Title: Secrets, Lies and Betrayals
Rating: PG, for now, may contain a few swear words
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Dark Angel, Cameron & Eglee, etc. I own nothing and I'm gaining only valuable writing experience.
Summary: Logan has a secret, which ultimately puts both Max and Alec in danger. M/A
A/N: Just a quick note to answer a query from several of the reviewers. A betrayal from Logan does play a major part in this story, but if I revealed exactly who, it would ruin it. You'll just have to keep reading! * grins *
Chapter 3: Pain
Pain.
Pain was the only thing registering to Alec at that moment. It was all around him, engulfing him, invading him. He could feel it, smell it, taste it. He was living it and it was consuming his every thought, his every movement. Throughout the pain, however, there were flickers of hope, manifested in the form of flashes. In the beginning, they were unrecognisable but slowly they began to come into focus. Alec concentrated as best he could and as much as his battered mind and body would allow after the intense ordeal he had endured. After several minutes of intense concentration, a flash of bright white light went bursting through his mind rewarding him for his efforts. But the simple breakthrough had left him exhausted and his mind went blank once again allowing the blackness to take over.
Alec was slumped forward in his chair only being kept seated by the restraints that held him firmly in place on the cold steel chair. He had been taken to a dark room with a low central ceiling beam, immediately after collapsing. The room contained only the chair that Alec was strapped into and reeked of burnt flesh. The tasers, the familiars had used to subdue him during the attack, had burnt countless number of marks into his skin. Large blackened ovals littered Alec's body along with several other injuries obtained during the fight. Included in the injuries Alec had sustained, was an almost impressive array of cuts and bruises also accompanied by a large gash above his left eye, courtesy of the kick to the head White had contributed and several broken ribs. The blood had poured, seemingly endlessly, out of the gash above Alec's eye and followed a path along the contours of his face before dripping silently to the floor forming a vibrant red puddle. The river of blood, which was now dry, caked streaks down the length of Alec's left cheek.
Several hours passed and, on the surface, Alec's condition didn't appear to alter an inch. The battle, however, was very much raging inside his mind, as he tried desperately to overpower the pain and unconsciousness. Excruciating pain pumped through his veins like a second blood. He was feeding off it and it was slowly killing him. It was, effectively, draining all the life out of him and allowing his mind to shut down and disintegrate. Suddenly there was another burst of bright white light, this time with a combination of colours mixed into it. Alec had succeeded a small victory in the battle, but he still hadn't won the war. His subconscious was working over time to try and get him to snap out of his hypnotic state. The battle looked to be getting the best of Alec prompting his subconscious to pull out its ultimate weapon. This time the flash of bright light was clear, instead of being a mixture of bright light and colours. A clear image came into his mind. It was Max and she was smiling. The thoughts of Max were urging Alec to break out the superior hold the pain had on his mind and body and fight in order to survive. Then he would be able to see her again. It was enough for Alec and for the first time in 8 hours he opened his eyes.
The simple action of Alec regaining consciousness and opening his eyes went unnoticed by the familiar who was set to guard his cell and notify White the moment he moved at all. Alec raised his head ever so slightly as the pain lapped against his brain like waves at a beach. The pain it took to simply raise his head was too much for Alec and he let it fall down and rest on his chest once more. It was then that he noticed the smell for the first time. The smell of his burnt flesh hung in the air and it assaulted his nose and Alec scrunched up his nose in obvious disgust. The small movement cracked the hardened mask that was coating one side of his face and sent several small flakes of blood floating to the floor. A second whiff of his flesh made its way to his nose causing Alec to instantaneously hold his breath.
With a surge of energy, Alec tried to lift his arm without realising that they were both restrained, as were both his legs. He let out a soft whimper. The guard immediately heard it, poked his head in the room and stared at Alec. He was too engrossed in trying to retrain his eyes to focus and didn't notice the guard leave to inform White of the prisoner's progress. After several minutes, White appeared at the door and took in the sight of Alec, battered, blood-coated face and restrained. It brought a small smirk of enjoyment to his otherwise emotionless face.
"Well, Well 494, did you enjoy your sleep?" White asked as he sauntered into the room and stood directly in front of Alec.
