Break
Chapter Ten
Xandy
The door flew open to announce Xandy's entrance. Tall, slender, genetically perfect and beautiful, she had a presence that absolutely could not be denied. Zane never had, at least. She wore all black, not gothic at all, simply unconcerned by fashion. She had her auburn hair slicked back in a ponytail, a sure sign to all that she had been out on recon for the next mission. She scanned the room, aware of the new additions to the group scattered about. She hesitated, not sure whether she should talk about what she'd just discovered. People couldn't always be trusted, in fact, they usually couldn't, and she wasn't about to tell some uncleared civilians hear what would be going down. Talking now could endanger their only leverage they had against the breeding cult.
Trying to calm herself, she glanced towards Zane, who usually sent her a sort of calm. She saw Zane watching the girl with brown hair with an odd look on his face. She glared at him without even realizing it. The ass was such a playboy. Probably ecstatic that there was a new girl he could make googly eyes at, plus it was a whole new way that she could ignore her. This is what she got for having feelings for a traitor. Manticore had been right about the '09 escapees. She looked away from him as soon as Zane noticed her watching him. She refused to flush under his gaze, though he seemed to be burning a hole into her with a knowing look. She was not going to give him the satisfaction of letting him know that he got to her. She was a soldier. She was better than that. He was so-so infuriating. Xandy quit trying and spoke curtly, "Who're the newbies, Zane? New buddies of yours? Thought we'd have a party before we went on our mission?"
Zane rolled his eyes before nodding to the two grouped by the window.
"That's Alec and my sister, Max, and that is Otto over there. He's an Ordinary, but he had a relationship with one Ames White."
Xandy stared at Zane incredulously. He was so sure of these three people, no suspicions whatsoever. That could get the Created killed. Well, she was not going to blindly trust a bunch of walk-ins; especially when two had the tendency to desert.
"Great. Another traitor. Forget The Created. We could be called the Betrayers instead."
"Sounds like a bad band, Xandy. You've got so much hostility towards us. We didn't do anything wrong, did we, Maxie?"
"We escaped, Zane. They were killing our unit off one by one, and we would have been next. We couldn't stay at Manticore."
"Or you could have been trained like the rest of us, 452. How did the rest of us manage to survive if they were going to kill you all?"
"My name's Max now, Xandy, was it?"
"Whatever. I don't really care what you go by now. You are not involved in this mission. It's me, Zane, Gage, and Riley."
"I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to have some extra hands around here. We don't have to help you on this specific mission."
Max was being surprisingly calm about Xandy attacking her and the memory of her siblings. She hardly let Alec speak against them and he'd really been the one affected by the escape of '09. The others had just been affected by the tightened security. Alec had been experimented on because of it. Alec was shocked by Max's reaction to the women, but he knew it was only a matter of time before Max went psycho on her fellow transgenic.
"Actually, we don't…"
Zane cut Xandy off at don't, knowing how stubborn the girl was. It had taken him months to get Xandy to remotely trust him and at times, he wondered if it had more to do with his charming smile than it did with his honorable personality. Whatever the reason, he didn't know how long it would take for Xandy to believe in his baby sister. Manticore soldiers weren't really bred to trust others unless they'd proven themselves to earn it. Max already had a black mark against her in Xandy's book. Soldiers should only trust their unit, and that trust was to be minimal, which in a way, the Created was a unit, but it was a makeshift one. There was no telling if someone would stab them in the back especially if it came down to life or death. Especially if all of the escapees joined. They didn't have a bit of loyalty in them, as far as Xandy was concerned.
"Of course we can use your help, Maxie. The more of us there are, the more likely it is we'll survive and win this war. That's what we're working towards, Xandy, remember?"
Max nodded, satisfied, the only person she needed to hear anything from had told her what she had wanted to hear. She turned her attention back on Xandy and waited for her to fill them in on the details of the mission. Xandy grudgingly began to outline the details cautiously so they would all be prepared for the break in.
Alec crept around the side of the building, no one left in his direct eyeline. He took that as a good sign that everyone was in their places. He glanced at his digital watch and waited anxiously for a few moments. One thing that being a transgenic did not fix was the anxiety that came along with going on a mission. He knew he would achieve the goal; that had never really been his worry. He just hated waiting for the instant he could pounce on whatever it was he was supposed to do. He just wanted to get it done so he could play afterwards.
He looked back down at his watch and saw the time had come. He scaled the building easily and hopped over the ledge onto the roof. He saw the sky light located just slightly to the right of where he was then. For once, he was going to be the one to make the big entrance through the window, not Max. Of course, that was because Zane and Max had wanted to tag team this. Alec had almost wanted to laugh at the flash of anger in Xandy's eyes when they'd decided it and Alec couldn't blame her. He'd felt the same anger. He and Max had been a team for the last year, even if it was a reluctant one. He wasn't extremely happy at the prospect of Zane waltzing in and taking his place in her life. But he had to accept that Max needed to be with her brother. It's not like they would have been having hot, monkey sex while waiting to go into the warehouse, anyway. Max still more or less hated him, though she did occasionally seem to be warming up to him. All he was really missing by being on this detail was Max slapping him upside the head and telling him shut up. Alec walked to the sky light while trying to get his mind back on the mission, not on Max. It would do him no good to think about Max. It never had gotten him anywhere. And they were probably waiting on him now. He took a breath and jumped through the light, oblivious to any kind of cut that sliced into his skin as he broke through the glass.
The Familiars had been caught off guard. That much was obvious when the members burst into the room from the windows and doors in the warehouse. Xandy had found the room where the package was being held, so they didn't even have to search the large warehouse room by room. Two men jumped to their feet, falling into a fighting stance. Three more came from other corners of the room and the transgenics prepared themselves. Otto hid beside the door, waiting for his moment to slide in between what the others had called Familiars. Zane had decided that he should be the one to retrieve the package. He didn't stand a chance in a fight against a Familiar, so he was the one to slip in and out while the other members of The Created took care of the 'guards'.
