A/N: Did I ever mention how much I love Lex?

frnight: long trip isn't the word---there's so much walking it's making even me tired!

Princess Akaichou---Thanks so much, I love that you love each chapter ;-)

Elle's Daisy---From what I understand, the blue gel derives from Predator 2; Lex was introduced to it in the original stories, so it's not my own idea. And yes, pure agony apparently!

xxx

We were still walking after evening passed on into the deepest black of the jungle night, darkness even more complete because we had left the open air of the river and returned to the trees again. By this time I was fully in the embrace of listlessness---the hours were stretching by in almost complete silence except from an occasional growl or grunt from Scar, and without interruption save for the occasional halt that he called, whether to consider the direction in which we were going I could only guess. My reflexes had taken over---my feet were moving mechanically and I was dodging the obstacles I couldn't see without pausing to think about it. To my faint surprise the first of the night's shadows had also brought about an unexpected change; Scar had cut back our pace, imperceptibly at first, until we were merely creeping forward. Apparently I was not the only one having difficulty finding the way in the dark; whatever technology I had long suspected the predators used to see in the dark, Scar obviously wasn't using it now. At any other time, that surprising fact would have sent my imagination in a whirlwind, imagining the hows and whys. Now I only mentally filed it away to ponder later; I was far too tired and dejected to think about it right then.

So when a series of loud cries arose on the air, I barely noticed. Scar growled and stopped at once. When the noise persisted, rising in volume over even the ever-present cacophony of forest sounds that I was becoming used to, I finally raised my head and paid attention, it coming to me with a troubled start that although I couldn't understand a word, we were in fact hearing human voices.

"What's going on?" I asked softly, more to hear my own voice than any other reason----I hadn't had occasion to say anything aloud for quite some time. Scar's hand fell to my shoulder and I lapsed into silence. His fingers tightened around it slightly as he listened, and after a few moments, he began to move again, this time to our right, snarling softly to me. It seemed that we were about to look for the source of all the commotion.

The shouting hadn't stopped and we followed it easily. Strangely, it seemed to be coming from somewhere below us. When we unexpectedly emerged from the tree cover onto open ground, I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized I could see what lay in front of me once more. Overhead the moon sailed clear and bright, and I thought I had never seen such a beautiful sight before. I was still looking up at the heavens when Scar suddenly grabbed my arm and yanked me back before I could move past him. I winced soundlessly; he had unwittingly manipulated the shoulder that hurt. When he moved again, carefully, I followed. He stopped abruptly and peered down at the ground with a soft growl. I went to him and peered down as he was doing. We were standing at the edge of a slope; he had stopped me just in time from taking another tumble.

The slope was not a very high one but from this vantage point, a village sprawled below us in the floor of a shallow valley. My first amazed thought was that we had been moving in a circle, and had come back to the village from which the hunt had begun, but a closer inspection of what was visible of this village's layout showed clearly that it was a different one. It was partially immersed in the darkness that not even the moon could entirely illuminate, but on the slope's near side several standing torches threw their light on a man sitting at a small, roughly hewn table on which three handguns lay. Scattered among the guns were several small boxes of what could only be ammunition. Five rifles leaned against the wooden wall of a nearby hut. The gleam of their dark metal told of a recent oiling and cleaning. When the man stood up to add the rifle he had been cleaning to their number, the light caught his features and I saw.

It was Torry.

Scar and I watched silently as he turned his attention to the guns on the table, picking one up and flipping its chamber open. Four men hovered near the edge of the table who seemed to be the source of the loud cries we had heard. They gestured at Torry, shouting wildly. Torry ignored them completely; his attention focused the gun he cradled between his palms, and he picked up one of the boxes and spilled its contents onto the table. From these, he selected a round and dropped it into the gun, every jerked movement advertising his suppressed anger.

One of his onlookers, a lanky man in a red shirt, came closer to him and pounded his fist on the table, yelling at Torry again. I jumped when I caught and understood one of the man's words that carried clearly on the air; a word that must have meant the same thing in his tongue as it did in English.

Anaconda.

