Disclaimer: Kay, Paige, and Jennifer are mine, but everybody else isn't.

Black Ice

By Be Boring

Chapter 3: On With The Chase

Jennifer Palton couldn't believe what she'd been reduced to. She had been in the top of her class at Brookridge Academy, excelled in every medical class she enrolled herself in, was the most respected doctor at the free clinic, and now look what she was: a babysitter. Why, of all people, had Ames White decided to send a copy of the blood test results of his abominable hybrid daughter to her? Now she was in this up to her neck, which was precisely where she didn't want to be. She had gone back to the highway to call the High Priest because it was the only way she could get reception on her cell phone; the woods and White's house left her without service. On the High Priest's instructions, she went into Lakeside and bought enough supplies to take care of the baby until they had chosen the exact time they wanted to reattempt releasing the Coming. She had hoped that by the time she got back, the others would have found the X5 in the woods and have the child in their custody, but no such luck. Although she had been lucky enough to notice the sleeping baby nestled in between the roots of a tree on the edge of White's property, she knew perfectly well that the mother had left the child there. She assumed the X5 was in the house, so now she was wasting no time as she ran back towards her car. Although she was confident with her abilities, she had no interest in tangling with this child's mother.

In her haste to return to the highway without being tracked, she had started zigzagging wildly through the trees, but now she was sure that she had gone too far to the right. In fact, when she stopped to take a look around, she realized that she could see the driveway leading up to the house. That meant that she was at a nearly perfect 90-degree angle from the highway. She groaned angrily as the baby started to wriggle in her arms, making soft whining noises to make it clear that she knew she wasn't in her mother's arms. "Just shut up and I'll be able to drug you into a nice comfortable sleep so you won't care if I don't like you," she snapped, realizing too late that she had been a bit too harsh. With all the breath that her tiny little lungs had pulled in, Paige began to wail at the top of her lungs. The sound echoed abysmally through the forest, clearly audible for at least a quarter of a mile. Jennifer nearly dropped the girl in her shock, then recovered herself and dropped all pretense of hiding. Without further ado, she took off at top speed through the woods, crashing loudly through underbrush as she went. She knew she had no means to calm the girl down, so she was nothing more than a siren that would eventually lead everyone in the surrounding area right to her.

Ames's head whipped around at the sound of his daughter's cry. He didn't hesitate for even a millisecond, he was racing through the trees as fast as his powerful legs could carry him. In the midst of the racket he was making on his own, he never noticed the four people following along at breakneck speed behind him, struggling to keep up.

The three familiars were struggling to keep up with Ames, who was much faster than any of them would have ever given him credit for, but Ben was having no problem whatsoever. X5s were easily faster than the Familiars, and Ben was planning on beating all of them to the source of that horrendous noise. Was that really a baby? It must be, that's what the man in the laundromat wanted. It appears White wants that kid. Well, if White wanted it, then he didn't want him to have it. Besides, he could use the kid later to lure them all to him and massacre them all like he'd planned.

Max had run to the front door after hearing it open, but was angry with herself when she realized that she must not have shut it all the way and the wind had opened it. Just as she went to shut it, she heard the unmistakable shriek of an infant. Why is there a baby out here? She stepped out onto the porch to see where it was, but instead the sight of White crashing through the woods with four men behind him greeted her. She thought she recognized one of the men, but he had passed through the woods and around the corner of the house before she could get a good look at him. When she ran around the side of the house to take a better look, he had already moved well ahead of even White and was too far away for her to see clearly. What she did see though was the frame of a woman pass through the back yard and into the trees, joining the chase. She only caught a glimpse of long blonde hair, then the woman was also too far ahead to see. Well, I'm not just going to sit around and wait for them all to get that baby, I'm going to see what this is about.

