air, but Loki didn't follow them. He fled with Elise to the attic in a maneuver that even she knew was ill-advised. In the cramped, musty space, Loki wrapped her in his arms, not affectionately, but defensively, positioning her back at his front. His breath was hot on Elise's ear, and his grip was oppressively tight.

"You are not to surrender," he panted. "Even if they pry you from my grasp, I swear to you, if you betray me, I will find you, and I will kill you."

Another threat boomed over the loudspeaker: "Loki, give it up. If you won't come peacefully, we will shoot."

"And what good will that do you?" he yelled in response. "I am a god, you-"

There was a crash, a flare, and the sound of wood falling on burning wood, and through a newly-formed rift in the ceiling, Iron Man entered. "Give it up," he said, his voice distorted and electronic. He aimed the weapon embedded in the glove of the suit at Loki. "And for fuck's sake, let the girl go."

At the top of the crumbling, smoldering cabin, they were at a standoff. They might have remained there indefinitely were it not for a sudden stabbing pain in Elise's calf.

"Christ!" she screamed, lifting her wounded leg to alleviate some of the pressure. She squirmed until Loki dropped her, and she curled into a ball on what was left of the floor. She opened her eyes to see what had happened; there was an arrow protruding from her muscle. When she realized that it was in deep enough to prevent her from seeing the metal tip, she couldn't stand to be meek anymore.

She shouted at the top of her lungs. "This is... this is fuckery!" It didn't come out the way she wanted it to, but she went with it. "Complete fucking fuckery! Fuck! Fu-u-uck!"

There was a moment in which the only sound to be heard was the crackling of the wooden beams that had ignited, but then, out of the sky, something descended fast enough to knock Loki from the attic, break through the last remaining bit of wall, and pin him to the ground at the center of a smoldering crater.

"Loki's down," the voice on the loudspeaker said. "Thor's got him. I repeat, Loki is down."