Okay, I realized when I was writing this that if I wanted to keep it at three parts I would have to write my little fingers off on this chapter.  So enjoy it, this may be the longest chapter that I ever write.  Congrats to those of you that guessed the movie correctly, and also to those of you who guessed who our mystery guest would be (I just couldn't leave a canon character out of the stories for that long).  Just saw Bridget Jone's Diary last night, best movie I've seen in a while.  If you're going through a men suck phase then you'll enjoy it.  Peace and Luv- SilverRain.

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She is the vision of a memory, an embodiment of emotion given human form. I'd felt many emotions towards that tiny woman, all of them intoxicatingly powerful. She had not been so inspired by me. I know because she'd told me to my face. Nothing more than friendship, never anything more than friendship. Rip my guts out and serve them up to me on a platter, held in little slender hands. She'd thought me an idealist and a romanticist. The one at her side is not such a man as I am. Not the kind to teach her love, not the kind to teach her right from wrong. Despite what she might think, she is just a child and she needs such lessons. Will he, even more a child in the ways of the world teach them to her? All he has to teach is pain and death and blind obedience. The first two are anathema and I strive to wipe them from the world. I admit that the third might be useful to her in small quantities since she obeys no one but her own lawless little conscience, but he seems to have abandoned that particular lesson on the day he met her, much to my regret. Regret, I have so much of it just looking at her. She dazzles in that dress, not that she needs such enhancements but they turn her from a queen to a goddess. The laughter makes her look so full of life and I can't help but wonder what he could say that she would find so amusing. In all fairness he, like the jewels at her neck, is the perfect enhancement to her beauty. Tall and broad and younger than me by far, but he looks different tonight. Not blank as he had when I'd seen him last just after the hostage crisis, but rather almost aristocratic. Playing the part I suppose, I'm sure this is what he had been trained for during his schooling, fit in to your prey's habitat, blend in and then strike. I wonder if he frightens her, despite all her fearlessness. Is it painful to look into the eyes of the man you think you love and see a stranger in his body? Apparently she's coping with it. I watch jealously as she rises onto the tips of her toes and kisses him lightly on the cheek. They separate and wander to different sides of the party. Now is my chance to play the game. Let the chips fall where they may.
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"Senator Bradley?" It's an odd feeling to have to look up at another man.

"Yes son, what can I do for you?" His accent is a thickly polished Alabaman drawl that brings good ol' boys and peach cobbler to mind. Or I suppose they would have I ever met the former or eaten the latter. I try not to wince at the crick in my neck as I crane to look him in the face.

"It is a vast honor to meet you sir. I did my doctoral thesis at Stanford on your Casely amendment. I just wanted to shake the hand of a living legend." Down boy, resist the temptation to lay it on too thick. Fortunately, he has enough ego not to find my beaming hardiness in the least bit suspicious.

"Aw yes the Casely amendment, one of ma best pieces of legislation. See young fella, this is just what I was talkin about earliuh to those other young gents. You've got to strike while the iron is hot if you want to pass yuh laws through. Take the Casely legislation, if those poor young men hadn't had that awful misfortune then I could never have brought safety to the streets of Montgomery."

I smile fatuously at the senator and nod my head. I have to give the guy credit for charm and speaking skills. What he really meant by his pretty little speech as that if a half dozen young men hadn't been lynched during a riot through Montgomery during a food shortage, then he never would have been able to convince his voters to sign off on Marshall Law. I'm saved from having to comment on Bradley's cleverness by the imminent arrival of machine-gun wielding men in black. So much for the no firearms theory.

Reacting on inbred instincts I tackle the senator to the floor. Raising myself to one knee I kick out with the other foot and snap two of the legs off the nearest table. It falls to make a neat shield which will easily cover the two of us. Bad guy or not it's probably best to keep the senator alive until Burnhart's decides what she wants done with him. Besides, if he is a good guy Max will beat me senseless for letting him get shot.

Max, shit, I lost track of her hours ago and I don't know where she is now. Worse than that I seem to have knocked Senator Bradley unconscious when I tackled him to the floor. He'll survive the concussion but I don't want him to get hit by crossfire while I'm not here to protect him.

Leave the Senator where he is and risk him getting damaged while I'm gone or stay with him and trust that Maxie can take care of herself? Since the second barrage of shots went off the place has been utterly silent, I can hear my own erratic breaths. I can hear the soft whimpers of frightened dilettantes and socialites and the sobbing of men and women of power.

A scream rings out through the echoing ballroom, up on the balcony off to my left. The voice is chillingly familiar. The soldier is outranked by the lover and I leave the Senator lying on his back in the middle of the ballroom floor without a second thought.
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He's staring at me with uncomfortable intensity. His impeccable tuxedo and Clark Kent glasses making him look like an overgrown little boy.

"Logan!" My voice rises in fervent indignation, the last thing I need in an emergency situation is another person's back to watch.

"Max, what are you doing here? When I heard on the news about the transgenics getting freed I assumed that you wouldn't need to go on anymore heists." The words, on the news and heist ring like accusations. I suppose he's mad that he didn't get an insider report on my people's freedom.