Kay had no idea what was going on, but she was sure that none of this boded well for her daughter. I just don't get it, I thought Ames had separated himself from the cult. Why are they trying to take Paige? She couldn't believe what a fiasco today had been so far. Although her life here hadn't exactly been what she'd call normal, it certainly wasn't this odd. Compared to this, her life here had been relatively calm. She passed the strange Familiars easily, so the only people left that she could see in front of her were Ames, a man who was moving too quickly to see, and a woman that she was sure was holding Paige. Somewhere behind her she was also sure Max was now following them. Could this day possibly get any stranger?

Just as she pulled even with Ames, he flung out an arm and struck her in the face with the back of his fist. It startled her, but it didn't prevent her from throwing her weight into his side and knocking him into a tree. They were so close to the highway now that she could hear the traffic clearly. Paige was still a good distance ahead of her, so how would she make it there in time? She heard Ames steady himself on his feet and begin running again, but she knew he would never catch up. If she didn't have time to reach Paige's captor, she knew he sure didn't.

Ames couldn't have been more stunned when he started running again and realized that Max was running a few feet ahead of him. What the hell is 452 doing here? he wondered incredulously. How had this plan gone so wrong? All he was supposed to do was kill Kay and take Paige to the Conclave, so what were all these people doing here? He didn't buy Jennifer's excuse of the High Priest wanting to make sure he got the job done. If that's what Jennifer was for, why were the other Familiars here? From what he could tell, it appeared that someone else had a very different plan to get Paige back. Now the question was had there been a role for him in this plan? And that still didn't explain was 452 was doing here. He hurled his body forward, knocking Max straight to the ground. She grunted as his weight landed on top of her and her body was driven into the hard dirt, but it didn't stun her for long. She threw back an elbow and crunched him squarely on the nose. That blow must have broken his nose, unless his cartilage was made of steel. He rolled away from her and jumped to his feet, fully prepared to take off after the others again.

Max pushed herself up to her feet and lunged forward to tackle him around the legs before he could get too far ahead again. She flipped him over onto his back, glowering down into his bloody face. "What the hell is going on here?"

He snapped his neck forward, throwing his forehead against hers. She yelped and pulled back her head, but slammed her fist into his face angrily. It didn't wipe the fuming look from his eyes. "It's none of your business. You have no right to be here." With that, he shoved her off and got back to his feet, looking around for the others. His eyes narrowed furiously when he saw that Jennifer had reached the highway.

Ben had just barely reached Jennifer when she jumped directly over her car and leapt into the driver's seat, still clutching the screaming baby tightly to her chest. She quickly pressed the button to lock her doors, but Ben pitched his elbow into the window and sent glass flying all through the car. He had just forced his torso through the broken window when she stepped on the accelerator and the car squealed away from the side of the road. With her left arm around the baby and also gripping the steering wheel, her only option remaining was to hit every part of Ben she could reach with her right hand. It didn't drive him out though, instead he grabbed her hair and used it as leverage to drag himself the rest of the way into the car. She screamed as he jerked her head to the side and the car began to swerve wildly over the road. Horns honked from every direction, but Ben never released her head. When the car was back in the correct lane, he gave her head a sharp twist that resulted in a loud crack. He hit the button for the cruise control before the dead weight of her foot slipped off the accelerator.

Removing the baby from her arms while trying to shove the dead woman into the back seat, while at the same time trying to keep the vehicle driving straight, wasn't exactly a simple task. By the time Jennifer's body was slumped awkwardly in the back and Ben had pulled himself into the driver's seat, the baby was in complete hysterics. With the cruise control set and his knee keeping the steering wheel straight, he picked up the screaming baby and tried to nestle her in the crook of his arm. Although it had seemed like a good idea at the time, he now wasn't sure what he was going to do with the kid in the meantime. He had no clue how to take care of a baby, and at the moment the little girl looked like she would be a handful for him. "Come on, stop crying. It's not like it's you I want to kill, anyways. After I've taken care of all those people, I'll probably just drop you off outside an orphanage or something," he grumbled irritably. Suddenly, a very foul smell reached his nostrils. Oh great, just what I need. Maybe this wasn't such a stellar idea after all. He turned to glance into the back, relieved that there was at least a package of diapers back there along with some baby wipes. He looked dubiously down at Paige, who was screaming as loudly as her tiny vocal cords would allow. Boy am I not looking forward to this.