This must have finally pushed Torry past his breaking point, because he sprang to his feet, and began to shout as well----in the villagers' tongue. The man who had confronted him responded with another heated retort of his own, and the two glared at each other across the table. For several long moments it seemed they were about to come to blows, then the man broke eye contact and backed away, still yelling. Torry looked at him for a moment then sat back down heavily and picked up the gun again. The man fell silent, and looked at Torry for a few tense seconds as he continued to ignore him. Finally he turned heel and stalked off. Even at that distance I could read the fury evident in each line of his body. One by one, the other men followed him, casting angry, anxious looks back at the warden.

I needed no translation. Whatever was going on, it wasn't good; I felt it in every bone in my body. When I had met Torry earlier that day he hadn't known anything of the predators or their presence in the jungle, of that I was sure. Yet here he was, embroiled in a heated argument about the anacondas, the hunt's prey. So then with a familiar, sickening feeling rising in my stomach I knew. Somehow the warden had found out---and was furious about it. So furious that he was arming himself, and perhaps others judging by the number of firearms that he was preparing for use. I hadn't thought to wonder whether the hunters' existence was known beyond the single village that had welcomed us into their midst, but the fact that the men confronting Torry apparently knew was a sign of their complicity, if not their cooperation. The predators' compact with the people of these forests obviously reached wider than I could have guessed.

While these thoughts were still running frantically through my mind, Scar straightened away from the slope and snarled nastily. It rose low in his throat and rumbled through his chest, and it was terrible to hear. His spear reflected the moonlight, sharp and unflinching, as he drew it from his back, and his arm blades sprang out with a sound that brought old memories flooding back......

And in a flash I saw that Scar had seen and understood as well----that this human intended to hunt that night as well; to interfere with the hunt---to the hunters, an unforgivable trespass as I had tragic cause to know. I understood what Torry was feeling, only too well because my emotions had once mirrored his; anger, dread, and fear of the alien creatures that seemed to have descended from nowhere like a deadly invasion. But I also understood that his plan made him no more than a dead man walking, and probably every person in this quiet village as well if they had the misfortune to pick up the weapons Torry was obviously urging on them. Listlessness had fled with the first inkling of trouble and now an icy chill settled over me. So many lives at stake......and I was the only person who could do something about it—for I had a sinking feeling that I already knew what I could do---what had to be done. I felt sick to my stomach with the knowledge but battled the sensation of nausea desperately----I had already allowed fear to paralyze me once before that day, to my needling shame. Now when the danger was only too real, when it lay within my power to turn aside the same fate that had befallen my team, I couldn't---wouldn't fail to act now. How could I possibly live with myself if I didn't?

I moved next to Scar quickly, dropping the sling clumsily to the ground. He turned to me, still snarling.

"Wait, let me stop this!" I exclaimed. Scar ignored me and pushed past, his momentum nearly knocking me over. I rushed in front of him to plant my body in his path, my feet dangerously close to the slope's edge.

"Stop! STOP!" I ordered insistently, growing desperate when I saw that he was going to move past me again. When he raised his arm and swept me aside, I lost my temper and kicked him as hard as I could in the back of his calf. He whirled around immediately, his hair arcing behind him to fall in a dark clatter against his back.

Without a sound he approached me slowly, almost threateningly, and I wondered if he was trying to intimidate me. Another predator advancing on me with this serious stillness would have stricken me with fear---but not Scar. My heart thudded loudly in my ears. I was afraid and deeply so. But not of him; not anymore, I knew that as surely as I drew breath. What made me tremble was the night's fatal consequences if I didn't stand my ground------if I didn't stop the bloodshed Scar intended to unleash. As I had known he would, Scar halted in front of me, and only looked down at me, growling harshly. It mightn't have been in a way he liked but I had his attention now.

"I need to be the one to stop this," I said, looking up at the angular mask that I could barely see.

Slowly, carefully, I lifted my hand and placed it on the arm that gripped his spear.

He growled again when I touched him but he seemed to be listening.