"I'm working Logan." Let him wonder whether I meant information gathering or assassination or thievery. "And I could ask you the very same questions. Of course we seem to be surrounded by fine wine and well dressed people so I suppose you could just be soaking in the lost ambience."

"I happen to be working as well, and the particulars are not any of YOUR business." His voice starts to rise towards the end of the statement and he's practically shouting at me now. "I just don't understand you Max you used to care about the cause and now what's happened to you? I'm sure your here with your little soldier boy ready to rip off some poor innocent civilians. You think they'll let your people stay out in the real world for long when the crime rates jump off the charts? They'll have you caged up again faster than you can say..."

"Would you shot your goddamned mouth!" I hiss angrily at him clamping my hand over his mouth for reinforcement. If he's not careful he'll attract the attention of the many men milling around with guns.

"Now, now senor, obviously no one has taught you that it is impolite to yell at a lady." The man waves the gun in his hand around for emphasis.

"That is her Carlos, one of the ones we are supposed to take." Oh no, this is so definitely not good. I'm partially worried for my own safety and mostly worried that Logan will do something brave and incredibly stupid in my defense.

"Sorry Nina." I'm so distracted by the two men in front of me that I don't notice the one creeping up behind me. The one who has decided for no good reason that the easiest way of kidnapping me is to thwack me on the back of the head with the butt of his rifle.

Obviously he never took transgenic anatomy and physiology in high school. We're fast, strong, intelligent and for some unfathomable reason pretty. Our cranial bones are also about an inch thicker and a good deal denser than the average humans. All that masked man number three had just accomplished was giving me a splitting migraine and making me really damn pissed off.

Unfortunately, Logan seemed to be behind on his transgenic information too because he sprang forward to shield my body with his and only succeeded in knocking my own poor and abused head against the marble floor. A small scream makes it past my normally stoical control and I'm sure that my head is definitely bleeding now because I can feel something warm and slick trickling down the back of my neck.

I feel the weight of Logan's body being hauled off of me and strong calloused hands yanking me up off the floor with no regard for my damaged head.

"We have the girl boss. Has Bradley been picked up? Yes sir." My captor has one of those hand held walkie talkies that you see in the bad guys carrying in action movies and I'm starting to wonder who's more of a movie junkie Alec or this Pardido guy.

"Thank you ladies and gentleman for welcoming us into your hearts and homes. My dear sons will just be taking a few parting gifts and then our family will be just a mere memory in no time." Said crazy guys voice echoes up from the first floor. So they're after Senator Bradley too. I can only hope that Alec is keeping a close eye on him.

"Come on Senora." One of the men in black tightens his grip around me and pulls a large wickedly curved knife from somewhere. I try not to giggle as I wonder where he was keeping it in that skin tight black outfit.

"Let her go. You'll never get away with this." Could Logan get more cliché? Especially delivering his lines in that purposefully calm and professional tone of voice, he sounded like Dudley Doright telling the bad guys that they were, well bad guys.

"Give her over to me." A fourth man in black has appeared on the scene and this one sounds like he's in charge. The burly guy holding onto me carefully shoves me into his companions waiting arms while still managing to keep the edge of the knife at my neck.

This fourth man is different though, thinner, smaller, and no smell of rum and sweat. Carefully keeping the knife on me with one hand he brings his left hand up behind me so that it's hidden from view and gently skims his thumb across the length of my barcode. "Ssshhhhh."

The man begins backing towards the staircase supporting me with an arm across the ribs. That's when the ever brave Logan makes his move rushing the two of us so that we all go sprawling to the floor. Miraculously the man holding me manages to yank the knife back at the last second and I twist my body around so that by great luck my throat isn't slit like a fish. Unfortunately, the knife isn't entirely redirected and it makes a nasty slice across my upper arm an inch or two deep.

Rolling around on the floor the two men try to gain leverage on the knife. Within a few seconds the man in black gets the proper angle to hit Logan on the back of the head knocking him unconscious. Before he can pick himself up off the floor though my original captors walkie talkie begins to beep urgently.

"What? Yes sir. Yes sir I understand. Stand up and turn around slowly bastardo." With lightening quickness, my rescuer jumps onto the banister and then vaults over the other men's heads. Before they have time to turn around he grabs them both by the collars and bashes their heads together.

My head is getting swimmy from blood loss but over the beating of my own pulse I can hear the sounds of reinforcements pounding up the back stairs.

My rescuer scoops me up in his arms and jumps up onto the wide banister of the grand staircase. The smooth motion of sliding down the railing makes me nauseous and the heavy jolt of the two of us landing on the floor isn't any better. I'm almost dropped when a bullet grazes against his arm but the damage isn't bad and he grips me harder to his chest. The sounds of the gunfire behind us begin to fade off as I feel the chill of the damp night air on my skin again.

"You forgot my shawl in there." Groping behind his head I get a grip on the back of the ski mask and pull it off of Alec's head.

"Sorry darling, it won't happen again."

"How often do you plan on getting shot at during really fancy parties?" My voice is starting to sound drugged and weary, and he gently shifts my weight to a more comfortable position in his arms.

"Well I plan on staying around you for quite a long time so I imagine that it'll happen again." The swimmy feeling in my head is getting heavier and I let my head droop against his chest.

"Sleep now Maxie." The last thing I feel is his lips brushing against my forehead.