Disclaimer: Fine. I own it. I own it all. Mwahahahaha!

Zack's Penny

By Be Boring

Chapter 6: Heated Realizations

*~* Zane

I was nearly to my car when I stopped to pull out my cell phone and dialed Zack's contact number. The words "state your condition" greeted my ears. Nice message. He really should change that. I hesitated for a moment, then went on ahead.

"It's Zane. I'm just leaving Los Angeles, heading to Ludlow. I'll be getting further away soon, but I might have some things to slow me down. I'll be going to Santa Fe, I'll get back to you when I get there."

Hanging the phone back up, I continued on to my car. I couldn't hear Randy calling me anymore, but I knew he was probably starting to really freak out right about now. I wish I didn't have to leave him alone to deal with Jake, but I didn't have much choice. Randy would be able to figure out what I was. He wasn't stupid, he could put two and two together. Eyes Only had said that the message would repeat every hour on the hour until we had all checked in. Randy would probably see it or at least hear about it, then he'd do the math. I hated leaving right now, not to mention putting Penny in danger by bringing her along with me, but I couldn't just leave her there. She seemed so helpless, she wouldn't know what to do if I left. I could remember the way she'd been when I first met her; she had no idea what to do with herself. She probably would have contacted Syl or Krit, but hopefully they'd seen the message and were on the move.

I was perhaps five minutes from the hotel when my cell phone went off. I hadn't been expecting it to, but maybe it was Krit or Syl wondering if I'd seen the message. "Hello?"

"What will slow you down? Is it the dog?"

I gave a huge sigh of relief. So Zack was ok. "No, I left Keisha with my landlord in Chicago. I have a girl with me right now, and there's no way I can leave her behind."

"Why not? Is she an X5?"

"No, she's an ordinary. I just can't leave her."

"Don't let--"

"I know, I know. Don't let phony sentimentality get in the way of my judgment. I'm not, it's just that I don't think she can take care of herself without me. Where have you been?"

"Preoccupied. I checked my earlier messages. You should have known better than to live with Syl and Krit. Why did you go back to LA?"

"I had a friend who needed me. I guess I'll be forced to leave him now."

"You can leave him, but you can't leave the girl?"

"You wouldn't understand." I heard a voice in the background ask Zack who he was talking to. "Who's with you? Is that Tinga I hear?"

"Yeah, she was in trouble with Lydecker, now we're on our way to Canada. I just hope you get away from LA as fast as you can. If you have to do it with the girl, then do it, but get yourself away from there."

I pulled into the parking lot of the hotel and turned off the car. "Relax, I'll be leaving as soon as I get Penny ready."

"Who?" Zack's voice sounded strange, as if I'd truly caught him by surprise.

"Penny. That's the girl I'm with. Anyways, do you think Santa Fe will be good enough? Or should I go farther away?"

"What's today?" Now he sounded even more upset.

That had to be the strangest question he'd ever asked me. "Why?"

"Just tell me."

"Tell me why! What's wrong?"

I heard him put the phone to the side. "Tinga, what's today?"

I wished she wouldn't answer, but she was obviously as clueless as I was about what was going on. "It's January 18th, why?"

"Never mind." He picked up the phone again. "I'm coming down there. Don't go back to your room, just stay where you are."

I didn't have any time to reply before I heard the click from his end of the line. What the hell was going on? He had sounded so ominous, I wasn't sure what to think. I hated it when Zack wouldn't tell me what was going on. Why was he coming? What was so special about today? I was still pondering it as I climbed the stairs to the floor our room was on. I didn't care what he said, I had to get Penny ready to leave and warn her about Zack.

What in the world is that smell? The first thing it made me think of was Syl from the last time I was near her, but that was impossible. I couldn't help but notice the effect that scent had on my body. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea for me to go in by Penny, I might not be able to stop myself. I moved a little closer to our room, but my body's state just became worse. I actually sat down in the hallway to try and get myself to cool down. God, that smelled so much like Syl's heat cycle. Who? What day is it? Don't go back to your hotel room. Zack's voice kept ringing in my head. Penny. Other than it being Tinga's alias, I knew it had some other meaning.

"Leave her alone!"

"Zack, she's the reason Jondy was taken away to solitary confinement! If she hadn't held us up, Jondy wouldn't have been punished for going on ahead of the group!"

"She couldn't help it! Her body couldn't go through that area, she's not strong enough! You know that!"