Alec found himself being attacked by one particular male. He was considerably taller than Alec, probably considered an asset to the breeding cult due to his height and strength. Alec ducked a punch just as the fist came at him and he raised his knee in connection to the man's groin. That, of course, didn't faze the Familiar. Alec groaned as he saw that the man felt no pain. What kind of man was he not to feel pain there after being kicked? He continued to battle on, fists flying and knees snapping out into some kind of dangerous dance. The entire room had erupted into violence, each transgenic putting their all into the battle at hand, despite the fact that every blow seemed to do no more difference than a gnat flying around a person's ear. Even though each transgenic was getting beaten, the Familiars were still distracted enough to give Otto the chance to slip in.
Otto went straight for the lockbox in the back of the room. It was on top the table and that was obviously what The Created wanted. What else could they have wished for? A lockbox almost guaranteed information that The Created could use. To be honest, it disappointed Otto a bit. He'd apparently overestimated his boss and his buddies, because if they were stupid enough to leave all their papers in this box, they were hardly the archnemesis he'd believed. Truthfully, though, Otto figured they would be lucky if one piece of paper proved that the cult existed. He knew he was just being overly-optimistic when he thought that the entirety of the cult's important belongings was in it. He lifted the box by the handle and turned to leave when he saw her.
He'd seen her pictures before. On a desk, once a little while ago. He'd been so shocked to see any kind of family pictures on the desk that he had actually had the nerve to ask him about her. He'd been proud to tell Otto about her, his wife, the mother of his child. He'd almost seemed human when he'd spoken of her. Otto had never met Wendy White. Ames White wasn't' the type to have his colleagues over for dinner. But he had appreciated that there was someone out there that could actually, just maybe, touch a soft spot in his boss' heart. What was she doing here? Tied to a chair.
Otto looked around the room to ensure that all the Familiars were still occupied. The transgenics appeared to be holding their own, but Otto couldn't be sure. They were getting beaten fairly badly and the Familiars showed no signs of tiring. He thought he would have just enough time to get to Wendy and get her out of here. He knew that wasn't the point of this task, but he couldn't just leave this poor woman behind. She probably had had no idea who her husband was and when she'd found out, she had ended up here. He hurried to the chair and untied her gag.
"Please help me. They took my son and then my husband; he let them take me away, too. He's one of them. He's some kind of freak."
"Yes, Mrs. White, I know."
"How do you know my name?" Panic flashed across her face as she started to struggle against her chair. "You're one of them, too!" She said it accusingly, but the fear was there behind her eyes. Otto felt instantly guilty for making her even more upset.
"No, m'am, I'm not. I worked for your husband at the National Security Agency, where I saw your picture on the desk. I just knew who you were. I defected from the NSA not too long ago to fight against your husband and the breeding cult."
"The what?"
"There's no time to explain here. We have to get you out of here before the Familiars notice what we're doing."
Otto quickly worked at the knots that kept her hands tied behind her back. She sighed in relief when the ropes fell away. She waited for the ropes around her feet to loose before she jumped to her feet. Otto kept an iron grip on the lockbox and reached out his other hand for Wendy. She took it hesitantly. They ran off through the door, making their way out of the warehouse.
Max had kept her eye out for Otto, while she was fighting the Familiar. Usually she could fight without a bit of concentration and win, but this was a Familiar. She tried to divide her attention though, and she saw him leave the warehouse. What surprised her was that a woman was with him. What if she was a plant? She could be a Familiar pretending to be a hostage to infiltrate the Created. She knew that Xandy would not be happy with Otto's decision to change the objective.
She whistled the signal that allowed the other transgenics to know that Otto was out and hopefully safe. He would take the box…and the woman…to the assigned location, but they had to get out alive now. She was sick of beating fruitlessly on the Familiar in front of her, and she imagined the others felt the same. Xandy and Zane had gotten one down, and another Riley had knocked down another one. Both were still alive, but they were unconscious. Max wanted to kill them, she wanted to get rid of them, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She always tried to avoid killing people. She wondered if the others had the same problem.
As if in answer, Xandy snapped one man's neck before moving over to Riley's, who had done the same. Max cringed, her mind flying back to the day she'd killed Ben just like that. Gage ran to help Alec out with the Familiar attacking him, so Max was left punching the one in front of her. With one last snap kick to the face, the man went down. Xandy shouted for Max to kill him, but she couldn't. She was not a killer. She couldn't become a killer. That was letting Manticore win.
She stood frozen above the man, her eyes staring straight ahead. She could hear Xandy admonishing her for not doing as she was ordered, but she could only remember snapping Ben's neck in the woods. She stared helplessly at Zane, who instantly saw that something was wrong. He was ready to go take care of it, when Alec's was at last floored.
"Let's just get out of here, Zane. We need to go meet Otto and make sure we got what we came for."
"Okay, Maxie. Let's go."
"Zane, we cannot leave any witnesses behind. You know that. It's not the way. These are Familiars. They'll come back after us if we don't take care of this."
"Just drop it, Xandy. We've got to get to Otto. Max is right."
"Of course you'd take her side. She's your angel, right? Little Maxie.'
"We don't have time for this. We're leaving."
Xandy wanted to fight it, but she knew this was going to be futile. Everyone seems to want to cater to everything little Max Guevera wanted. Well, that wasn't going to last for long. She was going to end this. But for now, she would go along with what Zane had said. The transgenics fled the warehouse, quite a bit worse for wear, but leaving only two still alive.