Disclaimer

Chapter 18

…Struggling against him she hit him repeatedly in a desperate attempt to get away, "You scare me okay?! I don't know what to do with myself around you! Is that what you want to hear?" she gritted through clenched teeth.

Silence. Dead, stinging, uncomfortable silence. Frayed breathing and pounding of heart beats, Alec's ears were ringing with those words as they recurred in his mind like a broken record looping the last few notes of a cheerless song.

She was scared of him. Pain, as those words finally sunk, seeped into his irises and somehow he managed to find the power of movement and speech. Letting her wrist go his one hand wavered returning to his side, "I'll leave you alone."

His words were so final, so ultimately absolute, mocking her of her pigheaded refusal of help. Max could only watch, tears welling up in her eyes again, as Alec turned his back to her unbeknownst to her, to stop her seeing how deep her words had cut.

Silently the salty droplets streamed down her face mocking her success and Max turned and padded softly to his room not bothering to close the door. She let her body collapse onto the bed and buried her face into the pillows. His scent soaked the sheets, the scent that had already ingrained into her brain.

She couldn't hold back, couldn't force the tears down like she'd always done and for the life of her she found that she didn't want to. Curling her body into the fetal position she held herself as she cried, wanting nothing more than to have arms encircling her, for the first time in her life she didn't crave Brendan's touch. Max Guevara, genetically engineered soldier, wanted Alec.

She'd made herself forget all those years ago, made her mind bury the memories and feelings so deep that even Manticore's henchmen in psy-ops hadn't been able to find them, so far down she'd forgotten her own name. Now, away from her childhood hell, the memories were flooding her drowning mind.

Alec listened to her pillow muffled sobs forcing himself to stay on the couch. He wasn't gonna hold his hand out to her just to have it bitten off again. Instead he focused his attention to the window and what was outside. Twilight. The time where nothing's about except a few stray cats and the city is shrouded in moonlit mystery and quiet.

At least it was supposed to be quiet. Clinching his eyes Alec yelled inwardly at his urge to fly to her side and soothe her, chase her demons away. She was still whimpering, too exhausted and dehydrated to cry anymore. Instead he swallowed the lump from his throat and lay back down ignoring the voice within him screaming blasphemous insults at him and ordering him to go to her.

He tossed and turned for all of thirty seconds listening to her cries and heavy breathing and finally tossing the blanket aside he stood up, only in sweat pants, creeping to the door and slowly swinging it open fully. The site that assaulted him knocked the wind out of his lungs.

Alec's eyes were glued to the smooth curves bathed in starlight, her skin looked silvery, her hair black, and light glinting upon her sweating skin as she sobbed unrelentingly. He was frozen in place, no more than 3 feet away from her unable to move. Could only stare dry-mouthed at the demon-plagued perfection that lay before him.

His foot twitched as he willed himself to move away but a floorboard creaked and she turned her eyes flying to his meeting through the opening of the door. Max didn't cover herself, saw no reason to, she only stared searching his irises of any emotion, like the kind she'd been allowed to see before.

"Alec… I…" she stuttered looking away trying to will her mouth to speak the words she wished to say, "I'm sorry Alec."

The X5 knew what she wanted; saw what she craved and needed but his pride forbid him from giving into her. She had the ability of speech. If she wanted something he wasn't going to make it easy for her. All she had to do was ask.

When her eyes found his again though something broke him. The desperation, loneliness and confused pain that shattered those coffee bean pools knocked him back in the metaphorical sense. Without his consent he found his feet moving, found his body laying down next to hers encircling her tiny frame protecting her with his own.

Max burrowed deeper into his embrace, her head buried into his neck, lips pressed against his skin and her frantic hands grasped his back, holding him to her.

"I'll be here for you Max, always. I'll always listen," he soothed into her ear.

His words seeped into her heart; they grabbed hold of its bleeding walls refusing to move. Her body flushed with warmth and she held on tighter, "But you won't always understand." And then the light bulb flicked on. Not the apartment's artificial lighting but the one that burst into light as the meaning of her fear dawned on him.