I was sitting on a bed, watching Max and Zack scream at each other. We had to go through an obstacle course in the woods, but X5-826 had been going so slow that Jondy had accidentally gone too far ahead. It was supposed to be a group mission, so, needless to say, Jondy had to be punished for straying from the group. Now Max wanted some justice for her sister's punishment, and the first person she wanted to go after was X5-826. Not that I blamed her, I loved Jondy as much as she did and this royally pissed me off, but I also felt that maybe Jondy should have been paying more attention and not daydreaming and wandering too far ahead.

"Just let me at her!" Max growled. Before Zack could stop her, Max had launched herself over a row of beds and grabbed X5-826 by the throat. Zack, Syl, Brin, Jace, and I were the first ones to reach them. Jace and I grabbed Max by the arms and dragged her back, while Syl and Brin stood in front of her to form a physical wall between her and X5-826. Zack went behind her to see if the other girl was alright. Brin stepped between me and Max so that she and Jace could lead her away. I stayed where I was as everyone left the corner, looking down at Zack. He was next to X5-826, checking her throat for any serious damage. Once his head was out of the way, X5-826 looked up at me. We hardly ever saw her, she tended to keep to herself and stay out of our way. We all knew she wasn't supposed to be there, that she probably should have been destroyed, but Lydecker seemed to have a soft spot for her.

Her eyes seemed to pierce me as they looked deeply into mine. They were a stunning green that couldn't be matched, and something behind them almost physically hurt me. I could almost feel her pain. That look told me everything. She knew she was weak, she knew she couldn't measure up to the rest of us. It just seemed to be so painful for her. It was like her eyes were apologizing for the things that weren't her fault. It wasn't until Ben grabbed my arm and whispered that we were going to the High Place that I tore my gaze away from hers.

I was stunned, I couldn't believe I had forgotten that. I had made myself forget many things about Manticore just so I could try to live a normal life, and some of the other X5s had been forgotten along with the other information. Those eyes. It was those eyes that got me. X5-826. Zack hadn't escaped that night. I knew that much. Wasn't it possible that he had let X5-826 out as well? Her name was Penny. Zack was set on naming her that, but we never called her that. We refused to acknowledge her as anything more than a number because we felt she wasn't deserving of being thought of as more. Now that I thought about it, it all made sense. Penny had never been able to take care of herself. Zack would have had her live with him. Seeing as how she had shown up at our door, something must have gone wrong with Zack. Maybe whatever that something was was the reason that we had been compromised.

The smell. That was why Zack was coming here. I wasn't smelling Syl, I was smelling Penny. He knew when her heat cycles were, he must have known she was due. No wonder he sounded so anxious over the phone. There was only one thing I knew for sure, I had to get out of there.

I had no sooner climbed to my feet than I heard the hotel room door open behind me.

*~* Penny

Go away, go away, go away. I had heard footsteps out in the hall, and I was praying every second that it wasn't Jesse, or any man for that matter. My heat was increasing, and the only thing I wanted to do was jump into a pool of ice and stay there for the next couple days. What would happen when Jesse got back? At the moment I could control myself, but there weren't any men by me to test that theory. I was getting the definite feeling that as soon as Jesse was within my line of vision, my virginity wasn't going to last long. Zack, I need you so much! He would have protected me, he would have kept me from jumping the first male that came near me.

The footsteps out in the hall had stopped, but I wasn't all too sure that whoever it was had gone away. I could still sense them out there. It was taking every ounce of my willpower to stay where I was on my bed and not go over to see who was out there. Just turn on the TV, I'll be alright. I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, hoping to see something to calm my nerves. I saw something alright.

A mans face filled the screen. Well, his eyes anyway. The rest of his face was covered in bars reading STREAMING FREEDOM VIDEO. A moment later, his voice filled the room. "Do not attempt to adjust your set. This is a streaming freedom video bulletin. This cable hack cannot be traced, it cannot be stopped, and it is the only free voice left in this city. This is a message to those known as X5. You've been compromised. You're in danger. You know what to do. I repeat, you've been compromised. You know what to do. This message will repeat every hour on the hour until each of you has checked in."

I couldn't believe it. I've got to get out of here! Sorry Jesse, but I had to go. I didn't even bother grabbing anything I'd brought with me, which wasn't much considering that Jesse didn't let me pick up my stuff from Cindy's apartment, and I lunged for the door.

Jesse. Why was he walking away from the room? When he turned and his gaze landed on me, I saw something in his eyes. It was a mixture of horror and disgust. He couldn't possibly know who I was and what was going on. He just couldn't. But his eyes were telling me differently.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked tonelessly, staying as far away from me as possible. "Why would you live with us for so long and not tell us? It's not like we wouldn't have understood. Why did you feel the need to hide yourself from us? Why would Zack hide you from us?"

