I have now finished my exams so you can expect more updates. I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

Thank you to Sunstar. I'm gonna be checking every week to make sure its not on before then but I appreciate the information. And also thank you to all the people who reviewed. I never expected such fantastic feedback for this fiction but you have all pleasantly suprised me.

Anywho, I hope y'all enjoy.

Have a nice day.

***

Brennan sat down on the chair on the other side of Ali's desk. The room was warm, inviting, old-fashioned. He liked it. All the wood was dark and most of the furniture looked antique. Ali walked over to one of the cabinets. She pulled open the doors and inside was a full set of security monitors. There were security cameras strategically placed all over the base. They were in every room excluding hers and covering the entire perimeter, not that anyone would ever find it anyway. It was completely hidden underground, a perfect secret lair.

She flipped one of the monitors to Shalimar's room. The feral had fallen asleep, worn out from the events of the past couple of days. She then walked back to her seat and sat down, facing Brennan.

Their eyes locked and she felt a chill creep up her spine. She loved her abilities, her gifts. She couldn't imagine living without them but sometimes it scared her to think, to see what she could do with her powers. The lack of humanity, of compassion in Brennan's eyes did it for her. She wasn't a sadist, she wasn't a sociopath, she just needed to do this. And if this was the only way of doing it then so be it, she was prepared to do whatever it took.

***

Shalimar struggled subtly against the bindings. She could see the blinking green light of the security camera with her peripheral vision. She knew the woman, whoever she was would be watching her every movement and she didn't have enough stored up energy to fight her way out of the complex. She was hoping against hope that maybe the brunette wasn't paying attention.

She pushed her wrists up against the metal constraints but gave up after a couple of minutes when the pain became too much. She lifted her head off of the now lukewarm steel table and looked at the restraints. There was one other way she might manage to get out of them. She bent her elbows trying to pull her hands through the restraints. She concentrated on her right hand and tugged. Suddenly she heard a pop. A surge of pain shot through her body as her hand became dislocated from her wrist. She yelped in pain and then started tugging again. She knew that if she waited the pain would put her off completely.

Eventually she managed to pull her hand through the restraint and she breathed deeply, not realizing that she had been holding her breath until the air hit her lungs. She relaxed, letting her breathing and heart beat return to a normal rate before reaching over as slowly as she could, trying to draw as little attention to herself as possible. She ran her hands over the steel, trying to find any kinks, any weaknesses in it. There was nothing she could detect. Looked like she was gonna have to dislocate both her hands. She gritted her teeth and started tugging.

***

Brennan felt empty. He wasn't too sure why, he just knew that he felt empty inside, like something was missing. But he couldn't work out what it was.

Where the hell was he? He vaguely remembered the night they had all gone out clubbing. He could remember the first part of it anyway, the rest was kind of blurry. He looked across the desk to the woman opposite him. She looked kind of familiar but he couldn't place her face. He leaned back in the chair trying to locate the memories that were floating around in the back of his head that might give him some clue as to where he was, who the woman was and where the hell Sanctuary and the rest of Mutant X were?

Ali tapped her burgundy fingernails against the top of the desk. She was waiting on a phone call but in the meantime was excruciatingly bored. She wanted a little fun, a buzz to go through her veins. She could easily get it from absorbing some of Brennan but it wasn't time yet. She drained too much of him and he was gonna get exhausted. And then she would have to do all the work herself.

Brennan's eyes flicked around him. They settled on the monitors fitted in the cabinet. There were six of them, all but one displaying black and white images. One was in some kind of lab where scientists in their white coats mixed substances in test tubes and typed away at computer keypads. A couple of the others showed corridors, long and white and clean. They were nothing like the room he was currently occupying. There was no wood in those hallways, they had an air of coldness about them with just metal and the occasional hint of plastic. He looked at the screen in the bottom left hand corner. It showed green images, presumably the room was in darkness. In the middle of the shot he saw Shalimar and flashes started coming back to him. She was strapped to a table and he looked on as her right hand fumbled with the clasp around her left wrist. After a while she gave up and let her hand drop back against her side.

Ali, noticing Brennan's sudden interest in the monitors turned in her chair. She looked at the one she was most interested in, the one displaying Shalimar. She was lying on the table, not moving. Ali was satisfied there was no way the feral was getting out of the restraints, let alone the compound. She turned back round and walked over to Brennan. Standing in front of him she leant in and whispered in his ear.

'You look as bored as I feel. How bout we make this whole thing a little more exciting?'

Brennan looked back at the screen. He was now completely back to his normal self and he wanted to help Shalimar but he had to keep Ali from seeing the screen.

