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DISCLAIMER: I don't own DA, Alec or anything of the like. They belong to people who don't appreciate them.

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WEB ADDRESS: http:/destined.to/prodigy

CHAPTER TEN – ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?

Seattle settled beneath a brilliant silver moon that night; its translucent rays stretching out to caress the city resting quietly under the chill of Autumn. Stirring slightly and peacefully, it was difficult to comprehend the horror that would soon grip the city. The turmoil. No one could have known what was to come…

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Antigone held the receiver to her ear, allowing the dull tone to calm her heartbeat. The tears she had cried were already dry on her cheeks, and her knuckles white from gripping the phone. She had done her job, what she was supposed to do - what she was obligated to do. Alec was a transgenic. She was certain of it. She couldn't just let him get away. Transgenics were filthy, unnatural…

"Oh god…" Antigone fought back the urge to throw up. How could she have let him touch her? How could she have allowed herself to care for him? After what happened to Roland, how could she…

The tears came again. Painful – salty - stinging her soft skin.

The telephone slipped from her hand. They would be coming for him at this very moment, she thought. He would be dying as she sat curled on the floor of her apartment, hating him.

She ran to the toilet and vomited.

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Alec had waited until lockdown to sneak into the holding cells. The small regiment of guards in the TIEO's employ had been easily taken out with minimal effort. Getting out would be even easier. There were four transgenics, plus himself made five. They could take on anyone who opposed them. Alec smiled confidently.

"X6-818, sir!" A small transgenic barked at him.

"Dude…" Alec whistled under his breath. "Manticore's gone, remember?"

"Yes sir!"

Alec turned his attention to the female X5.

"Who are you?"

"Chaser… and you?"

"Alec, rescuer…"

She half smiled at him.

"Have you got keys?"

Alec chortled. "Have I got keys? Of course I've got keys".

Chaser looked at him patronizingly.

"Then how about you unlock this thing and get us out of here?"

Alec had to smile as the X6's fell into line. "Sounds like a plan."

He led the small group of transgenics to the sewers underneath the TIEO.

"You should be alright from here. Travel separately - you'll find coded marks on the sewer walls. Follow these directions, and you should make it to one of Terminal City's check points. The transgenics on guard will let you know how to get to the promised land." He grinned involuntarily.

"Thank-you… for rescuing us…" Chaser smiled, and the X6's saluted.

"It's what I do…"

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"Damn…" Alec barely winced as he felt the bullet tear through his abdomen, his life fluids spraying the gleaming glass doors behind him. They had taken him by surprise, he'd give them credit for that, it had been a long time – if ever – since he hadn't sensed the onset of danger.

Or had he? For the last few months all he seemed to live was his own death. Over and over again. The dreams, the damp, the dark… that ominous feeling that embedded itself in his psyche. It had led to this.

Alec gulped for air.

About a hundred armed police directed their guns at him. They must have known… Alec thought. But how? He felt weak, not so much from blood loss, but from the sudden realization that Antigone had been the one who killed him. She may not have pulled the trigger, but she had told them, he knew it.

He had been leaving the TIEO after making sure the others had gotten out safely when he was ambushed. An ironic smile crept across his face. Guess it wasn't that easy after all.

Alec's knees began to give way. At least the others got away okay.

He could hear rioters in the distance, screaming for transgenic blood to be spilled. He could also hear a small group of transgenic supporters as they fled, although they were the obvious instigators of the fray, protesting for the release of the four transgenics held captive at the TIEO, they were no match for the mob of transgenic haters who came to disband them.

Alec suddenly wondered why the police had stopped shooting at him. Like one bullet would be enough to stop him. How they underestimate him, he smiled. He went to move, but realized that he was no longer standing. He looked up to see the smug face of Senator McKinley gazing back down.

"You scum…" The Senator's voice was cold.

"Hey buddy… nice to see you again too…" Alec retorted sarcastically, his hand fumbling about under his jacket as he searched for his wound in an attempt to plug the bleeding.

McKinley kicked Alec in the gut and he could taste blood in his mouth, its metallic serration jolting his senses back into action

"He attacked me…" the Senator spat. "Kill him…"

It had taken Alec less than a minute after he was kicked to realize that Senator McKinley had superhuman strength. He was a familiar.

Alec struggled to move as he heard the chilling sound of hundreds of guns simultaneously loading.

But it was a scream that allowed him to escape. A single, terrified, pained scream that ricocheted disturbingly off the tall glass building behind him. He recognized the scream - he had heard it a million times before. From his victims, and from fellow soldiers who died in the field.

Gunfire filled his head. He rolled, he ran, he tried his hardest to get to the scream. The other transgenics had been found. He could hear the sickening thud as rioters beat on Chaser and her screams of agony, could hear every bullet as it tore through the flesh of the younger X6s. His heart sank. He had failed. They had been found by protesters and dragged to the surface. Tears prickles at Alec's eyes.

