Disclaimer: Not mine.

Authors Note: Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter posted. I actually thought it went up a few weeks ago but with all the problems with ff net it didn't make it. Anyway enjoy and I'll try to finish up the story asap!

DARK TERROR

Chapter 19 - Enemy Mine.

Alec checked his watch again and swore softly under his breath. Where the hell is that son of a bitch! He had been waiting for Lydecker to show for the last 6 hours. The message left, by Lydecker, on his voice mail had been vague and had only named the meeting place and said night-time. Alec had been standing in the derelict warehouse since before the sun went down, terrified that he would miss Lydecker's arrival. His hand slipped to his side and he felt the cold reassuring metal of his gun. Max might hate them but he had no such aversion.

The fact that Lydecker had contacted him was a shock. Alec tried not to think about the possible implications of the action. Lydecker had betrayed him. What possible reason could he have for trying to get in touch with a man who would just as soon see him dead for taking the woman he loved away from him? Alec's stomach clenched at the thought. What if Max…No. If Max were dead, Lydecker wouldn't take the time to tell him the bad news.

Besides I would know. If Max were dead…I would feel it…I would feel her die because a part of me would die too.

Alec closed his eyes and forced the possibility of Max's death away from his mind. But death wasn't the worst thing that could happen, Alec knew this better than anyone. There were some things no one should go through and survive and Max had been through them all.

I can bring her back. I did it once before, I just have to get her out and she'll be fine. We'll heal together and I promise I'll never let them catch you again Max. Alec slumped against the crumbling brick wall and tried to control the fear of Max's state that welled within him.

"Is this a bad time?"

Alec's eyes snapped open at the familiar sound of the rasping voice. A rage he hadn't even known he had been nursing sprang free at the sight of the man responsible for Max's capture. Faster than the human eye could see, Alec leapt forward and had Lydecker suspended in the air, his hand choking his throat.

Lydecker gasped for breath, his hands flailing over Alec's enhanced grip. He had expected Alec to be angry but this attack took him by surprise. When he had seen the transgenic slumped against the wall in defeat and pain Lydecker had wrongly assumed the other man was broken beyond posing a threat. Now as he stared into Alec's dilated eyes burning with a fury beyond reason, Lydecker realised Max's lover was on the edge and only Max had been holding him to sanity.

"Alec-" Lydecker tried to speak, to pull Alec back to reality. It wasn't working. If anything Lydecker felt Alec's grip increase and he knew he had only moments before he passed out from cerebral anoxia.

There was a reason. Alec knew there was a reason why he was holding this man, choking him to death, and it was a good reason…He just couldn't think of it now. Couldn't think beyond the red haze of his vision and the adrenaline pumping through his veins. His heart beat seemed to pound unnaturally strongly against his ribcage, almost painful in its beat.

There was a reason he should let go. It nagged at the edge of his brain but was drowned out by the horrible ringing in his ears. The man he was killing was turning from the desperate red of struggle to the grim blue of death. Everything in his mind had faded to the emotions he was feeling. The anger. The rage.

"Alec-"

The man choked out a name, Alec. It meant nothing. Alec intensified his grip, his need to hurt this man increased by the sheer nerve of his attempt to speak to him.

"Ma-" The syllable struggled to escape the dying mans lips. "Max-"

Max.

The world stopped. The terrible ringing in his ears faded to a bearable humming. The red that clouded his vision slipped into normal shades and the tightly held muscles of Alec's hand released the tension in the return of sanity.

Max. Oh God.

Alec released Lydecker and stumbled back a few steps in horror of what he had almost done. Not killing Lydecker but killing his only chance at saving Max. Alec shuddered, his whole body shaking at the realisation of what he had almost done. He turned, one hand braced against the rough texture of the wall as he sank to his knees.