She feared his reaction. Feared his thoughts on what she ached to get off her chest and he remembered what the freshest coat of paint upon her walls had read.

Broken, mended,
which I am I do not know.
Infiltrated,
by happiness and foe.
Heart bleeds,
the walls within are torn.
Confused by my own needs,
thought leaving me forlorn.
Tempest rages.
Soothed by turmoil.
Nursed by cages.
Bewildered foil.
A wretched world traps my mind,
an inward innate peril;
Spiraling sentiment to find,
to calm anger, feral.
Mind forsaken,
Heart in agony,
winding paths not yet taken.
Conscious mutiny.

The meaning behind the words, half lost to him Alec pleaded with her, "Tell me Max. I won't judge your past but don't ask me to forget it either. It's a part of who you are," he whispered into her hair, his hot breath tingling her skin making her close her eyes in confused excitement at the feelings it provoked.

A surprised yet relieved expression graced her face as she heard her own heart speak, images flashed through her mind as she began to tell the story and she relived every moment of her past, "My unit was more like yours than you might think. We were real close, to a certain extent; we understood we weren't related, apart from some exceptions. Like me and this X5 named Krit."

Alec didn't dare interrupt her, letting her tell the story, listening intently hoping in some small way to find a better understanding of the dark beauty that had found comfort in his arms.

"Syl named him. It was short for Kritler, which is German for faultfinder, criticize, analysis, because no matter what he always had an opinion for everything and offered it whether it was wanted or not. It drove her mad. Everyone got a name that meant something; everyone was named by someone else . . . even me," she finished in a smaller voice. Her eyes caught those of her protector and blinked up at him in astonishing – to her – security.

"Who named you?" Alec couldn't help asking and was relieved to see a small twitch of lips and a glimmer of a smile.

"My CO did," she replied, "Zack named me. There was a way in which he spoke it, no one ever said it like him, as if he was always saying it for the first time. I was his second, despite not being the oldest female; it felt right when we led our unit. It felt like instinct, and nobody can deny instinct, much less X5's," Max mused half-heartedly caught up in her own thoughts to which Alec was only a spectator. Her face told the whole story.

The shaven head child collapsed, rippled by tremors, a surprised cry sprouting from her lips. The other children were beside her in an instant, protecting her, comforting her.

"We were gonna escape too. We had it all planned, but that night I was crippled by seizures. I couldn't even stand without help so Zack called it off. Next day we found out you guys had made it. I'd never felt so guilty, so accountable and redundant. I'd single handedly trashed my family's chance at freedom. Who knows though . . . maybe in some far away alternate universe we did escape. One thing I can say about my unit, all except four are alive. Who knows what would have happened if we'd got out," a shiver slithered down her spine and Alec found himself tensed, afraid of what she might say.

A bittersweet grin was on her lips, "I hated you, all of you, hated with a passion. I had to hate you, because if I didn't, the only one I could blame was myself; but it didn't last. The envy burned within me throughout the whole time they kept me locked there. In psy ops for 'evaluation' they said. Being prodded and poked, cut into and tortured, shown my wounds to haunt me. Mentally tormented till I thought I was going to lose my mind. They told us why they were doing those experiments on us, told us what they were doing it for; they got us to hate you. We were being tortured because of you. I couldn't hate you though, cause you'd made it. You'd had balls and done what we only dreamed of."

Chocolate pools of reminiscing sadness stared deep into his eyes. Provoking memories he himself owned of their childhood hell. The place that had stolen their right to be innocent.

"After 6 months of persecution, torment and agony on my body and my mind, I was out. I made the resolution to never go there again, to never go through it all again and so I became the best soldier Manticore had ever created. I pushed myself to my limits, pushed further than I'd ever had the courage to go," she continued, her voice growing colder with her words, "And as I made my way to the top, topping the records and beating the best I allowed myself to grow confident in my disobedience. Allowed myself to break the rules, to push those who controlled me. In the end, it was Zack who kept me in line, made sure I didn't overstep the boundaries; that I didn't turn from nuisance to expendable. He'd always watched my back, always watched out for all of us . . .

