A/N: Yay, I've updated quickly! I'd like to hear all your ideas for this fic, so please review and give me feedback. I hope for all those who are not signed users that the fact that I can't reply to your reviews doesn't put you off from reviewing and telling me whatever you think's good/bad/or could be better about this fic. If you leave me your e-mail, I'll make sure to e-mail you bac with a reply. :) Please review, I hate to sound needy but I really crave your thoughts:p BTW, I've also started a new system that I'm not sure it going to work, but I'm going to try to write as many chapters as I can and post them along the way. Now, your reviews might just jog my memory that I have to update…

"How much further?" Samantha wheezed.

"Not far," Thomas replied. He looked at her, his forehead wrinkling with concern. "Are you alright?"

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she said, shaking her head. She touched a hand to her cheek and felt its burning heat. "I feel as if my whole entire body is going to burst into flames."

"Are you going into heat?" her twin asked. She stopped, leaning on her knees and panting for a moment.

"No," she said finally. "It feels like… I don't know. Something inside me is changing. Fast."

Her brother reached out to pull her close. "It'll be okay, Sam." He rested his chin on her head but when he started to pull away he caught a flash of silver in the sun. His heart beating faster, his fingers combed through her dark brown hair, plucking a few strands here and there. Sam winced.

"What are you doing?" she asked. He opened his hand in front of her eyes, letting her see the premature silvery wisps. She bit her lip, understanding what he was thinking.

"Hello there," said a voice behind them, far from warm and welcoming. Instead, the sound emitted a cruel and harsh biting within it, sounding almost mechanical and rendering the insides of their bodies cold and clammy. Slowly, the pair turned around to face a man with a cruel smile and face, perfectly matching the voice they had just heard.

"X5-273 and X5-274," he said. At the sound of their designations, they tensed.

He stepped a little closer.

"My name is White," he said. "I'd like to know some things about your fellow unit mates back at Manticore."

They turned around to bolt but found even more menacing-looking people surrounding them.

"That's not very nice," he chided. "Won't you help a man out?"

The next thing they felt were hits to the head, and White swam in and out of focus.

"Not to worry," they heard him say faintly. "Soon, we're going to be very best friends."

The next thing they saw was darkness.

Max, Alec and Seth sat around a table in Crash while Original Cindy got beer and entertained Sketchy so that he stayed away from their conversation.

"Start from the beginning," Max said. "How does Logan have anything to do with how you ended up back at Manticore?"

Ever since Seth had uttered Logan's name back at Jam Pony, he was almost unable to get out a sentence without cursing and getting all worked up. Not understanding where he was coming from, but following him to Crash with a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, Max wasn't sure whether she wanted to hear the information her brother was about to give her or not.

Seth clenched his fists in barely restrained anger and blew out a breath of air to calm himself down. In the back of Max's mind, she registered that Alec had actually been silent for a long period of time, evidently interested in what Seth had to say.

"About 5 years after we escaped, when I was about 15, I was caught robbing a bank. Kinda stupid on my part, since most of the banks were dry because of the Pulse, but this one had some kind of special system installed so some of the accounts were recovered. I was living on the streets, sometimes hanging out with gangs so that no one bothered me or tried to put me in a foster home. I broke out of jail 6 hours later, piece of cake. After I walked for a few blocks, I noticed someone following me. I thought it was Manticore so I bolted, and the person didn't follow me. The next day, this guy came up to me, saying he knew who I was and didn't want to hurt me. I was suspicious but I followed him anyway."

There was a faint smile on Max's face. "Zack would've kicked your ass if he had found out. Tactical exposure."

"He introduced himself as Logan Cale. He didn't tell me he was Eyes Only yet, but I recognized him anyway by his features. He said he had a few jobs for me to do. In exchange, he wouldn't expose me to the world as a transgenic."

"Son of a bitch," Alec muttered,

Max massaged her temples, unable to grasp what she was hearing. Logan, the guy she had trusted with her life and risked her ass for on several occasions, the guy she had strong feelings for, had lied to her all this time. Not just about Seth, and about how he never mentioned that he had met her brother, but about who he really was. The sweet and caring man she had known was starting to morph into some ugly, lying monster. And as much as his betrayal began to sink in, as well as a tremendous anger, she still couldn't shake off some of the feelings she had for him. And that was what confused and frustrated her most of all.

