The door was broken from its hinges above, lying on its side as security forces were waving personnel through, urging them to hurry, to rush. Masks covered the guards’ faces to protect them from the cold. It was bitterly cold outside, and Marie had no jacket, no coat to wear.
“Run for the barracks,” she told the other woman. “It will be warm there and safer. We’ll hide there.”
She ran into the cold, aware of the gunfire, the yelling voices, the clash of forces. Then she was only aware of the hard arm that wrapped around her waist, jerked her against a broad chest, and the knife that lay at her throat.
She could feel the cold blade pressing into her throat, pinching the flesh, within a breath of actually cutting her skin.
“Kobrin, I have your daughter.”
Loud, echoing through the valley, she knew that voice, knew the growl that sounded in it and felt the sob that tore from her throat.
Betrayal. He had betrayed her.
Agony tore through her with such pain she could only gasp at the reality of it.
The sound of gunfire faded away. Personnel were no longer rushing through the doors. She could hear them at the entrance though, feel the tension that thickened the air.
Del-Rey. She felt the first tear fall. Oh God, she had trusted him. She had trusted him so much.
“We’re lowering our weapons,” her father called out. “Take the Breeds. Go. We’ll not stand in your way, but let Anya go.”
She stared back at her father’s pale face, her cousins moving with him. All three of her cousins were on duty tonight. Her friends were here, those who would have helped her had she asked, but she hadn’t.
A shot fired out and her first cousin fell, gripping his leg and screaming out in pain. Two more shots in rapid succession and the other two were left writhing on the ground.
“Stop it!” she screamed, her hands clawing at the arm wrapped around her waist. “No. No. Don’t do this.”
Fury and pain gripped her. She stared back at her father miserably, sobbing with the shame of what she had done.
“Transport’s landing in sixty seconds, Boss.” That was the one Del-Rey called Brim. Sometimes he had called him Brimstone.
They had all betrayed her. The small team of men she had become friends with, that she had trusted, that she had trusted her father and her cousins’ lives to.
“How can you do this?” she sobbed. “Damn you, how can you do this?”
“Anya, be still, child,” her father cried out. “Remember your control, daughter. Your cousins live.”
“For now,” Del-Rey called back in a lazy drawl. “Tell me, Kobrin, you’ve been here since the first Breed was created, did you ever think to aid them?”
“They live,” her father called back. “I have killed none. This was not a slaughterhouse.”
Del-Rey chuckled behind her. “I think I will take your daughter with me, Kobrin. Insurance, I believe. You will not notify your Russian air force, you will notify no one of what has happened here for six hours. Or she will die. Are we understood?”
“Leave her here,” her father called out desperately. “I swear to you no one will follow you.”
Del-Rey laughed. “No, they won’t follow me. I have the prize of the Genetics Council’s young protégées. Your daughter, Kobrin. Don’t make me kill her.”
Another shot fired and her father stumbled, falling as Anya screamed out for him. Her hands reached out, her fingers curling as she was lifted off her feet, and the sound of a heli-jet arriving could be heard.
She screamed out for her father, clawed and slapped at the arm securing her. She kicked, she cursed, and she sobbed.
Rage ate inside her as the betrayal that filled her burned into her mind. He had lied. From the first moment he had lied, and she would never forgive him.
“Move out!” Del-Rey ordered as he raced into the back of the transport behind the other men that converged on the huge black craft. “Cavalier, get this bastard off the ground.”
Cavalier. She had arranged his transport the year before. How many others were here? How many of those she had trusted had betrayed her?
“Stop fighting me, Anya.” Del-Rey held her in place as he settled onto the metal bench, holding her secure, and the transport lifted off.