What? How does he know about Zack? He couldn't be... I didn't have any time to finish the thought, my body was moving without the consent of my mind. I was already halfway down the hallway to him. At first he turned and tried to get down the stairs, but I kicked up my pace. I practically ran him down, but he wasn't complaining when I did. X5, that's the only thing he could be. The thought had no sooner ran through my head than it ran back out again. I wasn't in the right state to be thinking at all.

Jesse didn't try to hold me back as my full weight hit him. In fact, he turned so my back slammed against the wall and then started kissing me. His hands gripped my ribs so hard that I thought I was going to cry out, but my mind was on other things. One of the hands on my ribs moved to slide under my shirt. I knew I was digging my nails too hard into his back, but a part of me wanted to stop this. I didn't want to do this with him. Zack had worked so hard to make sure I remained innocent, why should I destroy that in my first heat cycle away from him?

"What the hell are you people doing? Get in your room!" I managed to turn my head a quarter of an inch to see the old woman standing at the head of the stairs.

"Fine," Jesse gasped as he pulled his lips off mine. That didn't last long, not even half of a minute later my body was pressed down into my bed, with Jesse tearing at my clothes like a wild animal. As my shirt was torn from me, I nearly made a move to cover myself up out of habit, but Jesse wasn't going to let that happen. I couldn't help but feel scared as he shoved my hands out of the way and kissed me so hard that I whimpered. This has to stop, I can't do this. Still, I waited for his hands to unzip my jeans before I really started fighting against him.

"Jesse, please stop! I need you to stop!" I moaned. It probably wasn't very convincing seeing as how I was wrapping my legs around him at the time, but it seemed to reach some part of him.

"I don't think I can," he whispered as he tore my pants down to my thighs. I squirmed weakly in an attempt to stop him from unwrapping my legs so he could completely remove my pants, but he easily finished what he was set on doing. He pulled off his own shirt as I made another attempt to get off the bed, but he finished undressing too quickly for me. As soon as his hands were back on me, I was as good as gone.

Not even a minute later, I was in sheer ecstasy as a tear slid down my cheek. I was torn in half. My body couldn't get enough of this, but my mind was in agony. He's an X5. Zack is gonna kill me. But my mind couldn't stay focused on that as my body neared its first climax ever.

*~* Zane

She was a virgin. I could feel it, I felt her lose her virginity. My body was pretty much a separate being from my mind as I felt Penny's back arch into me as a sharp cry escaped her. Zack had protected her well. Adult female X5 and virgin aren't two things that can usually be said in the same sentence, but Penny had defied that. Well, not anymore. I could taste the tear that had rolled down her cheek. Just like me, her mind was against this. Damn Manticore, they forced us to lose control like this. If only they hadn't screwed around with genetics, we might all be normal people. Then again, we might not exist. We were created from Manticore, so if they hadn't made us we wouldn't be here, normal or transgenic.

Her tears started coming faster. I forced myself to pull my lips away from hers and stare down into her eyes. What I saw there hit me harder than when we were children. It was almost as if someone had tied a rope to either hand and two people were pulling her in different directions as hard as they could. Although the strain she was feeling wasn't physical, she was having that battle of tug-of-war with her mind. The animal part of her brain was enjoying my presence in her body almost to the point where I wasn't too sure she would let me stop, while her reasoning part was hating this. It wouldn't surprise me if it felt like rape to her. That's almost what it felt like to me too. I know that sounds strange, but the term rape basically means being forced unwillingly into a sexual act, and that's what was going on.

Time seemed to waste away as our animal instincts refused to release us from their hold. I wasn't even aware of the glowing red numbers on the clock next to the bed anymore. Her tears had eventually ceased, but that was only because her mind had numbed itself to the pain of what was happening. I actually felt bad for her. A part of me hated her for lying to me when I had started to feel something for her, but something else told me that she hadn't been altogether lying to us. I don't think she did the same thing that I know most of the others do. When we relocate, we also tend to take on a different personality. Even stupid little habits are acquired so that we'll seem more normal. I don't think Penny did that. Her personality didn't change at all when she came to live with us. If she was starting to feel anything for me as well, then it wasn't an act.

I was thoroughly exhausted when our bodies finally collapsed against the bed. If it hadn't been for our weariness, we probably would have begun the whole process again in a couple minutes. But, seeing as how we were probably more tired than we'd ever been in our lives, we were both asleep within seconds. The last thing I thought before I slipped out of the waking world was God, I hope I can live with myself.

*****************************************************

A/N: I know it wasn't as long as my normal chapters, but it all just sort of rushed out of me. The writer's block is definitely gone, but seeing as how ff.net is going to be down for a couple days while it's split into two separate sites, when I make my next update it's going to be shown a couple days earlier on .