Title: Angel of Death
Author: Nimitz4
Rating: R
Show: DA
Genre: Drama
Pairing: Max / Alec
Type: Complete

Summary: Alec has been captured and tortured by White…how dark will our angel Max allow herself to become?

Authors Note: This is for all the angst addicts out there…I wrote this on a wet grey winters day when I was listening to 'Clubbed to Death' (DJ Rob D) over and over and over again, so the weather and that song set the tone.
Disclaimer: I don't own DA – if I did the show would still be running…

And if my skin were glass my love, you would see,

A heart that keeps on beating…

Only in the hope that you'll return to me…

Moloko – I Want You (Album: Statues)

ANGEL OF DEATH

Layer: 003 – Resurrection

Vint's brown eyes bulged wide with panic as he witnessed the steady progress of the woman calmly walking towards him with a terrifying relentlessness.

Relief swept across his features as he finally gained leverage, and managed to get to his knees – stumbling onto shaky legs; half crouched he tried to run, openly fleeing for his life from the personification of death that now pursued him.  He didn't get to his second step before his feet were swept out from under him.

The impact of his unprotected body slamming into the concrete forced the air from his lungs with a loud gasp.  He felt warm blood in his mouth where his teeth had bitten down hard on his lip during the fall.  Half dazed Vint frantically groped at the ground beneath him as a desperate instinct for survival surged through him.  All logical and strategic thought was driven from his mind by an overriding primal and absolute compulsion to survive.

Suddenly he felt his torso being propelled forcibly upwards.  Vint screamed as he felt several of his ribs snap and splinter inwards from the sheer brute force of the kick, and he was rendered temporarily immobilised by the excruciating pain.  A cold clamminess extended throughout his body, and a landscape of white assaulted his mind…for several seconds he thought he might pass out.  He was only vaguely aware of a pair of small hands deftly padding him down and removing his weaponry, his dazed mind somehow able to determine that the clattering skitter he could hear, meant that she was casually flinging his various guns and accoutrements away from his reach.  Removing any hope he may have had of defending himself against her.

He moaned in agony as her foot nudge him in the side – an unspoken demand that he turn onto his back.  Slowly and painfully he obliged her insistent prodding, almost fainting from the pain, as his splintered ribs jabbed and tore at him deep inside.

For several seconds Max stared down at the broken man before her – totally terrified and cowed.  With a sudden swift lunge she bent down and knotted her fingers in the soldiers' hair.  Grabbing a handful she started dragging him back towards the metal table.

Vint yelped in pain and his feet scrabbled uselessly at the floor, as he tried to gain enough leverage with his feet to elevate his body off the ground, to relieve the terrible tearing pressure on his scalp.

His head suddenly smacked into the concrete, as Max released her fisted grasp on his hair.  Vint watched with bowel retching terror as Max straddled his hips with her legs, and then squatted down to crouch over him.

For a long moment she perched above him, studying his face with the cold dispassionate countenance of a stone carving.  A modern day sphinx.  Her beautiful hard features now speckled with blood, her eyes glowing with a dark cruelty that turned his blood to ice.  Leaning forward until her face almost touched his, she parted her full red lips and drew in a deep breath, as if tasting his fear across her tongue.

With a measured deliberate action she extended her hands out, and with a gentle almost loving caress, slowly ran them up his belly, to his chest.  Her eyes half closed and a tiny smile crooked the corner of her mouth, as if she savoured some long forgotten memory.

Vint felt her hands tighten around the fabric of his shirt, and he both felt and heard the ripping sound as she tore his shirt open, bearing the skin of his chest to the cold air.  He started to shudder with fear as he felt the wintry kiss of a metal blade upon his exposed skin.  He felt tears run unbidden from his eyes…down his cheeks.

"No…please don't…please…"

Max's eyelids fluttered open, and she blinked as if awakening from a dreamlike state.  She smiled tenderly at the crying man before her, reaching out her hand to stroke his cheek, tenderly brushing his tears away.

"Shhhh…shhhhhh…"

His sobbing started to subside into hiccuping gulps as he stared at her beautiful face.  Listening to her crooning voice, a small hope began to rise in his eyes.  Only to be banished by her next words.

"Shhhh….you must be brave…shhhhhh…"

The featherlike brushstrokes of her fingers increased in pressure, and her hand suddenly covered his mouth.  Her knees pressed down onto his stomach restraining his writhing body beneath her own body weight.  The force of her hand smothered the scream that tore from his throat, as she made the first incision into his flesh. 

Vint's brown eyes bugged in mortal terror; they rolled wildly about desperately seeking assistance from any source, but finding none present.  He was openly begging for his life now, his garbled pleading breaking into terrified screams behind the wall of her hand.

"Should I spare you?"  The question uttered in her cold monotone managed to penetrate through his terror, silencing him.

His eyes focused back on her frozen features.  He slowly nodded behind her hand, his eyes wide with silent petition.

"Should I take pity on you?"

Again, he nodded…sobbing gasps racking his body.

