= = =CHAPTER 14 = = =

SEATTLE – CLUB CRASH

MAY 5, 1944

"Sorry I can't stay Donald," Max tightened the ropes around Lydecker's wrists. She had secured him to the same type of chair he had tied her to. "But I thought you and your girlfriend would want to be alone."

Zack kept his gun aimed on Anna Renfro who was lashed to a chair beside Lydecker. "You can wile the time away by guessing the number of bullet hoes I'll shoot into your sorry asses."

"We both know that's bull flop Zack," Lydecker insisted reprimanding Zack like an angry father. "If either of you wanted to shoot me I would be in the back of a hearse by now."

"Try inside of a shoebox," Zack growled.

"I have to at least be impressed by the sarcasm you've managed to teach these kids Donald," Renfro said flatly. She remained perfectly still in her bonds as if the entire idea of being held captive was too lowbrow for her. "Too bad the committee will be less then thrilled that your creations have an acute problem with authority figures."

"It's most acute when I'm staring them from the barrel of a gun," Zack spat placing the gun right on the skin of Renfro's neck.

Renfro still did not appear fazed. With the kind of organization she headed gratuitous violence was commonplace. "If you planned to should me you would have done so already. So why don't you just spare me all the melodrama and do something more useful?"

"Shut up!" Logan called out from the stage. He stood next to Original Cindy who packed a pocket size pistol in her bra and was now keeping it aimed on Renfro. Cindy was scared as hell but it never registered on her face.

Renfro turned her attention over to Logan eyeing him like he was a little boy caught sneaking into the back of a burlesque house. "Just what is your investment in this? You don't know these two. You may think you see a rare beauty in the woman but let me tell you something son; she's a tramp who was trained to kill. And all your lustful thinking about a long term relationship with her isn't going to change who she is."

"Who Max is something that can only be left up to her," Logan insisted.

"Max?" Renfro sounded amused. Back at the military base she hadn't taken the time to learn any of the experimental populations' names. They had all been assigned a 12-digit string of numbers and it was the only thing she knew them by. "I'm sorry but 12-digits is all I associate myself to knowing about them; it's really the only thing worth knowing actually. I never really cared much about the pathetic lives they lead before they joined the Program."

"Keep talkin' and there'll be one less pathetic life to worry about," Max barked in a low voice. "And for the record I don't care if I made it into your 'don't whack' list."

"Noted," Renfro replied calmly. "But for the record Max If it wasn't for the Project would you be a degenerative heap right now prostituting yourself for blood." She paused and stared at Max with knowing coldness in her eyes. "We made you what you are."

"As soon as I get outta here I'll make sure and send you a 'Thank You' note," Max hissed. She felt like she was back on the base. Renfro had never shown her face more then once a week to them but each time Max remembered her sterile brown eyes observing Lydecker perform experiments on them, actually sipping coffee while Max screamed as her bones were broken.

Renfro's eyes were just as sterile as they were then. "That's not necessary. Just seeing you is reward enough." Anna Renfro knew just what to say to smack Max in the face. She took part in her creation and knew her weaknesses the way a partner knew their lovers erogenous zones. "You are your own best strength Max – but you're also your own worse liability." She smiled, something tight lipped and very out of place for the intense situation. But Renfro dictated her own situations. "Even if you did run you exposed your face to me and I will remember it. But maybe by that time you would've retired from the role of seductive songstress and have a husband and there would be so much more to loose-"

"Shut up," Max ordered.

"-And I'd be forced to drag you off in front of your children – and this would all be because you let your guard down for that split second when you thought you had a handle on things."

"Shut up!" Max backhanded Renfro across the face so hard that it drew blood.

Renfro came back after the assault and sucked on the blood that she could reach from the oozing trickle running down her chin.

"If you have anything else to add tell it to my backside 'cause I'm outta here." Max turned around so quickly that the resulting 'swoosh' of wind created by her movement displaced several old flyers that had fallen on the stage.

"Remember what I told you," Renfro said in a low direct order.

Max stopped her escape then and swept back around like a powerful heiress but with the eyes of a battle weary soldier. "Always." She walked away from Renfro knowing that what she said was true and there was nothing she could do about it.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The night air outside of Crash was cool – not the ice freezing cool of winter or a torrential downpour – but the kind of cool air that would make club goers become more awake on their drowsy shuffle to reality. Somewhere behind a fence a cock fighting guard dog barked and was unanswered by anything except the silence.

Original Cindy rubbed her arms with quick hands. She had left her coat in the dressing room at Crash, but going back to get it was the last thing on her mind. She continued to rub her arms and clunked in her sky high heals – that she now regretted she wore – taking her away from Crash and deeper into the part of the city that had a bedtime. Ahead of her – leaning against a black lamppost – was Max, staring up into the small peaking of stars that lit up a path of clear black sky.

It was past 2 a.m. but Cindy was use to the late night hours when no one sober was out on the street anymore. But everything about that night was not something that she was use too. Being held up by military gunpoint made her look at everything differently, especially Max. She was the same sexy woman that came into Crash all those years ago asking Original Cindy for a job but she wasn't the same person she knew.

Max's eyes traveled down from the sky and stared into Cindy's when she felt herself being stared at. Her eyes weren't even curious or wondering – they held an exhaustion that came not from physical strain but from dealing with heavy burdened emotions. She was completely raw, but Cindy knew she would never admit it because Max lived under the belief that in silence came strength.

Cindy had a million questions to ask her girl but she respected her need to not ask anything she wasn't ready to know to answer too. But she still wanted to talk to her, if anything to make sure she was okay. Cindy took a few cautious steps towards her boo watching her turn back up to the sky, looking for something only those that believed in its existence could find.

"Max," Cindy wanted to ask all the standard questions- 'Are you okay?' 'Will you be okay?' but the words stalled out when she saw how intently Max was trying to find what she was looking for, even if she doubted it was actually real. But Max looked anyway, because she wanted it to be real.