Rage receded and left Mads shaky with terror. Her limbs shook, her fingers trembled, her breath came out in quick huffs. The enemy was gone and she could dissolve into hysterical tears.

"Fuck."

Her head ached. Her broken nose throbbed. Her jaw was sore and all the bits and pieces of her ached. Something was burning in her chest, they'd probably cracked a couple of ribs with all the kicking and tackling. She really wanted to cry. She wanted to sob her goddamn heart out

"Fuck... fucking... fuck!" Madeline had never been accused of being excessively verbose.

She was in a fucking cage. What kind of a person could put another person in a cage? Only sick fucks. Nothing good was going to happen here. Another shiver of terror shot up her spine and crawled under her skin and blurred her vision with tears.

No. She couldn't cry. She wasn't going to cry. No fucking way was she going to lose it now. She had to keep it together. If she was going to survive she had to keep herself from crying. Because crying meant defeat and she was not letting Dick and his ham-fisted goons win.

"Fuck!"

So instead of dissolving into tears like she desperately wanted to do she got pissed. Those bastards drugged her, hurt her, and fucking caged her. A frenzied kind of anger set in and shot her to her feet. There had to be a way out—a weakness in the cage—the bars—something.

Panic and anger was all but drowning her senses. She didn't feel it when her booted foot connected with the metal. Adrenaline was surging in her blood and roaring in her ears. She had to get out of the cage. She couldn't do shit in a cage but be a sitting duck. She only had to get on the other side of it and then she could do something. Escape—probably not—but a girl could dream. She could at least hurt the sociopaths that had her. That would make her feel better.

"Calm, small female." It was a growl, a snarl really, that cut through the roar in her ears and froze her in her frenzied pacing.

Madeline whirled where she stood and crouched—ready for anything. It sounded too close for comfort and the snarl wasn't particularly reassuring. How had she missed another person in her cage?

"Calm or they will come back and sedate you." The voice came from her left. The big body was in a separate cage positioned maybe a foot from her own. He was locked up too and so not, currently, a threat.

"Sedate me?" Just the thought of them trying to knock her out again pissed her the hell off. Who the fuck did they think they were sedating people like they had some kind of right?

"Calm," A second voice came from the right and Mads spotted another hulking guy. "There are cameras. They will see you and they will come back and sedate you. You will not be able to defend yourself against them as you did before."

Well, that was the opposite of calming. Mads stopped kicking at her cage as that statement sunk in.

Madeline didn't want to be sedated and at the mercy of anyone let alone those sniveling bastards. They'd already copped a feel and she didn't want to be out of it while they were around. They would, without a doubt, rape her and then beat her, or both at the same time.

Her terror didn't immobilize her or dissolve her into a fit of tears and hysterics. It had the reverse effect. It enraged her. She let out a rage-filled growl and kicked the door before she paced towards the center of her cell and cursed long and hard.

She had to get herself under control. She would not be knocked out and helpless. That was a state she did not want to be in. So the woman took a deep calming breath that had no real effect on her rage or the terror she was feeling. Mads decided to fake it and projected a mask of calm she sure as fuck didn't feel.

"Do not speak to the human." That was the deepest snarl she'd ever heard. There was another man in the cage across from hers.

He was pressed into the bars and baring his teeth—were those fangs? Holy Christ. They were fangs. The sight of them galvanized her into action. Mads stalked to the door of her own cage and searched the third male's face. He growled again, a warning if Mads had ever heard one. But he was safe from her just as much as she was from him. Them having their very own cages and all.

The man was big and muscles wrapped his frame. Defined—like unusually defined cheekbones and jawline. A peculiarly flat nose. Long, thick eyebrows Mads would kill for. His eyes were the most startling. Even from five feet away she could see they were bright green. The color was nice but the thing that had her staring harder was the shape of his eyes. They were shaped like a cats. Complete with the diamond pupil.

Mads couldn't speak. Her mind was too busy trying to keep up and connect the dots. She turned on the first speaker and took the seven steps to reach the left side of her cage.

