Prologue

A/N: Hello. Me again! What can I say? I couldn't stay away. I wrote this a while ago and wanted to share it with my favourite peeps! Please let me know what you think. Also, I apologise because something is wrong with my Word and I'm using Wordpad like a freak!

Enjoy!

Lauren Mallory's head throbbed. Her scalp burned from the ruthless, uncaring fingers used her blond strands to drag her across the snow covered ground. Her hands and knees were bruised from the uneven forest floor. Her fingertips bloodied, raw, from her frantic attempts to hold onto something. Anything.
The indifferent hand was relentless, though. Whenever her frail hands would purchase something, it would jerk impatiently, wrenching her free. Lauren would try again. All she needed was one thing to hold onto. To keep them from taking her. She knew what happened on this night. She had seen it and dreaded the time they would come for her.
Lauren knew she wouldn't survive the night. Just like the others hadn't.
"Please," she begged. "Please don't kill me. I'll do anything you want," she sobbed.
The hand in her hair didn't hesitate. It continued to drag her through the snow, her bare legs now numb from the cold.
"Shut up," the man growled. Lauren didn't know his name but she knew that he had been one of the men who abducted her, and his grip was strong. She knew his blows were powerful. He showed no mercy, no compassion.
He hadn't in the two months she'd been here.
Soon they came to a stop, her captor shoving her forward. Her bruised cheek smashing into the cold, icy ground. Sobbing and weak, she lay there. She didn't know what was coming next, but she knew she would die.
I just want to go home. I want to see my mom. I want my mom, she thought as sobs wracked her body.
"Please," she whimpered aloud.
"Get up," the other one snarled. She had only seen him a couple of times during her time in the cage. He only came on this night. The night of the full moon.
Lauren knew they would beat her if she didn't follow their orders. It had happened before.
Trembling, she tried to get to her knees, but she slipped and fell. Her breath whooshed out of her lungs as she hit frigid ground.
"Get up," the second man roared
She flinched. Slowly, she managed to make it unsteadily to her feet.
"Please, just let me go home. I just want to go home," she wept.
Lauren remembered the last time she'd seen her mom. They'd fought over something so incredibly stupid and she'd stormed out. She would give anything to take it back. To take it all back.
The man who took her laughed coldly. "Well, today is your lucky day, Lauren. We're giving you the chance to do just that."
Lauren's head jerked towards him, hope consumed her. Were they letting her go? A smile bloomed on her dirty, tear drenched face. Her mom's face filling her mind. The two men disappeared, and all she could picture was mom. Her smile, her laugh, and the way Lauren felt safe and warm in her arms.
"There's just one thing you have to do first," the second man drawled. His cold eyes wicked.
She bit back her whimper. "What do I have to do?" she demanded. Whatever they wanted, she would do it. No matter what, she would do it and she would survive it. Though it turned her stomach to imagine what they would want, anything was better than dying. Anything was better than going back to the cage. She couldn't go back.
His grin was cold and cruel. The gleam in his eyes dark and twisted. He liked seeing them beg, Lauren knew. He liked to see them weak and beaten and bloody. He liked to see them willing to do anything to survive.
"If you travel north through these woods, it leads to a road. Don't get too excited, Lauren," he warned when he saw life spark in her eyes.
A road meant cars, which people. It meant help might be closer that she thought. His next words destroyed that dream. "There is no one around for miles."
"However," the kidnapper added. "There is a car. It has a full tank and you can go where ever you want to," he promised. His voice was soft, almost sweet. She knew it for what it was. A pretence. There was nothing soft about him.
Lauren wanted it badly, though. She could picture surviving this night, finding the car. She could see herself driving to the small home she shared with her mother and two brothers. She would walk up the path, after all this time, and just stroll through the door. The image in her mind was so vivid, so real, she could almost taste it.
"What do I have to do?" she repeated quietly. She heard some of the things they made the women do, she had even seen it. She never thought she'd be one of them, but to be free she would do anything.
Sharp, white teeth flashed in the moonlight. "All you have to do is make it to the car," he answered simply. "Before we make it to you," he added ominously.
Lauren's heart pounded even as her stomach dropped. She had seen them in their other form. They were terrifying. Like something out of a horror story.
They were big, fast, strong and deadly. Lauren didn't have a chance in hell of escaping them once they'd transformed.
Seeing the desolation in her blue eyes, they smirked. "We'd give you a head start, of course. We'll even give you a weapon to defend yourself," he added. "But the choice is yours. You can either go in there," he pointed a long, tanned finger towards the dense woods. "Or you go back the cage and we'll choose someone else."
Lauren cringed at the idea. The cage. She had spent days, weeks even, in her own filth and in others. She wasn't the only woman there. She wasn't the only one to leave it. She remembered the sounds of the screams, the growls. How only the two of them ever returned. The dark satisfaction in their cold eyes.
"Why are you doing this?" she whispered.
"Because we can," the first man responded simply. There was no grand, in depth explanation. There was no depraved, abusive childhood trauma that had led to them committing such evil deeds. They did it just because they could.
"The choice is yours, Lauren," he continued. "But you make it now. Do you go back to the cage? Or do you run?"
She thought of the cage. The stench of blood, piss and fear in the air. Of the women who had been taken. They screamed and clawed because they knew what was coming. They knew how they would die.
Then she thought of home. She knew if she went back to the cage, she'd never get this opportunity again. If she risked everything now, if she did this, there was a chance she would live. That she would go home.
As slight as it may be, there was still a chance.
"I'll do it," she breathed.
They smirked. "Then let the run begin."