You asked for it, so here it is. I'd like to thank everyone for their support for my last story. Also, bravo to MM for guessing how Alec would come back, and also the premise of this little sequel. I changed the rating of Lost in the Grey, and also made this one "R" to cover my rear end in case bits of it were too violent. I also plan on adding a little macking to this story, yay for smoochies. So without further ado, here it is.
Disclaimer: Don't own them, excepting of course the few characters of my own invention. I'm a college student, so I have nothing worth suing for.
Recap: During the last story, Lost in the Grey, the transgenics are revealed to the public during the hostage crisis. To survive against the familiars, Alec becomes a revved up soldier, by undergoing a dangerous transformation called the twelve. White's insane mistress, Lela, makes her first appearance. Max begins getting over Logan during a heist. Alec is mortally wounded during an all out battle with the familiars, but by dying manages to regain control from 494.
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She lies sprawled across my bed, possessing it like a tigress. Mashing my fist against my eyes, I shook my head. I'd made a deal with the devil and now I was sleeping with her, brilliant, just brilliant.
How tired I'd become of being the scapegoat, kicked and cursed and bullied. I'd enjoyed a life of being the skinny kid in glasses, always second to the stronger man. Then in the darkness of a late summer night, she'd come to me in my tiny post-pulse apartment. Wrapped in black silk and wafting some musky perfume, her enormous dark eyes mesmerizing mine.
"He's tiring of me, and I fear for my end at his hands," she had sobbed. "This is all you must do Otto." Then she had slunk towards me, shedding silk like skin, wrapping her arms around me, and whispering little plans in my ears.
One black seduction, that was the moment which had brought me all of this misery. Her traitorous words had intoxicated me. Leadership and power, position and respect, she had offered me the moon and delivered it neatly in the palm of her dangerous little hands. All that I'd had to do in return was remove the evidence of her treachery.
It had been natural that I, his right-hand man, had been the first at his side when he fell. The bastard had always told me that I'd make a better sneak thief than a soldier, and he had been right. Not a single person had seen me palm the small dart from beneath him, they'd all been wrapped in fear in confusion at his tragic death.
Later, as I'd respectfully laid his body out, I sliced a small cut through the remaining puncture wound. My dear mentor had been sliced open from hip to hip, no one would ever bother with an autopsy, ever find the traces of poison clinging to his blood.
Two little jobs she'd said, she and 494 would do the rest. White had been my mentor and commander, my brother in faith and the closest thing that I had ever had to a best friend. He had also been a cruel tormentor since the moment we had both been able to talk. Now his widow slept in my arms.
Lela leaned forward and ran a long nail down my cheek. "Conscience is such a liability for a man in power, you really do need to learn to let it go. I lick my lips unconsciously.
"Perhaps you could teach me." My attempt at a seductive expression froze, and I gasped as she raked her fingers along my cheek."
"Lesson one Lover, always draw blood."
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Blood ran down his sculpted chest, soaking through his shirt and tinting the muddy ground red. I pressed furiously against the wound below his heart, but I can feel his pulse weakening.
The sodden ground could bear his weight no longer, and he began to sink into the mire. As the foul water flooded over his face, his hazel eyes snapped open and stared blankly and unseeingly into the sky. My mouth opened in an ear-splitting scream as the sound of far-off gunfire approached.
"Bang, bang, thud." Wood screeches on metal, and warm arms grip me, yanking me from my dream. The eyes holding mine now, are so full of life and fire, that I sob recklessly into his shoulder.
"The same dream again?" I nod my head as he begins to rub his hands across my back in slow circles. "You're going to have to start sleeping better Maxie. If I break your door down one more time, it's going to give up and fall off of its hinges." Yanking on his hands, I pull him down onto the bed beside me.
"It's all your fault you know," I yawn sleepily and curl into his shoulder.
"How's that?"
"You just had to make me care about you. If you would have kept up the self-centered jerk act I'd be able to sleep at night."
"Sorry." His warm breath tickles my cheek. My hand brushes beneath his shirt to rest against his abdomen. Immediately, the heat between us changes and our arms tighten involuntarily around one another. With a jerk, he struggles to rise and I grab his arm grumpily.
"Just where do you think that you're going?"
"We have a meeting in command in ten minutes."
"You're a fast sprinter, that leaves eight minutes for other activities." Heat flushes my cheeks as I realize the way that might have sounded. Since the night of Alec's miraculous recovery, nearly a week ago, we had been rather shy around each other. The need to back up and take things slowly raged against the heat I felt around him. Besides, I wasn't sure whether Alec would feel the same about me when he wasn't on the brink of death. Besides that, I really did owe Logan a clean break this time. Besides, well, uhm…
So six days had passed and we'd tiptoed around the mention of those two kisses. We only touched for prolonged periods of time when I had these nightmares of the battle. When I woke screaming and dry-heaving, then Alec became my lifeline to the world of the living, cradling me against his chest and offering me the comfort of his arms.
I felt his hands slow their circular motion against my back and smirked as I realized that the warmth of my bed had worked its spell on Alec, and that he was falling asleep.
Soon I would need to find the courage to fix this. Explain my decision to Logan. Have a long overdue discussion with Alec on the nature of my feelings for him and his reciprocation of them. Then, if all went well, we might test to see if the incredible energy present in those first deathbed kisses still burned between us.
A yawn cracked my jaw and I laid my head down on his broad shoulder. Heaviness dragged my eyelids downwards, and I snuggled beneath the blankets. There would always be time for talking tomorrow.