The first guy that had spoken to her had the same features as the other man. Sharp defined angles that made for an alarmingly masculine face. Where the other guy had been pale this one was dark with bright yellow eyes. They were beautiful. Shockingly, unfamiliarly, scarily, pretty.

And he was also backing away from her like she had the plague. His whole torso was reeled back like she was contagious and he was scared of catching whatever he thought she had. Somehow that encouraged her not to scream. Not that she would—common decency and all. She may have had the mouth of a sailor and all the refinement of a pig in a dress but Mads had manners. And manners dictated that upon meeting another being you did not scream at the sight of them.

"You're scared of me?" Finally, someone that didn't underestimate her. But that was probably only because he'd seen her hurt the two assholes. Still though. To be considered a threat right off the bat was nice. "Why are you backing away? I'm not going to hurt you—I can hardly even reach you."

Another growl sounded but this one was less scary. His bright yellow eyes narrowed on her and he halted in his retreat.

"I am not scared of you, tiny female." He spat out the last part like it was some kind of insult. Madeline was not tiny; she was, at the very least, average-sized.

"He's getting his balls out of your reach, female." The guy across from her called, amusement clear in his growly voice.

"What's with the 'female'?" Mads finally snapped. Strange alien people or no, she wasn't going to put up with any more shit then she had to. "I'm not calling you 'males' every three seconds."

They both remained silent watching her with varying looks of surprise and hostility. Her head throbbed harder and her broken nose burned on her face. All at once, it was too much for Madeline. Cages, hurting, Richard Moneith—the dick of an ex-therapist, cameras, sedating rapists, her goddamn broken nose throbbing on her face, and weird animal-people calling her female.

She needed a time out. A breather to sort out the shit storm she was now in the center of. She couldn't help the frustrated growl that burst from her throat as she whirled and stalked to the mat on the floor that was supposed to pass for a bed. She flopped down and breathed deep.

Okay.

Kidnapped and caged? Terrifying but she was more angry than scared at that moment. It had happened, it was done and there was no Tardis or convenient time portal to change that fact. As horrible as it was she had to accept it and figure out what the fuck to do next.

Animal people? Aliens? Whatever the fuck they were, she could deal.

Being caged and at the mercy of Richard Moneith—who, apparently, moonlighted as some kind of evil scientist? Terrifying as all hell.

Made even more so with the knowledge that Dick was the person she'd gone to for help. He was the one she'd poured her heart out to. He'd seen her cry. He'd seen her broken and weak. He knew her secrets and all about the shithole she called her childhood.

A depressing and frightening fact was all that was and something that she could do nothing about. What she could do was set her nose and stop the burning hurt that was all but engulfing her skull.

Mads shifted and gingerly touched her face. She hadn't had to set her own nose in a long time. Not since dear old dad had busted it when she was thirteen. It was gonna hurt like a bitch. She shifted again, felt for the broken part, lined up her fingers, took a deep breath and snapped it back into place.

"Fuuucccckkkk." White hot pain shot through her face and made her head throb harder. "God-shitting-cock-sucking-mother-fucking-damnit!"

The pain receded to a dull throb and Mads felt a wee bit better. It wasn't much but it was one less thing she had to worry about. It gave her a tiny bit of control and Madeline needed that small bit of control at that particular moment.

"You will survive." The voice was growly and way too fucking close to her back.

"Jesus Christ!" Madeline wrenched and shifted until she was on her haunches and ready to face the danger.

The danger was in his own cage and he was big. Even crouched as he was Mads could tell that he would be huge when he stood to his full height. And then there was all that muscle wrapped around his frame. If he wasn't sequestered in his own ten by ten box she'd probably turn tail and run. Despite his alarming bigness, he was ridiculously beautiful. No one needed to be that pretty. That was purely for intimidating the less genetically blessed.

He had the same defined bones on his face as the other two but where they both sported feline-esque eyes he had more… human eyes that were both bright and dark all at once. She couldn't make out if they were blue or brown—maybe both. His nose was curiously wide and flat and sat above a pair of generous lips. His dark hair was long and reached his elbows. He was, in all ways, overwhelming.