"What do you mean it doesn't suit me? It's my name," Zack asked the teenage girl who stood before him. She'd just lately been allowed to grow her hair and now it reached her chin in dark brown locks to match the coffee been color of her irises. Her hip was cocked to the side and one hand sat on its jutting edge as a grin slit her lips.

"It just doesn't. Not when I call you it anyway," she argued in amused sincerity.

Zack straightened up to his full height, "Oh and I suppose you. Miss Smart-Ass herself has one that does."

She chuckled and smirked standing up straighter to challenge him playfully though not reaching his height, "You know I d . . . " a hand falling on her mouth cut her off and she didn't fight as Zack pulled them both into the door to the empty office behind them and signaled her to be quiet.

They listened in silence to the clicking sounds of heels echoed away till finally they were out of earshot, "You oughta be more careful."

The younger X5 grinned, "See that's what I'm talking about. You're always there, always looking out for me, all of us."

"I won't always," the blonde said, his tone falling on serious.

"That's why you need something to keep fighting them," she said sincerely causing Zack to cock an eyebrow in confusion, "To keep the demons at bay in the great metaphorical sense."

His brow furrowed in deeper perplexity, "Bren for lightweight, quick firing machine gun, to scare off your enemies, and dan for the twelve degrees of advanced proficiency in judo as a person who has achieved all of these. Plus it means sword blade in German."

The boy chuckled and ruffled her hair to her disdain, "You lot and German honestly you'd think you were German. Oh well, whatever you say smart-ass. It can be my secret codename with you."

Dark eyes swirled in happiness and a thousand watt smile beamed back at him, "I like that."

. . . so I named him Brendan."

Tears were streaming down her face again even though she couldn't figure out where the strength to cry was coming from, "I was 13 when I named him. We'd just started getting cleared for short missions and we'd been on our way back to the barracks after a briefing. I'd stayed out of psy-ops till that point, though that hadn't stopped me from getting thrown into isolation a number of times but nevertheless I was cleared many times to go out and do their dirty work. In all honesty I lost count. It was on those times that I met Joshua. In the basement, where all the 'mistakes' were hidden."

She paused then as if she'd forgotten her own story, as if she'd lost her memories, and Alec didn't rule it out completely.

She slinked out of bed making sure not to wake her only roommate. They'd been separated that day. Only two per cell, no longer did they all sleep together in the same big room and the feeling of security had been taken away, especially from her. She craved it, needed it like a parched man needed a glass of water.

Jondy stirred slightly but amazingly remained asleep, and she crept out walking down the corridor. The young guard at the end of the hallway looked at her and raised a speculative eyebrow at the nightgown-wearing girl. She smiled at him slightly and he returned it nodding in understanding as she entered the room five doors down from hers.

Tom was one of the few guards that didn't need to be bought off by her and she was glad he was on duty. Entering the room, the familiar scent of his body calmed her nerves as she studied his tinted cheeks, warm from sleep.

Sliding under the sheets she huddled into his side and not even rousing from sleep his arms protectively surrounded her slight form and she peacefully fell asleep, knowing that by the time the colonel would march down the hallway for wake up call, she'd be back inside her own bed.

"I was the only one who called him that, no one knew so it was special. We got closer, not like Jondy and me though; it was a different bond that slowly developed, though I didn't know at first. I never really got to explore it nevertheless. It was something else that was taken away from me. It took them a while to discover a far more effective method to punish me. Nothing seemed to really work, I didn't fear death and I'd managed to overcome pain, blocking and barricading myself inside my own body," she explained quietly, "But Manticore wasn't one to give up easily. So to control us, the Alphas, to control me especially, they began torturing others for our mistakes while the culprit watched."

Alec could see the memories resurfacing and flashing in her darkened irises, and found himself glad that he was getting the short summary, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she sobbed into him and he realized the words weren't directed at him.

Seeing the turmoil in her expression, the lost confused abyss she was falling into he pulled her closer to him and whispered, "Sleep Max. Shhh, just sleep. I'll be right here and I'm not going anywhere."