"Show compassion…like that which was shown to Alec?" Max's voice was now hardening and rising in growing anger on each uttered word, where before there had been an emotional void, there was now a chilling well-spring of wrath.  "I wonder…do you think anyone wiped away Alec's tears as he screamed in pain?  Took pity on him when he begged?  Do you?!?!?  I doubt it…"

Her face contorted with rage, her brown eyes now glistened and burned with hate.  Renewing the pressure of her hand upon his mouth, she bent her head and resumed her task, studiously carving her message into Vint's body.

Vint's throat was hoarse from screaming and his cries had long faded into ragged sobs, when Max finally completed the last character in her foul calligraphy.

452…

*A message for you, my dear White…let me repay one gift with another…

Her eyes gleamed with a dark emotion, as she again studied his face.  Vint could only lie still with exhausted hopelessly, like a small prey trapped beneath the killing paws of its natural predator.  A bleak acceptance washed over him - Vint knew what was about to come.  He felt the coldness of the knife resting against his throat, and he closed his eyes, making a mute peace with the world, in preparation for death.

Max gently brushed the tip of the knife back and forth against his neck, without breaking the skin.  With an almost detached manner, she etched a path down his throat, and between the marks on his skin, before bringing the blade to rest on the place on his chest which shielded his heart.

She held it there for some time, and her face hardened once more into a mask, her eyes staring vacantly at the knife as if she had withdrawn once more within herself.  It was as if she were waiting for something…as if a silent debate was raging deep within the locked confines of her mind.   Then with a sudden swift movement she drew the knife upwards, her arms extended high above her head, preparing to make the death blow. 

She swung the knife down…  Suddenly, the downward movement of her hands was held by the only voice in the world she both yearned and mourned for…

"Max…stop…"

Her body snapped still…frozen…her eyes widened with shock, staring unseeing before her.  Her chest was bound tight, unable to breathe…she feared to hope.

*I must be going mad…

"Max…don't…" Alec's whispered voice was weak, as if the effort of speech was a terrible burden.

Her eyes flooded with the tears as a heartbreaking joy overwhelmed her.  Rising on unsteady feet, she turned to find pained hazel eyes watching her, lying where she had left him.  In a heartbeat Max was beside him.

Sinking to her knees, she reached out her trembling hands to embrace him, burying her face into his chest.  Alec winced, his eyes half closed in pain, but his handsome face broke into a weary smile.

"Alec…Alec…" His name sounded like a prayer upon her lips.  She was sobbing with a bitter happiness, great gasps shaking her body.  "I thought…I believed…I'd lost you…"

He reached up one bruised hand, and slowly stroked her dark hair, savouring its softness, rejoicing in the feel of her within his arms.  He sighed in quiet gratitude.  With a visible effort he mustered a quirky grin - a half croaky, half whispered voice followed.

"Hey now…who would give you hell if I wasn't around?"

At the sound of the gentle teasing in his voice, Max slowly lifted her face from the warmth of his battered skin, her cheeks wet with her tears.  Looking deeply into his eyes her mouth quivered, and broke into a relieved smile.

"Promise me…never….never again…"

Unable to continue, the smile crumbled and tears ran freely once more.  Her dark eyes glowed with an emotion Alec had never witnessed in them before.  He felt his chest constrict with elation as Max lowered her lips to kiss him with a soft tenderness that tore his heart.

*How long have I wanted this?  It has felt like a lifetime…

He drank her in, breathing in her taste, her smell and the feel of her body against him.  He reached up to press her harder against him…and winced at the pressure upon his bruised lips.

Feeling his pained jerk, and mindful of his bruised mouth and other injuries, Max reluctantly parted her lips from the warmth of his own.  Lifting her face from his, studying his features again with thankful eyes, she saw a frightened concern sweep across his face.  His fingers lightly brushed at the flecked blood patterning her jaw.

"You're bleeding…

Her hand snaked up to capture his hand in her own, her voice hardening with a remembered anger.  "It's not mine…"

She looked down, shamed with the memory of her actions, but unwilling to regret.  A feeling of acceptance washed over her, and she looked back at him.

"Alec…let me get you out of here."

He nodded in relief, but groaned with pain as she assisted him to his feet.  Max draped his arm across her shoulders, and wrapping her arms tightly around his waist, supported his weight under her own strength.  Alec's eyes widened as he took in the bodies of the men around the room.

"Maxie…!"

He felt her body stiffen slightly at his half whispered amazement….he could feel the tension of her body against his, as if she were fearing his reaction to the slaughter before them.  It took a moment for him to take it all in, and when he spoke his voice, although hoarse from the suffering that he'd endured, was warm and low in her ear.

"I'm impressed…Remind me never to piss you off, this much…" He smiled as he felt her expel a relieved sigh.

The path of their slow progress passed by Vint.  He lay where she had left him, immobilised by his injuries and drained by an overwhelming sense of relief at still being alive.

Max paused.  Looking down towards Vint her face hardened with grim purpose.

"I have a message for your boss.  Tell White…the next time I drop by, I'll be coming for him."

Vint swallowed at the cold promise behind her eyes, and slowly nodded his head in acceptance of the task.

Pulling Alec closer against her, savouring the feel of his lean body against hers, she looked up into his face and smiled.  Alec's face broke into an answering smile, and they resumed their measured pace again, away from the darkness of the warehouse.     

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