Lydecker gasped for breath from his position on the ground but had already pulled himself half up, wary of another attack from the transgenic he had betrayed. "I'm sorry…I'm sorry." He breathed the words. It was true, Lydecker knew he had made a grievous error in handing Max over to White. He had let his own selfish feeling for Max guide his behaviour and he had refused to consider the consequences to Max, or Alec.

Alec didn't turn to face Lydecker. He was too afraid that his raw emotions would cause him to snap again. Lydecker's words reached his ears however and he closed his eyes in pain. "Your sorry." It was flat, almost dead in tone. A short humourless laugh came from his lips and Lydecker flinched from the sound.

"Alec-" Lydecker tried to speak. To offer whatever excuse, explanation, plea he could.

"Your sorry." Alec interrupted, stating it as though he were seriously thinking about what Lydecker had said. "Your sorry for what exactly? Telling Max to leave me? Guilting her with Logan's death until she felt her only option was to make me believe she doesn't love me?"

Lydecker inhaled sharply as he realised that Alec had figured everything out. Every manipulation, every emotion. Finally Alec turned to face the older man, his eyes heated but his voice disconcertingly absent of emotion.

"Are you sorry that you betrayed Max. That you gave her to White? What did you see him do to her that made you come to me for help, huh Lydecker?" Emotion, raw and painful started to leak into his voice now. "Did you see blood? Did you see him torture her-" Alec's voice rose in anger as he recalled what he had seen of the results of White's treatment of Max the last time. "-Experiment on her? Did you hear her scream!?"

Lydecker brought his hands up to cover his face as Alec's words brought back what he had seen to his minds eye. Oh God what did I do? "I thought- I could protect her-" A sob choked the words in his throat and Lydecker felt his eyes sting suspiciously with tears. He hadn't cried since he had thought Max had died in the raid on Manticore. Before then it had only been the thought of his murdered wife that could stir him to tears.

Alec's breathing was harsh in the still of the desolate location and Lydecker used the momentary silence to gather his fragmented emotions. Alec closed his eyes in a effort to calm the rage that burned bright in his heart. In a way he was thankful for his fury, it quelled the pain, silenced the questions of Max's well being.

"Where is she?" Alec asked, his voice low and grave with threat.

Lydecker visibly pulled himself together at Alec's question and spoke, his voice thickened by regret. "White's holding her in a government facility not far from here. It's in the middle of nowhere but I can take you there."

Alec nodded grimly and stood, his shoulders squaring in a soldier's stand. "Are they aware of your turning?" The answer would be crucial in successfully removing Max safely.

Shaking his head Lydecker quickly confirmed a negative. "No. White doesn't trust me though. I'm never allowed with Max unsupervised…I protested her treatment a few too many times for him to give me the full access he promised…"

Alec's head snapped around to face Lydecker, his voice curt. "Do you expect gratitude for your 'protests'?" Alec spat out the word as though it caused a bad taste in his mouth. Lydecker flinched and his eyes turned to the ground. Alec's muscles trembled slightly from his anger.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I'm here now Alec and I swear to you on my wife's memory that I will help you save Max." The words contained neither emotion nor passion but they resonated with truth and as Alec turned to meet Lydecker's eyes he nodded. Acknowledgement of a temporary truce and an alliance in order to save the women that held both their hearts, from an enemy they shared.

"Then we do this." It was a statement in the hard tone of a young man who had spent his life fighting.

"Yes. We'll do this." Lydecker confirmed but continued unable to help pointing out what had prompted his actions in the first place. "White will come after her though, as long as she's alive he'll hunt her down."

Lydecker shuddered as Alec's cold eyes flashed at him with a hate that seemed to penetrate through to his soul. For an instant Lydecker thought it was 493 - Ben - standing beside him. Alec's clenched jaw opened and he spoke with a voice that chilled him even more than the eyes of a killer.

"He's not going to come after her again. I'm going to find him." Alec paused and his fists curled into fists so tight that the veins in his hands and forearms pulsed visibly. "And when I do, he'll die."

TBC.