He found himself separated from the group, he couldn't see Senator McKinley and for the time being, no police had noticed him slip away. The mayhem had helped him escape. The other transgenics pain had saved his life. He cringed.

Screeching car tires drew his attention. He paused, holding his wound. The car window rolled down.

Antigone, her face determined and set, gazed out at him.

"Alec, get in the car…"

"Are you happy now?"

His eyes pierced hers. She looked down.

He turned and fled. She jumped out of the car, following him. The sounds of police sirens rang shrill around them, gunfire and screams coagulating with the sounds of the mob as they released their hate on the world.

Alec was too weak to blur. He ran slowly, blood trailing behind him. Leading her to him.

He collapsed in a heap in the corner of an abandoned warehouse. So this would be where he met his end.

Antigone entered shortly after him.

"Alec…?" Her cry filled the empty space, the air thick with emotion.

She knelt down beside him, her hands instinctively pressing against his wound to stem the steady flow of blood. Her beautiful eyes were clouded with a deep sadness.

'Alec, I'm so sorry…" Her words were quiet, only just above a whisper, her voice hoarse.

He looked up at her. "Through you, I die…" His words held no judgment, no hatred. They were nothing more than an uttered truth.

She broke down, tears marring her perfect skin, sobs racking her body.

"Alec, you lied to me…"

"You're so stupid Antigone…" Again, he didn't judge.

She wept beside him.

"You're whole life has been a lie. Just so you know, McKinley killed your fiancée, it wasn't a transgenic. He must have been getting too close to discovering Manticore and the Familiars , so McKinley had him silenced. You're not really his niece, either."

"Alec… what? What are familiars?"

"Your uncle. He tried to tell you, that we were monsters, tried to tell the world. But he's the monster…"

He spluttered, but could feel his strength returning. Just having her here, having her near him, was enough.

They could hear the rioters pass by, screaming insults, dragging the bodies of the transgenics behind them. "Burn the animals!"

He looked at her earnestly for the first time all night, his characteristic smirk far removed from his handsome face.

"We're not animals", he sighed and paused for a moment, drinking in the damp air. "No more than you anyway… We live, we hurt…" Alec's hand instinctively came to rest upon hers over the wound in his abdomen. "And we love…"

His eyes grew dark and penetrated hers, making her feel exposed, with all her judgmental idiocies laid before him, all the scathing words she had ever said and condescending, degrading looks she had thrown his way bubbling beneath her. "Alec, I'm sorry…"

As instantly as his defensive walls had come down, they were built up again, his face blanking, and his lips terse. He rolled his eyes and grunted as he forced himself to stand, shaking her hand off his stomach. "You're only sorry… because you don't know the truth…" His eyes met hers again, unrecognizable, churning pools of anger.

"Alec, what truth? I don't understand…"

He stepped closer to her, his stride slow and deliberate. "What they're saying out there", he quipped with an understated flick of his hand in the direction of the protestors on the street, "It's all true…" Antigone looked at him, puzzled and frightened but he continued. "I am a danger. I am a killer…"

"Alec…" her voice was pleading.

He drew closer to her, his body tensed. "I have killed dozens of men with my bare hands, felt their throats crush beneath by palms as I choked the last drops of life from their worthless human bodies…" He was so close to her now that she could feel the heat emanating from his body. She closed her eyes against his hostility and spoke slowly, her voice shaky. "Alec, I know…"

"You don't know me…" He spat the words out. "You don't know what I am, what I'm capable of…"

As if a sudden twister had formed within her, a surge of courage threw Antigone's deepest feelings to the surface, their revelations shocking even herself.

"But I know I love you…"

Alec snapped to attention, his eyes leveling to hers once again. He backed away from her measurably, a look reminiscent to horror plastered on his face. Slowly he turned his back to her as he stepped out onto the other side of the street, the cold rain greeting him on his departure from the building.

"Don't say that…" he rasped the words out as he turned to find that she had followed him. "Don't ever say that Antigone…"

A deep sadness laced his words and all rage had seemingly drained from his body. Alec had heard those three words said aloud to him only on one previous occasion, and the memories sent chills through his body. He needed to get away from her, to protect her, hell, he loved her, he knew he did, but he didn't want her die. And that's all that loving him would bring – death.

He had tried to push her away by telling her what he really was, telling her that he is killer. But then she had said she loved him, and that changed everything. It was hard to push love away. The sudden sharp pain in his chest ached far more than his abdominal gunshot wound, and as his heart constricted he felt as if his whole world was going black. But somehow he managed to turn and walk away, leaving behind him the sounds of a continuing battle and the woman he loved, her salty tears mixing with the rain as it fell steadily from the darkened sky.

TO BE CONTINUED