Alec heard his voice and looked to the direction where he believed it had originated from. He could just make out the shadowy figure of White standing in front of him. Not bothering to respond, Alec blinked several times, willing his eyes to work. Then, like a switch had been flipped, the whole world came flooding back and Alec could focus once again. He blinked several more times, just to get his bearings and then raised his head content to just stare at White. After the time it took him to simply open and focus his eyes, Alec didn't trust himself to be able to speak yet.
"ANSWER ME 494" White bellowed, startling not only Alec but the several guards waiting outside the door as well.
Alec summoned all his strength and quietly blurted out the words, "Not enough leg room"
White was obviously not amused and let out a short snort.
"Well, by all means, allow me to fix that for you"
White let out a shrill whistle and the same 6 familiars who had attacked Alec earlier came filing into the room, in much they same way as they had previously done.
"Hoist him up" He ordered to the men. Two of the familiars unstrapped the restraints from Alec's arms and legs, as the other 4 kept watch, eagerly waiting any sort of movment from Alec so they could attack him once again. The men then tied a rope firmly around his wrists. The rope was then thrown over the low ceiling beam and Alec was hoisted out of the chair until only the tips of his toes were touching the floor. The chair was quickly removed, as was Alec's shirt revealing to all the familiars some of the extent of the damage they had inflicted earlier. White placed a gag in Alec's mouth and then said with a grin,
"This ought to shut you up for awhile"
Alec was tortured on and off for several hours. The treatment varied from simple kicks and punches, to cuts inflicted from a scalpel and more use of their tasers. The 6 familiar men took turns at battering Alec and all thoroughly enjoyed themselves. White, however, hadn't joined in the torture at any time. Alec thought this was quite odd but he was unable to decide whether it was a good or bad thing. Alec hung limply from the centre of the room, swaying gently. His eyes were closed and he had stopped making any noise at all. One of the familiar men punched Alec several more times in the stomach before turning to White,
"He's had enough, Sir," the familiar man said. White glared at the man before punching him in the face, breaking his nose instantly.
"I'll tell you when he's had enough"
"Yes Sir" the familiar muffled between his hands that were now covered in blood as he held his nose together. The other familiars took that as their cue to once again inflict as much pain and damage on Alec as they could. Yet still he wouldn't die or try and fight back. White was starting to get annoyed. This wasn't the 494 he knew. This was just boring. White voiced his thoughts,
"You bore me 494" he said before reaching inside his jacket for his holstered gun. The other familiars quickly filed of out the room knowing that White meant business and it would be in your best interest to not be there when he did. Out of his now half closed eye, Alec saw the movement, registered the threat and instinctively tired to react accordingly. However, the awkwardness of being strung from the roof and barely being able to touch the ground halted his progress. His mind quickly re-assessed the situation as White took aim and Alec let his body go loose mere seconds before the bullet struck him in his upper chest. Alec lowered his head to survey the wound. Almost at once the blood gushed out of the wound, made a trail down his chest and began saturating the top of his cargos. In stark contrast to the past 10 or so hours, Alec felt no pain and let that be known to White by raising his head and smiling at him. A flash of anger coloured White's face as he took aim a second time. This time the bullet lodged solidly into Alec's right thigh. Once again Alec paused to look at his wound as the blood flowed freely from it. Alec couldn't determine whether it was the room swaying or merely him. He then lost consciousness once again. White, who was fully satisfied with his handiwork, turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him, thus leaving Alec hanging from the middle of the room, swinging somewhat above a pool of his own blood.
Logan paced around his apartment nervously. He glanced at his clock for what seemed like the 10th time in the last minute alone. Alec was supposed to be back 2 hours ago from the mission he had sent him on and Logan was starting to get worried. There are only so many times you can get delayed in traffic, especially when there was none. Logan had been making excuses in his head for the past 2 hours, desperately hoping the Alec would burst through the door any minute with some stupid reason for his lateness. But, alas, that never happened. Logan knew now that he was going to have to suck it up and be a man. He was going to have to tell Max.
As if reading his mind, Max walked into his apartment and stopped when she saw the look of distress dominating Logan's features.
"Logan?" she said, a little unsure of how to approach him as her presence still hadn't been acknowledged. Logan spun round and gave her a weak smile
"Max, hi" he said in a small voice.
"What's wrong?" an anxious Max asked.