"Please don't do anything yet. Just trust me," I begged, letting every emotion I was feeling sound in my words, willing him to understand them. A chittering growl was my answer, and his arm lowered gradually to the ground. I waited, uncertain what this meant. When his blades slid back into his gauntlet and he growled again, softly, I took it as assent.

"I'll be back soon," I whispered, dropping my own hand and stepping away. I moved to the edge of the slope and braced myself for a clumsy descent. Luckily, the slope was not steep, descending to the ground in a rather gentle incline, so plucking up my courage I crouched down, grabbed a handful of plants, and using them to keep myself from falling headfirst down the slope, gingerly began to pick my way down. The pain in my side and shoulder flared up with the first wrenching movement but I shoved the sensation away from the forefront of my mind; I was praying all the while that Scar would remain where he was. When I reached the ground, after having had to slide down partly on my ass to get there, I turned to look back up. I could just make out the outline of Scar's head and shoulders leaning over the edge. He was still there, watching and waiting to see what I would do. I exhaled deeply, then began to head for the village, my stomach in hard knots.

Okay Lex, now what? I asked myself silently but of course I already knew---I had to stop the warden. By whatever means I had to. I tried not to let my eyes slide away from the path before me into the surrounding darkness; I couldn't afford to let the small amount of courage I had summoned slip away from me. As much as I was not looking forward to running into Torry again, I breathed a shaky sigh of relief when the first line of homes loomed before me. I moved forward carefully. Although I didn't really expect to be set upon here so close to the village, my experience had taught me that terrible things could erupt unexpectedly from the dark....

As keyed as my senses were for the slightest movement, a figure shifting a few feet away, alerting me to another's presence, sent my blood pumping. A man leaning back in a chair outside his home probably enjoying the cooler night, jerked upright and sent up a warning shout when he spotted my figure emerging from the darkness, but it died in his throat as I neared him. He remained frozen where he sat, staring open-mouthed at the mark on my cheek.

Good, I thought grimly. Let them be afraid---this time. It would make my job easier.

I walked past the man without another glance, conscious that although he had not moved, his eyes followed me. Movement ahead and on each side of me shaped themselves from the darkness as people running up, attracted by the man's shout. They came to an abrupt halt when they saw me. I kept walking, my unease growing when out of the corners of my eyes I saw that one by one, they had silently begun to trail me.

I arrived amidst an unearthly, unnatural silence, followed by many silent onlookers. Even Torry, stubbornly bent over the table to his dangerous work, looked up, scowling, as I neared. Now that I was closer, I noticed the telling details: the rumpled clothing, the hair dishevelled as if he had been running his hands frantically through it. For a fraction of an instant, I glimpsed the real emotion behind his fury: fear. He was scared to death. If I hadn't been so anxious to take him down I would have felt sorry for him. Then his eyes widened in shock when he saw me.

"Lex!" he exclaimed, the gun dangling from his fingers, its open chamber empty. He took in what must have been my bedraggled appearance and his dark expression was replaced by concern. "What happened to you? Are you alright?" he asked.

I had only wondered before, but I knew now; Torry still didn't know who, or rather what, I was because he was not alarmed to see me, only surprised.

You can do this.....You can do this..... I repeated silently. Not taking my eyes off Torry, I said nothing and moved closer to the table, making sure that I stood on the side closest to the guns that still lay there.

Torry had been leaning forward as he spoke, about to rise from the table---to come towards me--- but he leaned away now, a guarded light playing in his eyes. I offered him a small smile of what I hoped looked like reassurance.

"Tell me Torry, how did a Rolex-wearing guy like you end up the guardian of an Amazon jungle?" I asked.

My abrupt question threw him off guard which was what I wanted, and even made him a little angry. But to my surprise he answered me. "My mother was born here," he said testily. "I was as well but I grew up in the U.K. Why do you ask? What's this about?"

I thought I understood now why the villagers had so inexplicably allowed the warden to come close to the truth. Although he had grown up outside the village, outside their traditions, in a way he was one of them. But as Torry uttered the last words of his reply, I smoothly picked up the gun I had earlier seen him load, clicked the safety off and pointed it at him. Torry's jaw dropped, but he made no effort to rise or to lunge for me. He only stared as if he couldn't believe what his eyes were seeing.

