Author's Note: Hi everyone! This chapter is shorter than most others, but I felt that the content had to stand on its own, so I didn't want to add anything else. I'm working on the next chapter now, so it should be up (hopefully) very soon. Thanks for all the supportive reviews, please continue to review. The story is winding down...

Kris fleetingly wondered why White was holding a knife to her when he could easily snap her neck with a thumb and forefinger if he wanted to. But then again, White did always have a flare for the dramatic - brass knuckles on Alec for example - why not have a knife to Kris' throat? Max looked away from her hand-to-hand combat with a Familiar that didn't seem to be very successful on her part. Alec was fairing slightly better in his unarmed state, but quickly stopped fighting once he saw what White was holding onto. All the other transgenetics ceased, realizing that their friend was being held hostage.

"Let her go," Alec said in a furiously low voice. It made Kris uncomfortable to hear it, but White seemed amused.

"You must come up with a better line than that, 494," White replied, crazed. In a matter of a few moments his cult that was his family, had been exposed, some of his workers were killed, the police would be coming soon to the warehouse, and he lost the upper-hand in negotiating with Kris. It was all her fault. Why shouldn't he kill her?

Alec remained silent, glaring at White with unchecked ferocity.

"This doesn't make sense, White, and you know it," Max said, alluding to the fact that White really should not kill Kris because of her greater importance to the Familiars.

"Yes, well, that was before all this shit happened, isn't it?" he gritted out, tightening his grip on Kris so much that she could feel the blade dig into neck. She winced as her neck was cut and prayed that the pain would subside quickly. She could feel drops of liquid trickle down her neck, knowing that it was her own blood.

Alec saw Kris' blood ooze down her throat and cringed. What now? What was he supposed to do? This was all his fault. He momentarily slipped into that depressed state where he blamed all of the world's troubles in himself, but then snapped back out of it. He focused on the trail of blood falling down Kris' neck and collarbone. He focused on the pending fight between him and White. He focused how much he had to make White pay for everything or at least die trying.

"Uh oh, 494, what are you going to do now?" White taunted and gripped Kris tighter. "I seem to have the most important card..."

"You are so full of it," Kris jumped in, disgusted.

"What did you say?" White seethed.

"You have the most important card?" she asked incredulously. "Please...I have the most important card. My life. You need me alive. But if you're so full of it that you wave this knife around to try and piss off Alec so when you fight him, you can have some upper hand because he would be fighting with emotions. But if you were going to kill me, you would have already. The point is that even though we just screwed you over, you still need to continue on. I doubt this is the first time in The Familiar's thousands of years of existence that there was a setback. You guys survived this long because you have a drive to survive. You'd be going against your very core if you kill me. You'd be damning yourself and all of your family. And so this whole thing is just for show so you can have an advantage over Alec. Which shows that not only are you full of it, but you are a cheat because you're trying to mess with Alec's head."

Kris had no idea if what she was saying was making any sense, but she was terrified. She didn't know if what she said was true, but she needed to try to antagonize White like he was antagonizing Alec because it wouldn't be fair otherwise. Alec wouldn't stand a chance if his whole mind wasn't set on fighting. She knew she was being ridiculously reckless. She knew she was asking for White to hurt her, and she was so scared because she didn't know how badly he would hurt her. She didn't want to die, but she would die before she went with White. She would die before she let White win an unfair fight against Alec.

White chuckled menacingly. "You think you have me all figured out, don't you? Well let me tell you, little girl, you have no idea who you are messing with."

"Oh, you mean an arrogant coward?" she retorted.

White became enraged and threw her onto the floor. She was too perceptive. He wanted her away from him. In his fury, he didn't realize that his knife had sunk deeper into her skin and sliced across her neck. This gave Alec the momentary advantage as he rammed into White with a growl.

She landed hard on the concrete, blood everywhere, her blood. It felt indescribably painful and she gasped for breath as she held onto her neck to try to stop bleeding. Blood spilled over her fingers and onto the cement floor and she began to feel faint. Utter chaos resumed around her now that she was not White's hostage, but she couldn't move - she was so distracted with the blood. How could she watch herself lose so much blood? She felt like she was going to vomit with nausea and confusion and fright. Suddenly she felt hands pick her up and she didn't have the strength to fight. She looked and saw it was Logan half-dragging her to the far side of the Aztec and prop her up against the car door. Logan took a towel out of the back of the beaten Aztec and pressed it firmly against her neck, but it was hard to press it firmly when she had to try to breath. She was so scared.