"I didn't have a choice," Seth said, oblivious to Max's inner battle. "Of course I could've just snapped his neck and moved on, but he made it abundantly clear that if I did, the news was going to get out on his orders because he had entrusted the information in someone else. So I went along with it, pulling some of his jobs here and there, rescuing damsels in distress and crap. After a while, he started to be nicer to me, acting like we were buddies. I never lost sight though how he blackmailed me, but I played along just so that he'd lay off on the jobs a bit. Hiding from Manticore was harder with all the favours he was asking of me. It continued like that for a few months, until he had asked me to get some information from this warehouse on the outskirts of Seattle."

"Warehouse," Max muttered. "How do bad guys even think those places are shady anymore? Do they not get the hint from all those movies with bad guys hiding out there?"

"So I got in. Thing was, the place was completely empty. I was gonna go until I sensed someone else in there. Imagine my surprise to see Lydecker standing ten feet away from me."

"Wait, stop!" Max said, holding out a hand. "He turned you in? Logan turned you in?" She was pleading now, hoping against hope that it wasn't true.

How could he do that? How? God Logan, how long have you lied to me?

"Logan showed up, and Lydecker held up some disks. I was the exchange for the information. The asshole actually had the balls to say that he was sorry and wished it didn't have to work out that way. I tried to fight but they tazered me and the next thing I knew, I was waking up and in my worst nightmare."

He stopped, silent, as he watched Max shake her head slowly, disbelieving.

"He couldn't have done that. Logan would never have done that. Seth… he wouldn't!" Max said.

"That's what I thought," he answered. "I didn't like the guy but I didn't think he'd double-cross me that way."

All the memories and fun times she'd had with Logan flashed through her mind. His cousin's wedding, the time when he had started to walk again, the time when they finally confessed their feelings for each other… Then she remembered the way Logan had always looked at Zack, so superior, and the way Logan had acted when they had gone to Cape Haven. The time before he had been kidnapped when he had sent her to that airbase on wrong intel, and almost got her caught because of it. She remembered the way he had been more defensive of Dr. Vertes than Jace, thinking of her sister only like an assassin.

He's always been prejudiced towards us. I thought he was the first person to accept me for who I was, but he didn't. He always tried to change me. Like how he hated it when I just dropped in and out without making a sound, or stole something, because it wasn't what a normal girl would do. He had asked Zack in a condescending tone if all the people in our family were thieves. Did he not remember that I was one too? He had hated Ben without even knowing him, because of what Ben was doing. Granted, it wasn't good, but Logan didn't even know him before he passed judgement.

"Max?" Alec asked. His voice was a rare gentle, and he touched her arm. "Are you okay?"

"No, I'm not okay!" she snapped. He moved his hand away and had such a hurt look on his face that she reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm not mad at you. I just – I need time to think this out, okay? I need to go see Logan."

There was a low growl in Alec's throat. "No way are you seeing that bastard alone."

"I'm fully capable of kicking his ass if I need to," she said. She managed a small smile. "You've given me a lot of practice, remember?"

"I don't like it," he said, scowling.

She flicked a finger at his cheek. "Don't do that or your face'll get stuck that way."

Seeing how she was trying to lighten the mood, he played along. "See? I knew you cared about my looks."

"Not really," she said shrugging. "But you do, and I don't need to hear you bitching and complaining about how you look like a wrinkly potato right now."

"But dahling," he said, putting on a Texan accent. "The bitching department is really your area of expertise."

"Touché," Seth said. Max glared at her brother without really any ire and her smile faded.

"I gotta go," she said. "I'll see you later."

She left the table and signaled to Original Cindy that she was leaving, then headed out the door. Seth and Alec looked at each other for a mere ten seconds before they took off in pursuit to watch the fireworks.

Logan sat at his desk, head in his hands, trying to focus on some work he was doing but not succeeding. His thoughts kept leading back to Max, and all that had happened in the few hours she had been back.

I don't understand. I thought we'd be able to pick up where we left off. And I definitely didn't like the way that Alec guy was looking at her. Who does he think he is, going after my girl like that. Then again, she's been through a lot. She's probably confused, and knowing Max, she's probably uncomfortable expressing her feelings for me.

He heard an almost inaudible footfall and swiveled around in his chair, smiling upon seeing the intruder.

Speak of the cat, he thought. But his smile soon faded as he took in her posture and the look on her face. Something told him she wasn't happy with him at all.