"Wh---what are you doing?" he asked incredulously.

I was exhausted. My body cried out for rest with each breath that I took, and everything that had hurt before still did, but I knew a long night lay ahead. I was heartsick about what I was about to do, but I had to see it through. For the sake of every innocent life in the village---and for my own sanity.

"Stopping you. I can't let you interfere with the hunt Torry," I said quietly. If it had not been obvious before that I knew what was going on, it was obvious now, and I watched as his jaw slackened and fell, and comprehension dawned in his face.

"You---you know about...them? How?" he asked in disbelief.

I paused. There was no way to succinctly answer that question. I shook my head finally.

"You've got to stop what you're doing before it's too late," I said, ignoring his question, and finding myself surprised that my voice was not betraying my nervousness. "I don't know how much you've been told about the hunters, but trust me the last thing you want to do is to get in the way of their hunt!" I said,

"You're serious aren't you," Torry said wonderingly. He roused himself from the shock that my revelation had induced. "You still haven't told me what you've got to do with all this," he said. "How do you know? I only just found out about this whole mess myself!"

He rose abruptly and came towards me, ignoring the gun that I still held pointed at him.

"Lex," he said, his voice softening. "Please....you and I....we live in the real world. I know you don't believe in this crazy ritual either. We should be working together," he coaxed.

I took a step back and brought the gun up to bear on his head. This brought him to a standstill. "Don't. Don't come any closer," I said, my voice quavering slightly. I was quickly despairing of a benign outcome.

"Okay, okay," he said hastily. He held his hands up, palms out, and slowly stepped away. "See, I'm backing off."

I took a deep breath and forced my voice to become calm, forced myself to sound like a reasonable person---not like a woman clinging to the threads of her sanity. "You asked what I was doing here--- I'm here to stop a massacre," I said steadily. "Not the anacondas.....you, and the people in this village. Maybe even the other villages too. They will kill anyone who gets in the hunt's way!"

Torry looked at me incredulously. "How do you know they won't kill anyway?" he asked sharply.

"It doesn't matter how I know, I just do," I said flatly.

A light bulb must have gone off in Torry's head, because abruptly his mouth snapped shut over whatever he was about to say and he stared at me, then a tight smile played across his lips and he folded his arms.

"Well, why don't I take a stab at it anyway? You lied to me about when you got here. It wasn't just a coincidence that you showed up today when all this started happening was it? These hunters as you call them must be the group you mentioned earlier," he said, once again startling me with his perceptiveness. My eyes must have flickered acknowledgment of the truth of what he said, because he nodded affirmation of his own statement. For the first time since we had met, his eyes fell to the mass of twisting scars on my arms---and lingered there, pityingly. I was immediately irritated, but batted it away. Now wasn't the time to take things personally.

"Are you afraid of them—is that it? You don't have to be. Help me! Tell me what you know about them and I promise I'll make sure they don't hurt you," he urged, dropping his arms and looking at me eagerly.

I almost laughed.

"I don't need protection, and even if I did, you couldn't give it to me," I said bluntly. "Just stay out of their way, please. They'll leave once the hunt is over. And no one will get hurt!" I was unashamedly begging at this point, beseeching him to see reason.

Torry's expression changed, it grew harder. He looked at me with eyes of chipped flint.

"Are you actually suggesting that I let those—those thingswander around without doing something about it?" he asked coldly. "Why are you so godamned sure about anything? We're talking about aliensfor chrissakes!" He closed his eyes and began to rub his temples as if he was feeling the onset of a severe headache. "I must be crazy because I'm saying the word although I don't half believe it. I still wouldn't believe it if I hadn't spotted one out on the hills," he muttered, eyes still closed.

"Did you tell anyone about them?" I asked, alarmed.

Torry's eyes flew open. He dropped his hands from his face abruptly and suddenly looked weary. "Yes, as a matter of fact I did. I radioed it in but of course no-one believed me. I'll be lucky if I still have a job tomorrow," he muttered.