Brin's day had felt so horrendously long that she wasn't sure she'd ever been happier to see Zack's smiling face when she entered Crash. Although she had the sense that he'd been thinking about something serious before she came in, she didn't ask him about it. It was very rare that she ever questioned him about anything that was troubling him. With Zack, it was just easier to leave things alone. They had spent the entire evening just hanging out, but just before they actually left Crash, Zack asked, "I know you don't want to tell me, but what did Jondy want to talk to you about earlier? Max was curious too, I guess Alec's been acting weird lately."

"Is that new?" she joked, but she didn't actually bother to answer the question. The truth was that Jondy hadn't actually told her anything, but it was obvious that she'd been planning to. Every time it seemed to be on the tip of her tongue, doubt would rise up in her eyes and it was apparent that she'd changed her mind and didn't want to say anything. Their conversation hadn't been much more than average small talk, but Brin knew Jondy had something big on her mind.

They had nearly reached their apartment when Brin's pager went off. When she looked down at it, she saw that it was Alec's cell phone. Why would he be calling me? She didn't say anything to Zack, but when he headed into the bathroom to take a shower, she picked up the phone and dialed Alec's number. It didn't get to ring one full time, he answered it before it had the chance. "Brin?"

"Yeah, it's me. Why are you calling me, and why did you want me to call you on your cell phone?"

He sounded really uncomfortable when he replied, "Well, Jondy's been acting really strange tonight, I think something's wrong. I didn't want her to know I called you, so I used my cell phone to page you and turned it to vibrate so she wouldn't hear it when you called me back. She's in the bathroom right now, crying her eyes out. Did she say anything to you today?"

"No, but I'll be right over. I got the feeling earlier that she was planning on telling me something, but she never got around to it. Just give me ten minutes." She hung up the phone and walked into the bathroom. Even though Zack was on the other side of the curtain, he knew she had come in. "I've got to go out for a while, but I'll be back in a little bit, ok?"

"Where are you going?"

"I'll tell you later." She didn't want to say a word to him until she found out what this was all about.

It was actually a quick drive over to Alec and Jondy's apartment, but Brin was so anxious to get there that she found herself swearing at every slow driver in her path. As soon as she had pulled up outside their building, she ran inside and charged up the stairs, not even bothering to use the elevator. Before she even had the chance to knock on the door, Alec had opened it and was ushering her inside. "You know, I think I'll leave you two alone. This will probably require some girl time, right?"

Brin glanced towards the bathroom, where she could hear Jondy's stifled sobs. "Yeah, more than likely. I'll call you and let you know when it's safe to come back." He nodded and headed out the door, leaving her to close it. Taking a deep breath, she walked into the bathroom and laid a hand on Jondy's shoulder. "Hey, little sister, what's going on?"

Jondy roughly wiped the tears off her face, staring determinedly at the edge of the sink. "Nothing, I'm fine."

"Sure, and Normal is going to double all our wages tomorrow. I know you wanted to tell me earlier, but I'm here now, so what's up?"

Jondy fidgeted nervously with her fingers and sat down on the rim of the bathtub. "I was going to say something to you before, but then I saw Alec leaving with Max again and I thought maybe I should talk to him first. Then I overheard him talking to Max, and now I really don't know what to do."

Brin sat down Indian-style on the floor in front of her sister. "What were they talking about? Alec isn't seeing someone behind your back, is he?"

"No, he's not, even though it doesn't surprise me that that's the first conclusion you jumped to. You and Zack never really did like Alec. That's not the point though. He knew I was due for another heat cycle, so he was getting ready to go out and buy a whole ton of protection like usual, but I told him not to do it. I guess I should have explained myself better, because he took that to mean that I wanted to have a baby, and he told Max that was the last thing he wanted right now."