Logan groaned inwardly as the argument over whether to tell Max or not was weighed out in his mind. He sighed; knowing full well that he was going to have to tell her. After all, if anything bad had happened to Alec she was his best chance at getting out alive anyway. For Logan it was a lose/lose situation. He was simply trying to delay the inevitable of Max being angry with him, for lying to her and for possibly putting Alec into danger. He knew that she was always a little touchy when it came to transgenics and the rescuing of but Max's touchiness always seemed to bump up a few notches when it came to Alec. At least that's how it appeared to Logan. He could never understand why, though.
"Alec is…" he trailed off, not knowing exactly which word to use as he was still unsure of the whole situation himself. Max raised an eyebrow when Logan stopped mid-sentence.
"Alec is what?" she asked, her tone and persona growing angrier by the second.
"Alec is missing in action," Logan said, hoping the use of a military phrase would soften the blow somewhat given Max's upbringing. Little did he realise that Max had always hated the way Manticore had trained their soldiers to simply shut off and shut out anything and everything harmful or emotional in order to get the job done. Reporting in a military style and tone when all you really wanted to do was break down really pissed Max off. It was probably the thing that always managed to piss her off the most. That was until she had met Alec for the first time. However, it seemed as though she had found something that pissed her off even more than Alec, which she thought was never possible after meeting him cause he did manage to really piss her off. Here was Logan, an ordinary, trying to talk and essentially act, like a transgenic. She just couldn't understand why he was doing it or where he was coming from. In her opinion he had no right whatsoever to try and impersonate something and someone he knew nothing about, yet that was exactly what he was doing.
"Don't ever speak to me like that again" Max spat out through gritted teeth.
Logan took a step back in surprise. 'This sure isn't going well' he thought to himself. Max was already angry with him, seemingly for no apparent reason and he hadn't even told her the half of it regarding Alec yet. He tried to diffuse the situation,
"Max, why don't we sit down?" he offered in a tone that suggested Max was some sort of child that needed to be taken care of as he gestured towards the couch.
'Too can play at this game' Max thought to herself. If Logan wanted to act like he was some sort of super solider, then she would sure as hell treat him like one, no holds barred.
"Report, NOW" she yelled at him, causing him to take several more steps backwards in a mixture of fear and surprise until his knees hit the front of the couch and he toppled down onto it. Max moved to stand, with hands on hips, directly in front of Logan and stared down at him, a look of pure anger on her face. He stammered a bit at the start but eventually managed to get out all the details of the mission that Alec and he had planned. He even showed Max the plans that they had gone over, which were still scattered over a table in his apartment. He did neglect to mention to Max, just as he had to Alec, exactly what was being retrieved from the complex. However, in her anger Max didn't seemed to notice and Logan breathed a sigh of relief.
After Max had heard Logan's story and reviewed the plans she decided on a suitable plan of action.
"I'm going to T.C to arrange some transportation, then I'm going to find Alec," she said before heading in the direction of the door.
"Shouldn't you get some back up or something?" Logan asked feebly
Max spun round to glare at him, amazed and surprised that he was stupid/daring enough to talk to her after what he had just divulged. Logan again shied away from her intense glare.
"It just so happens that everyone in T.C is busy tonight since I didn't realise we were going to have to go on a rescue mission." Max said, the venom dripping from her words. It was blatantly obvious that she blamed Logan for putting Alec in danger and rightly so. Logan knew this and he decided to try and make up for it.
"At least let me come with you?" he said
Max simply stared at him, desperately trying to stop the laughter that had formed in her throat at the suggestion.
"You?" she said questioningly. Help from Logan meant sitting in a car and radioing information from his computer. That's not exactly what she needed. Logan could see by the look on her face that Max was more than sceptical, but he was willingly to try and make up for his mistake.
"You need, transport and I have a car," he offered.
He tired to read her face to see if he had won her over. The scepticism still remained so he tried once more.
"Besides," he added, "everyone else is busy, you said so yourself and the sooner we leave the sooner we get there and rescue Alec, right?"
Max sighed. He made some valid points but in her mind, the main one still remained. If he hadn't lied they wouldn't have to be leaving to rescue Alec at all.
"Fine" Max spat out and started towards the door again. Logan began to follow until she spun round, stopping him dead in his tracks
"If he is hurt…" she said, shaking her finger at him for emphasis before spinning round and heading for the door once more.
Although the sentence was left unfinished, its message spoke volumes to Logan, who found himself swallowing nervously. For the first time since he had met her, Logan was scared of Max, but he was trying to redeem himself so he took a deep breath and followed her out of his apartment.
A/N: Hope you like it!