He began to chuckle, a deep sound that veered into shrillness and made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, because it spoke of an underlying hysteria that threatened to break free at any second.

"And the anacondas! I've been warden here for three years and I've never seen any the size of the ones that have been turning up all afternoon! But as far as anyone else knows, they don't even exist!" Torry said throwing his head back and laughing loudly as if he thought it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. "Their heads were missing, did you know that Lex? I bet you already knew didn't you? One huge conspiracy....and I'm the only one not in on it!" he said, wiping away tears of laughter.

Still laughing he began to move towards me again, arms outstretched as if to embrace me in his mirth----he was losing it, I panickingly realized----and if this harrowing conversation went on much longer I wouldn't be too far behind. He was almost within reach before I had the presence of mind to point the gun upwards and fire a shot into the air. The harshly echoing sound brought Torry up short; he looked at me startled. The fear in his eyes was only for me. With the gun I motioned to the chair in which he had been sitting then pointed it back at him.

"Don't....please," I said, my voice catching on something there, something that was tightening it uncomfortably. I cleared my throat and added, "Sit down."

I don't know if it was the gunshot or the catch in my voice that did it, but Torry sobered in an instant, that disturbing smile dying away, and he slowly retreated and sat down on the edge of the chair heavily.

He looked up at me with an air of resignation. "So what happens now? Are you going to kill me?" he asked quietly.

I hesitated. I didn't know the answer to that question, and it was a very good one. "I don't want to," I said, even as I wondered if it was the smartest idea to admit it.

Torry's eyes left mine and he looked around desperately, making a silent, last-ditch appeal to the people who had kept this monumental secret from him. The small crowd surrounding us had not stirred throughout our exchange, and they did not move now. Every face looked back at him blankly and he saw that they would not help him. At least, that was what I was counting on. Torry stilled, then looked back at me, his eyes glazed over in defeat. I finally felt like I was gaining control of the situation, although things hadn't gone at all as I had planned. It would have been easier for me if Torry had been hostile and hateful. But even when he had looked at me with those cold eyes, I still saw a man who truly believed he was doing the right thing. My resolve wavered and I decided to give him one more chance to back down.

"You wouldn't survive what you're planning," I said carefully, calmly. "The best thing you can do for yourself and these people is to leave the hunters alone, you've got to see that! I'm asking for the last time, will--will you let the hunt go on or not?" I asked, my heart thundering in my ears.

Torry dropped his head to stare at his hands lying clasped against his knees and didn't answer. Several seconds ticked by and still he sat silently. My nerves were almost frayed beyond by this time but still he said nothing and no one else stirred. A baby's cry broke the warm night, but that was the only sound we heard for some moments that stretched as if they would never end.

When Torry finally spoke his voice was so low I could only make out his words with difficulty. "You're mad.....you must be if you're protecting them," he mumbled. He shook his head almost absent-mindedly and his voice dropped lower as if he was talking to himself; I caught a few mumbled words, ".....won't stand by....I can't....not right....." and my heart sank. He raised his head suddenly and stared at me. The expression on his face froze my blood. "You're really on their side aren't you? I don't get it, I just don't.....What kind of person are you?" he asked, now past even anger, sounding only completely and utterly bewildered.

His words----that look---were a small dagger in my heart but I stifled the melancholy that threatened to surge up and paralyze me.

"I'm not on...I'm sorry about this Torry....I truly am. I know you don't understand....and...and it won't make a difference to you but...I just need you to know that," I stammered, my voice cracking horribly.

Lowering the gun, I squeezed the trigger for a second time---shooting him pointblank in the right thigh. He screamed, a constricted sound that issued as if from the throat of a stricken animal, and clutched his leg. Shifting the gun a little to one side, I fired again, this time sending a bullet through his left shin. He slid onto the ground and rolled onto his back, moaning as blood streamed down his legs in crimson rivers. His groans of pain made me ill but I hardened my heart to shoot him once more, this time in his arm.