"And this upsets you because…?"

Jondy threw up her hands hopelessly, letting her tears fall freely again. "Because the reason I told him not to buy protection is because I'm already pregnant!"

Brin's mouth dropped open in shock. That was the last thing she had expected to hear. "You're pregnant? When did you find out?"

Jondy wiped uselessly at her face again, struggling to take a deep breath and calm herself down. "I've been feeling off lately. It wasn't anything serious, not like morning sickness or anything, but I really haven't felt like myself. I don't think I can really explain it, but I went into the pharmacy the other day to get tryptophan and I saw the shelf with the pregnancy tests on it. I didn't really believe at the time that I was pregnant, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to check. I guess we would have found out anyway when I didn't come into heat, but now I don't know what to do. It's not like I can keep it from him for long, the most time I can get away with is about two weeks because if I keep saying my cycle's just running late then he'll get suspicious. I'm terrible when it comes to lying to him."

"Frankly, I think you should just tell him right away. He may not be thrilled about it at first, but it's not like there's much he can do. Jondy, he loves you, even I know that, even Zack knows that. Just you wait and see, before too long he'll be really excited."

"Do you really think so? I wasn't even very happy when I first found out. I really didn't think I could get pregnant outside of my heat cycle, and I'm sure I haven't been pregnant that long. It just came as such a shock. I'm not sure I'm ready for this."

Brin clucked her tongue sympathetically. She had no idea what she'd do if she got pregnant. Of course, her situation was different. Zack loved kids, he'd be ecstatic to have one of his own. Naturally he would go through the this-might-not-be-a-good-idea-because-if-we-make-enemies-it-will-make-it-that-much-harder-to-hide phase, but he'd get over it. They didn't have nearly as much to run from anymore, just the occasional transgenic-hater and people who wanted to get their hands on their DNA. Other than that, they were pretty safe. The cult wasn't even an issue anymore.

Kay's heart nearly stopped when she saw Jennifer's car pull away from the side of the road with that man's legs sticking out of the window. Her eyes automatically caught the license plate number, but she didn't think it would be helpful. Whichever one of them managed to take control of the car, she doubted they would hold onto it for very long. It was too easy to track. She whipped around when she heard one of the familiars finally come out of the trees. In her desperation to make it to the car before it could get away, she had forgotten they were back there. By the time she had gathered her wits about her again, all three of them had set themselves into fighting stances. "Do you really want to do this right in the view of the highway?" she asked sweetly, gesturing to the many vehicles driving by. Even though the drivers weren't paying attention to them now, she was pretty sure they would notice if a fight started on the side of the road, especially with the way all of them knew how to fight.

One of the men pulled out a gun and aimed it directly at her forehead. Before he could pull the trigger, she flashed to the side and ran up onto the road. All three hurried after her, forgetting about the gun. She waited in the middle of the road for the first one to catch up to her, then grabbed him before he could hit her and threw him into an oncoming truck. She heard the telltale crunch of several of his ribs breaking and the squeals of the truck's tires as the driver tried to stop and see if he was all right. Just as he brought the truck to a halt and jumped out to see, the familiar leapt back to his feet and charged at her. She kicked out hard and caught him in the chest, sending him straight back out into the middle of traffic. The driver only stared at them both in shock. "Oh my God, what are you? Transgenics or cult psychos?" Before anyone could answer, he had jumped back in his truck and was taking off again. Kay really didn't want to battle with them right here, but they seemed determined to have it out with her. If it's a fight they want, it's a fight they'll get.

As the other two familiars approached her, Kay leapt into the air as high as she could to avoid them and landed easily in the bed of a truck passing by heading south. She flicked them off as they tried to run after her, then turned to face the driver, who was staring out the back window at her in alarm. To her surprise, he flipped open the switch so she could open the back window and crawl through into the cab of the truck. Once she was sitting next to him, she saw that he was an extremely good-looking, muscular man with creamy, chocolate-colored skin and a shaved head. "I didn't know any of your people were out in this area. Don't most of you like to stick pretty close to the west coast?"