"Alec," she cried out in her dazed and shocked state.

"He's a little busy right now," Logan said, stroking her hair and trying to comfort her.

She began to tear. She couldn't cry. She was so very scared. So this was how it was going to end. But she couldn't die without telling him...

"Alec..." she moaned softly before everything went black.

His body made full contact with White's, throwing them both onto the floor. Alec punched White twice, but White seemed to not notice. White grabbed Alec's shirt and threw him off of his own body and across part of the warehouse. Alec's body made a sickening thud when it came in contact with the cement of the ground. White approached Alec's prone form with a haunting arrogance, as though he knew he would win this fight.

Alec tried desperately to think of a way where he could fight White when he was at the extreme disadvantage because White couldn't feel pain. Alec could feel the impact of landing on the concrete floor vibrate throughout his body and knew that he could not stand up to too much of that kind of abuse if he wanted to stay alive.

Before White came within arms distance of Alec, Alec swiped his feet around the floor, causing White to lose balance and fall. That was basically all Alec could do - make White lose balance - because no other forms of attack that would cause pain would work against White.

Alec quickly got up, but so did White. White looked annoyed, but uninjured. Damn. They sparred for a while, hitting, blocking, kicking, dodging as if in one of those choreographed fight scenes from one of those old kung fu movies. Alec was getting a little tired while White looked unfazed.

"How long can you do this, 494? Cuz I could go all night," White taunted.

Alec didn't punch harder because he knew it wouldn't have made any difference. He refused to take the bait, but instead bided his time, waiting for one weakness on White's part that would lead to Alec going in for the kill. But in the meantime, he took White's big punches and forceful kicks. The pain really began to sink in, even with the adrenaline rush that was supposed to mask it.

But he refused to give up, to back down. White had screwed with too much. Alec didn't even know if Kris was still alive. She could be dead. That thought didn't destroy him at the moment but only encouraged him to fight faster, more efficiently, keeping White off balance often enough to have a slight breather between sparring matches. If she was dead, then he wouldn't let it be for nothing. That was all he could do for her if that were the case.

"Looking a little tired, 494," White teased as Alec spat out a mouthful of blood. Alec had heard the crack of some part of his body a little while before and knew that wasn't a good sign either.

Let him talk, Alec thought. Let him think that he has me at the ropes. Let him get careless and create an opportunity for me. Just hold out a little longer...please...But how much longer was the question. Alec knew White saw that his kicks were getting sloppier, his punches not at powerful. He couldn't think clearly with the pain from the fight and the underlying fear about Kris' fate. He couldn't breath very well anymore either.

Then Alec saw it.

He had just kicked White so hard that White lost his footing and began to fall backwards to the floor. Alec spun around swiftly to the back of White and kicked at his knees, pushing White forward. White was momentarily disoriented at the sudden change of momentum from backwards to forwards. Alec used this confusion to grab White quickly by the head and twist it forcefully to the side, breaking White's neck.

White was dead before his body landed on the floor.

Alec stared tiredly at the prone body on the floor before collapsing himself. His legs could no longer support him, his arms felt like lead.

"Alec!" someone cried out, but it wasn't Kris. Why wasn't it Kris?

Max ran over to him after finishing off the Familiar she had been fighting. Alec hadn't noticed that everyone else but him seemed to have gotten rid of the Familiars either by fighting or by guns a while ago. She swung his arm over her neck and half dragged him to the Aztec. Max propped Alec up on the side of the beaten car to get a better look at him.

Blood oozed from several open wounds on his face and made trails down his cheeks to his neck to his shirt collar. Sweat mixed with the blood, spreading it more around his face. His knuckles were raw and bleeding. Scraps were all over his arms. His breathing was ragged.

"Kris," Alec whispered out in a pained voice.

"Shh...we have to get you in the car. We're taking Kris to the hospital right now," Max explained, helping him into the car. Kris sat in the back seat with Logan supporting her neck as blood leaked out of her wound, soaking a white towel red She wasn't moving.

"No!" Alec croaked out, trying to get to her.

"Easy, Alec. She's alive. Max, switch with me, I'll drive," Logan said.

Max nodded and in a flash Logan was in the front seat, whisking them to the ER as Mole and the other transgenetics escaped from the warehouse before the police arrived. They had lost three transgenetics in the fight but had successfully killed all the Familiars there. Now that the Familiars were exposed, no one knew how the Familiars would respond. But for now, they were pushed underground. For the moment Logan, Max, and Alec's concerns focused on Kris. She had lost too much blood.