I dropped my arm and watched Torry writhe on the ground. I had incapacitated him---painfully---but I knew the alternative would have been so much worse.....

The shots had rung out, ear-splittingly loud in the unnatural silence, but still none of the people moved---they watched us silently like so many ghosts. When the report of the third shot finally died away, a young woman stepped forward, tentatively, as if she expected me to turn on her at any moment. She bent and grabbed Torry's arms, her glossy black braid of hair dangling in front of her, and after a moment's hesitation began to pull him away from where he lay crumpled before me. When her eyes met mine guiltily before darting away I knew who had told the village's secret.

Her courageous act—and I couldn't help but recognize it as such---broke the spell I seemed to have cast over the crowd. Another man rushed up to help her and I watched as they dragged Torry from the circle of torch lights, still groaning, towards the darkness of the houses, where I could only guess he would be cared for, and guarded, until the hunt was over. A dirty red streak marked the direction in which they had dragged him.

Unsure of what came next now that I had accomplished what I came to do, I looked around at the small circle surrounding me, at the human faces staring back at me; witnesses to the awful, unforgivable thing I had just done. I waited anxiously to see what they would do. Would they seize me now? Would they take up arms against the hunters? Had all this----been for nothing? A few tense moments passed then I was relieved when as if by unspoken consensus, the small crowd broke up and began to drift away. The man in the red shirt who had confronted Torry, then stood aside and let this all happen, paused as he passed the hut where the rifles leaned and picked one up. I watched nervously to see what he would do, fingering the gun I had used to shoot Torry which still lay in my hand ready to be used again. He opened the chamber, and the rounds dropped harmlessly to the ground, one by one. He unloaded all the rifles this way, flinging each to the ground, then walked away without a backward glance. I almost collapsed in relief to see this, because it meant that the only hunters that night would the predators and I. The danger had passed.

Weak with relief that it was all over, I turned to walk back the way I came. My eyes were open but I was lost in my thoughts, seeing little of what was in front of me; my feet retraced my previous path of their own accord. I knew of course that what I had done was wasn't my enemy; under different circumstances we might have even been friends. He hadn't deserved what I'd done to him. He had done nothing----said nothing that I probably wouldn't have in his place---once before. Perhaps the look of admiration I had seen in his eyes had only been my imagination after all, but however he had felt towards me before, he would only hate me now. What I had done would be yet another shadow hanging over me in the days to come, but even searching my conscience now I found that I didn't regret what I had done. I had already learned that the line between right and wrong could shift in ways I never dreamed possible; that the right decision could haunt just as much as the wrong one....

I was thinking of Sebastian. And to my wonder, I wasn't crying.

When I reached the slope down which I had come I stopped uncertainly, wondering how I was going to get back up. Scar dropped down lightly next to me and tilted his head at me. He hooked one arm around my waist and grasping me firmly to him, he easily bounded back up the incline. When he set me down again, he didn't immediately release his hold but turned me to face him. When he only stood there, I wondered what he was doing. He brought his large hands up and framed them at my temples, cupping my face in his hands, and bent his head down towards mine, stopping only a few inches away. His mask looked back at me so I could only guess what he was doing, but he seemed to be examining my face closely. I didn't know if he found what he was looking for, but after a few moments he stroked mycheek gently and dropped his hands.

We turned to retrace our steps and when I stooped to pick up the anaconda's head from where I had let it drop, I realized that I was still holding Torry's gun. Calling to Scar to wait I flipped the gun over and removed all the cartridges that were left, clumsily using my shirt to wipe my fingerprints off the gun as best as I could. I didn't know if the law reached this far into the jungle but I preferred not to take the chance. I walked to the other edge of the slope where below us, there was nothing but dark trees. Swinging the gun over my head, I flung it as hard and as far as I could into the darkness. I heard a few thuds as the gun bounced down the slope, then gratifyingly, a faint splash a few seconds later as it fell into some waterway that I could not see. I walked back to Scar, slinging the head onto my back.

We walked away; away from the valley, away from blood, and plunged into the dark jungle. After a few minutes we had left the village completely behind.