"Max," he said, standing up, but not getting within physical range just in case she wasn't feeling too cheery. "I'm glad you came back. I couldn't stop thinking about you."

"Me neither," she said, her tone cold. "And don't take that as a compliment."

He knit his eyebrows together. "I don't understand."

Max decided she would get straight to the point. "Seth? Backstabbing? Ring any bells?"

She watched as the colour drained from his face and felt her throat close up as his reaction confirmed what Seth had told her, not that she had doubted her brother but it was all the much harder having it come from Logan. Still, her face remained impassive.

Making a wise choice in not trying to ask her how she found out, Logan opened his mouth to offer a full apology.

"Max, I know I should have told you a long time ago. Ever since we first met. I know I shouldn't have kept something like that from you. Especially not about your brother. But when we started to get close, I just didn't know how to tell you. I was afraid you'd hate me."

"That's no excuse," she bit back. "How could you have handed him back there on a silver platter? You must have had some idea of how bad it was for us back there. But it still didn't matter, did it? Because you look at us the way the rest of the world would if they found out, like we're inferior and wrong. So what if you just handed a man his death sentence? It didn't matter, did it?"

"That's not true," he protested. "It's – "

"Like hell it's not true!" she shouted, losing her cool completely. "Because once again, saving the god-damn fricking world comes before anything else! As long as you get your pat on the back for doing a good job, you don't care about how it got completed! Not even the lives you sacrificed!"

"Max – "

"No, you listen to me for once! I'm going to be the one who does the talking. I trusted you. I went out of my way for you, almost getting caught because of your stupid little jobs! Remember the Braganza kidnap? I'm not saying that poor woman didn't deserve to get her daughter back, but I was less than a meter away from Lydecker after ten years because of that! And if she had told you to stick it like I did, she wouldn't have lost her daughter in the first place! You could have at least had the decency to tell me about my brother – who I didn't know was even alive – and forget your selfish reasons not to!"

Her chest heaved as she tried to regain her breath, all the while looking at Logan whose eyes grew bigger with every accusation she threw at him.

"Max, I know I handled that wrong, but you can't mean all this," he said, gesturing weakly.

Her eyes turn pitiable and she averted them so that they wouldn't meet his. "I'm sorry, Logan. I just don't think that I can trust you anymore."

She turned and out of her peripheral vision, she spotted a reflection of Alec and Seth, distorted by translucent glass. She blinked then walked out, not looking back even once.

"Hey Mina!" Scorch shouted. "Come look!"

Mina put down the remote and walked over to the window, trying to spot what Scorch was so avidly looking at. She smiled down at the little boy, who she had grown fond of during the past two days.

"There!" he said, pointing. She followed his finger and saw a shooting star in the sky.

"Make a wish," she said.

"It's not a shooting star," he said, surprising her. His eyes were fixed on it, and from the look on his face she could see him gathering his thoughts together. "It doesn't have the same chemical substances as a shooting star. The rim is a different colour. See? It's flashing between gold and red."

She ruffled his hair. "You have too much time on your hands." Still, she listened to what he said and took a second look. She frowned as she realized what he was saying was right.

"Huh," she said. "Well, that's a little strange. It's probably nothing though." She pulled the curtain down and plopped down on a bed in the room she had rented. They had gotten in Seattle very early in the morning and it was the first place she could find without falling asleep.

"You okay kiddo?" she asked. "You look a little sad."

"I'm just wondering whether the rest of my unit had gotten out," Scorch said. He looked down. "My best friend, X9-756, was in Psy Ops when the fire broke out. I don't know if she was in a good condition to make it out."

Mina motioned for him to sit next to her and he cuddled up against her, resting his head in her lap.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know it's hard. I don't know if some of my best friends made it out either. But you just gotta hope for the best."

"Manticore said that hope was a false sense of belief and that if you want something to happen you have to go out there and do it," Scorch said.

"Well, Manticore also said that having friends and feelings was phony sentimentality, but that's not true, is it?" she asked.

"Nope," he said.

"And what do we think of Manticore?" Mina asked.

"Manticore is a poopy stick in the mud and good riddance," Scorch recited.

"Good," she said, smiling. Well, that was better than "They're fucking assholes who tried to screw us over and to hell with them".

"Time to get to sleep," she said.

"But I don't wanna," he said, trying unsuccessfully to cover up a yawn.

"Won't, don't, bla bla bla," she said, tickling him. Minutes later, he was fast asleep.

