Under the Surface Ch 5 By LC
AN: Yeah, I know. I promised that this chapter would be up weeks ago. I'm sorry, I've has a huge writers block and I've also deleted three versions of this. This is pretty far from how my original plot looked.
With special thanks to EMI [She made a beautiful book cover for this fic] Fayth [Cuz she is the best. Sorry it took so long to get this up] and J [Thanks for the betaing hon!]
The walls of the cave were wet and slippery. Some light from the cloudy day outside slipped in and threw ghostlike shadows over the unconscious figure, curled up in the deepest corner. She whimpered and moaned in fear.
Dark eyes, dark voice. So similar of her own.
"We should never have left. Everything made sense there"
The raw, hungry animal that looked through his beautiful eyes could she feel inside herself.
She was scared but not of him. She was scared of herself.
"Tell me a story… about the good place."
Her hand snapping his neck. His last breathe on her face. His soul touching her soul, saying goodbye.
He was finally free, but she was stilled caged.
Ben.
Ben.
Ben.
Max didn't dare to open her eyes. She knew somebody was behind her but she didn't want to know whom it was. She was scared. The soldier inside her screamed at her 'Get up, GET UP!' but somehow she couldn't move her body. She was hurt; she wasn't ready to face a threat. She wasn't ready to face him again.
"Max?"
The voice reminded her of one time, when another boy with the same face spoke her name in a church. Ben had sounded as lost and confused as Alec sounded now.
Alec.
Ben.
Alec.
She snapped into a fighting position.
He had searched through the woods, followed her trace, the scent of her blood. It had leaded trough the deep woods and into the mountains, the home of the cougars.
Alec was scared. He knew enough medics to know that she had lost very much blood. He wasn't used to not be able to fix everything, to have control. The woman he cared more about than the rest of the world was angry, sad, afraid or a mix of everything and he could feel her pain.
The scent of her blood grew stronger, it was fresher. It triggered his senses as it probably triggered other big cats senses. Max wasn't in a state where she could defend herself against a cougar.
When he found the cave it was a relief, but the sight that met him made his heart stop.
She looked so pale and vulnerable. 'vulnerable… never thought I would use that word about Max' He could see that she was breathing though.
"Max?"
She moaned in pain. The sound made his ears hurt and his heart too. He was about to tell her to lie down, don't move. To touch her, sooth her, say that everything was going to be ok when she snapped into a fighting position.
A human would be dead and Max was far from in a perfect shape with her blood loss and broken ribs. But Manticore's scientists had done their job well and when adrenaline started to pump into her veins she could ignore the pain.
In her confused state of mind she felt threatened. She knew she was vulnerable and she knew she wouldn't be able to last in a long fight. She would just try to end this her own way.
She attacked.
Alec saw the desperate glint in her eyes and was suddenly glad for her blood loss when she launched herself on him. Otherwise, he would have been in serious trouble now.
He blocked her attacks, not wanting to hurt her but when she tried to escape from him, saw him as a threat something broke inside him. He had fought so hard to look good in her eyes.
Since Alec was freed from Manticore and become… well, Alec he had never cared about what anybody thought about him. Anybody but Max. She was important to him in a way he always failed to understand and when she didn't seem to recognize him, he was deeply hurt.
He blocked her last attack, swept her legs under her and before she could get up again, he pinned her down with his weight.
"Max. Please Max, look at me" He tried to keep his voice steady but it was hard when he saw the true fear in her eyes.
He had her caught.
She wasn't ready to face him, the memory still burned too much. But that time, she had beaten him.
Crazy, beautiful Ben.
And Alec had no idea.
The thought hit her like a train going at a speed of 200 km/h.
It wasn't his fault.
He didn't know.
And then she did what he last expected her to do. She started to cry. Her big, almost black eyes went shiny and tears began to fall down her cheek. Her body shivered with the sobs.
"I'm sorry Ben…"
He frowned.
"I'm not Ben."
She looked upon him with those big, teary eyes.
"I know. I'm sorry Alec."
He let go of her wrists and lifted her to hold her. She sobbed against his shoulder and he caressed her back.
"Whatever it is, it will be okay. I promise Maxie…"
Alec's brain was kind of left behind. He didn't understand what was wrong with Max but right now, she seemed to be okay. Or, maybe not okay but she seemed to be safe. The thought calmed him down until he noticed that he had Max's blood on his shirt and that she was still bleeding.
"Max, you have to let me fix your wounds" He kept caressing her, trying to calm her down.
When she didn't seem to protest, he gently laid her on her back, opened her leather jacket and ripped her tank top apart.
The wounds weren't that deep but some of them still bled freely. He also suspected some broken ribs. Thanks to her transgenic healing, her body had taken care of the worst.
He took of his own shirt and ripped it into stripes. Max still sobbed softly.