"You are strong." He spoke again and Mads was entranced. His voice wasn't a growl but the too deep timbre wasn't exactly human either. "The other women were not strong. You will survive, small female."

It took too long to find her voice. She was dumbstruck at the sight of him. She'd forgotten about the third body. She'd seen pretty men before—not nearly as many as she would have liked but still. Just looking at his face should not render her incapable of anything but staring.

"My name is not Small Female, Large Male." What was with these guys and annoying her?

How many other women had come before her? Were they dead now? Were they going to kill her too? Just what the hell were they planning on doing to her? His generous lips quirked up into a smirk and all cohesive thought fled. Wow, those were kissing lips.

They moved again but somehow she couldn't hear the words. Which was just annoying as all hell. Here she was in the middle of a Hannibal Lector/evil scientist situation and she was thinking about kissing his alien face. And maybe other alien parts of him. No—no. What the hell was she thinking? She had to focus.

"Uhm... what was that?" Madeline tilted her head up to keep her eyes off his lips and forced her mind to focus. It was ridiculous to get distracted like that under the circumstances.

"What are you called?"

"Madeline is my name but everyone just calls me Mads."

Well, everyone used too. Until her life went to shit and she had made like a coward and moved to the other side of the continental united states. There was some distinct snorting and general amused noises coming from the other two men.

"What's funny?" Mads glared in their direction.

"It fits you well, female." The yellow-eyed one piped up.

"For someone so tiny and frail you have a lot of it, mad." The green-eyed one quit his snorting to press closer to the bars.

"Frail? First of all, I'm average sized, Gigantor—and in some places, I'm even considered tall. And I am most definitely not frail—and now that you know my name you can use it. Not female or small female or tiny female. Mads—just Mads." Okay, maybe she was being a wee bit bitchy but all things considered, she was allowed.

"Mads," His voice was a rasp that instantly caught and held her attention. "You need to be prepared for what they are going to—" He halted midsentence but Mads wasn't really actively listening anyway, he was just too fascinating. His nose flared and his head tilted away like he was listening to something. "They come. Be strong and you will survive this."

That she heard. Goosebumps rose on her skin and tears blurred her eyes. Shit. Shit. Fuck. No. She had to stay pissed. She couldn't let her fear get the better of her. Mads grabbed hold of her rage and shot to her feet.

Sure enough, three seconds later the double doors she'd been dragged through opened and two men waltzed in. They were clad in the same black clothes and gear the other two bastards had been in. Which scared her even more. They were uniformed bad guys. So whatever it was she was now neck-deep in was an organized kind of evil. Fuck.

They were bigger than the other ones, almost as big as the men in the cages. But they had round faces compared to the angles and planes of her cell buddies. They halted in front of her cage and Madeline forced the whimper in her throat to be a growl.

"You gonna be a bitch and fight?" The taller one looked bored as he shifted his stance.

"Fuck that. You heard what Sid said. Did you see Rob's dick—let's just put her out."

"Fine." The first one moved so quickly she didn't have time to blink let alone do any evasive maneuvers. What evasive maneuvers she could do, she didn't know, but hell it was nice to have some semblance of a plan.

He unholstered his gun and shot her. Mads expected to feel a puncture or a gaping wound in her chest—having never been shot before she could only guess at what it would feel like—but it wasn't bullets ripping through her flesh, it was electricity.

It was agony. Mads had never hurt like that before and she'd been hurt plenty. The electricity ripped through her body and gripped her muscles—she was shaking but she wasn't moving. She felt like she was cooking from the inside out. Madeline barely registered hitting the ground as she convulsed and shook and tried to beat back the waves of electric pain stabbing at her insides. She didn't hear the cell door open but suddenly they were on top of her and holding her down. She couldn't move her limbs to save her life.

"You got it?"

"Yeah, yeah—get off my ass. I've got it."

The white hot heat paralyzing her eased some, there was a sting in her side and she could hear a growl. Then there was fuzzy darkness that eased the burn in her body and swallowed her whole.