Three pairs of eyes watched as a beautiful sight, a seemingly harmless shooting star, spiraled towards the earth. It was gold one moment and then furious red the next, and it was sparkling with fervor. One figure averted his delicate eyes away from the star, rubbing them as he waited for the other two to do the same.

"It's been confirmed that Renfro is dead," Lydecker said. "The burnt remains of her body has been found."

"That's one less bitch to deal with," the woman said.

"She was helping us, don't forget that," Lydecker said, but not contradicting her comment. "And now that she's gone, our job's going to be all the much harder. We need to track down all of them and get them to listen. Train them. That's going to take time, something that we don't have."

"It might be time to approach Max then, Deck," the woman said. "If we tell her, she might be able to do something about it. She's already got some of the transgenics on her side despite the fact that she's an '09er. They're more likely to at least acknowledge her than us, who are definite traitors."

"She might be right," the man said. "Max is the one who really needs to know anyway. She needs to know the prophecy to be ready."

"But even we don't know the whole prophecy," Lydecker said, obviously frustrated. "We have no way to contact Sandman. He disappeared five months ago, a little before the raid. No one's heard from him since, and even our best trackers haven't found him."

"Way to go, Sandy," the woman said dryly. "The old guy's got skills."

"X5-766! This is not a laughing matter," Lydecker growled.

She rolled her eyes. "Kidding. I know it's not, don't be such a stiff about it. Anyways, I still vote we let Max in on it, even if we can't tell her everything. She needs to at least know what we do."

"I second that," the man said.

"We'll have to run this by the Committee," Lydecker said, unsure.

"Screw the Committee, Deck. Are you a man or a pussy?" the woman shot at him. "You gonna wait around like a good little boy to be told what to do or are you going to actually make a decision without your mommy holding your hand?"

"I don't appreciate your language, X5-766," he said. She rolled her eyes.

"For all the times you act like you're our father, you're so formal. My name's not X5-766, it's Eva. Get something straight in your boring life for once."

Max stepped forward and stood on top of the place that she always went to to sort out her thoughts.

It's been such a long time since I've been on top of the Space Needle.

She looked down from her sacred place, observing the scurrying people so much farther down. The sight had once made her feel like she wasn't all alone, like there were other people who had problems as well. Not as big as hers, of course, but problems nonetheless. It still made her feel that way, but now she felt strangely secluded and apart from them. She supposed being with Logan had given her a sense of normal, and in turn integrated her with all the ordinaries of Seattle. Without him, she felt like a completely different species.

I am, though. And I should be proud of that.

"Not thinking of jumping, are you?" she heard behind her.

"If I was, don't you think I would have done it already? Besides, considering all the times I've died or almost died, I'll probably come back in a few days anyways."

"The amazing Maxie. Piss her off and she'll come back, embarrass her and she'll come back and make your life a living hell."

She pursed her lips.

"Alec, they could put you in a kindergarten class and you'd blend in perfectly with all the other kids," she said.

"Do five-year-olds hit on all the teachers?" he asked her. He saw the corners of her mouth twitch, and he continued, knowing it was only a matter of time until she started laughing. "Ripley's would have a field day."

"I have no idea how you ever became a C.O.," she said.

"I'm charming," he answered.

"You flirted with Renfro?" she asked, grinning widely. He grabbed at his throat and fell to the ground, pretending to be dead.

"You're sick, woman. Sick I tell you."

"I didn't think you set your standards that low," she responded.

"You obviously did," he said impulsively, his mouth dropping open as he realized what he had said. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she said, shrugging and feigning nonchalance. "You're right. I just didn't… I didn't think he was like that."

Alec wrapped his arms around her waist tentatively and just to tease him, she raised a hand as if to hit him. He winced, but instead she took his face in her hands. He relaxed and watched her.

"I don't know what I'm feeling right now, or how it's going to work out," she started slowly. "But if you… if you can just be patient with me – I don't know…"

He kissed her in answer to her question and they didn't speak but seemed to reach a silent understanding. She turned around in his arms again so that her back was against his chest.

"Does this mean that I'm going to finally be able to get some?"

A/N: I think this chapter cleared some things up, don't you? Now you know who X5-766 is. If you get where I'm coming from, you'll probably be able to guess who the man is. Love it/Hate it/Think something can be better? Please review and tell me. I crave reviews. LOL Luv ya guys, xoxo –aod78