He grabbed her waist as they started kissing, his mouth pushed hard against hers. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he stood up and they managed to make their way to the sofa in the corner of the room. They fell down, Ali on top of Brennan, their legs intertwined, their bodies pushing against each other. As they started to fumble with each others clothes Shalimar got her other hand free and reached down to start working on the leg restraints.

***

Adam, Emma and Jesse stared hard at the image of a petite, brunette woman. She was gorgeous in a mysterious way and they could all tell why Brennan had been so attracted to her. The enhanced visuals showed the woman and Brennan talking and drinking for atleast an hour. They had then headed outside and after that nothing, until Brennan came back in. He didn't look any different, a little wobbly granted but that was probably down to the effects of the alcohol.

On another computer the woman's image was being run through the new mutant database. Nothing had come up but they had only been searching for all of five minutes. Suddenly the computer started beeping and Jesse ran over. There was an image on the screen that fitted the woman's perfectly. The same red tinted brown hair, the same oval face with the strong cheekbones and sparkling, vibrant green eyes.

'Alison Kamen. She's got a couple of aliases, Carrie Wood, Jordana Rodriguez but that appears to be her real name. She's an elemental, seems to be able to absorb the life force of other people.'

'Atleast now we know how she 'infected' Brennan,' Adam said, his mind already thinking of ways to reverse the process.

'It says here that its only temporary,' Jesse said, reading off the screen.

'How long do the effects last?' Emma asked.

'Not sure, depends on the person. And it seems that she has to top up. Its how she feeds.'

'Like Caleb?'

Jesse nodded. 'But, unlike Caleb she doesn't have any regenerative abilities.'

Emma remembered back to the time when they had fought Caleb. She had technically died. It hadn't really affected her, more so Shalimar. She had been the one who had seen Emma when she wasn't breathing anymore. It was bound to screw a person up a little.

'So she's been absorbing Brennan's life force to get him to do the dirty work for her,' Adam concluded.

'And if it wears off then you don't even have to come up with an antidote,' Emma said, trying to inject some hope into the situation. They atleast knew what was keeping Brennan and Shalimar away and what was making Brennan act like such a psychopath. Now they just had to find them and then bring them back home.

***

Shalimar sat up slowly. She was stiff from lying down for so long and rolled her shoulders back trying to work the kinks from the muscles and joints. Her senses were fully functional, probably due to the pain in her arms but it meant it would be easier for her to get out of...wherever the hell she was.

She heard footsteps coming down the hall towards her. She lay down and closed her eyes, waiting to see if whoever it was would enter the room.

The door was slowly pushed open and a tall, blonde man stepped into the room. He flicked the light switch and walked over to Shalimar. He was holding a plastic glass of water. He placed it on a small table that he then wheeled across to where she lay. He reached across to Shalimar's arm and shook it slightly. Shalimar's arm moved quickly round to the back of him and she grabbed his gun. She pulled it out of its holster and held it pointed at his head before he even realized what was going on.

'Undo those,' she said motioning at her leg restraints.

He hesitated.

'Now!'

He walked round the table to her legs and pulled a pair of keys out of his back pocket. He slipped one of them into the lock and turned. The clasp came undone and flicked upwards. He then walked round and did the same to her other leg. As a reward she kicked him in the head, knocking him unconscious. She unloaded his gun, something she had learnt at Sanctuary. Adam had taught them how to work any weapon they might need, never encouraging them to use any. It had been helpful and she had on occasion used it to disarm GSAgents.

She stood up and had to lean on the edge of the table in order to keep her balance. Stars and a multitude of colours floated before her eyes and she shook her head to get rid of the headrush she had gained from getting up too fast.

She dropped the gun and pocketed the bullets. Her mind raced as she thought through her options.

***

Ali pulled her top over her head and shook her hair out. She leant over to zip up her boots and in doing so looked across at the computer monitors. She stopped, eyes wide, mouth open. Shalimar was gone.

She cursed herself in her head for her stupidity at having taken her eyes off the feral.

She turned around and looked at Brennan. He was pulling on his shoes but looked up as he felt her eyes boring into the top of his head.

'She's gone.'

Brennan had decided a while ago that he was going to play along with the whole being a psycho act, atleast until he could find Shal and get them the hell out of there.

He fixed a grim look on his face. 'I'll retrieve her.'

Ali nodded and turned to her desk as the phone started to ring.

Brennan left the room quickly, closing the door behind him as a smile came to his face.

'Go Shal,' he said quietly as he walked off in the direction of the lab.