She shrugged nonchalantly, unsure if she could let go and trust him or not. "Most of us, but that's why I'm here. Just so we understand each other, you know I'm a transgenic and you don't have a problem with it?"

"Not at all, and yes, I knew you were a transgenic right away. I've only ever seen one person kick like you, and that's Max."

Kay was at a loss for words. Was this a coincidence or what? "How do you know Max?"

He turned to look at her in surprise. "You know her, too? I don't suppose you knew Logan as well, huh?"

"Yeah, I knew him. So, how do you know them?"

"Before Logan got his exoskeleton, I was his physical trainer and pretty much the live-in help. My name's Bling."

She thought desperately for a moment, then said, "I'm Nicki. So, are you going back to Seattle?"

"Yeah, I figured it's as good a place as any. When Logan didn't really need me anymore, I went out to see my mother in New York because she hadn't been doing so good at the time. Her funeral was the other day, so I figured I should get out of there. She was the only one I was close to, and I didn't feel comfortable being there without her. I thought coming back to Seattle would be good for me."

"Sorry about your mom," she said softly. Talking at all about mothers made her think of her own situation with Paige. How far ahead had that car gotten? She couldn't see it from where she was sitting, but she figured that as long as Bling was a friend of Logan's, he might be worth asking for help. "Not to inconvenience you or anything, but could you speed up a bit? I'm kind of following someone."

"Should I bother asking who?" he asked, already accelerating the truck.

"I'd really rather not talk about it just yet, ok?"

"Ok, I can handle that."

Max watched White pace around his house, lashing out at different solid objects as he stalked around. When they had seen the car pull away and saw the distant fight between the blonde woman and the three familiars, all of whom were too far away to watch properly, White had immediately headed back to the house and tried to call someone, but apparently there hadn't been an answer. He'd made no objections to her following along behind him, in fact, he didn't appear to have noticed her. It was like he had forgotten all about her. What had been so important about that baby?

Currently, she was sitting at the kitchen table eating a leftover piece of sausage pizza that she'd found in the refrigerator. After all, she'd missed her chance to have dinner with Logan. "If you don't mind me asking again, what the hell is going on here?"

Her voice seemed to snap White out of his thoughts, because he whipped around to look at her as though he'd never seen her before. The hardened, irate expression returned to his face and he ripped the partly eaten piece of pizza out of her hands. "Like I said before, it's none of your business. And who gave you permission to eat my food?"

Despite the fact that he was trying to cover it up, Max was starting to get a whole new feeling from him. "You don't even really know what's happening, do you?"

"I know more than you do," he scowled.

"Fair enough," she replied, reaching up and snatching back the pizza.

He could only stare at her, trying to get his thoughts straight. He decided to focus on one thing at a time. "Why are you even here in the first place? It's not like I was hunting down any more of your kind, even though I could do it for fun if I really wanted to. I doubt this is a social call."

She took a large, deliberate bite of the pizza, making him glare at her even more furiously. "Well, in a way it is. I was a little bit curious about something."

He looked extremely doubtful. "You came 400 miles because you were a 'little bit curious about something?' Now, why don't I believe that?"

She shrugged and took another extremely exaggerated bite. "I don't really care what you believe, but I have a question to ask you anyway. As far as I know, you were the last person to see Kay back at the big fight, and I want to know if she's alive."

What? It took her eight months to come out and ask me, and of all days she had to choose today to come! "You must be mistaken," he sneered, his voice dripping with forced politeness. "The last time I saw Kay is when she entered the stadium. When I followed her, all I found was a dead Thula. She had already left. Now, I think it's a good idea for you to leave my house right now, and for Christ's sake stop eating like that in front of me. Take it with you if you want, but stop eating like a pig."

Max wasn't sure whether to be happy or not as she left and made her way back to her motorcycle. She was glad her sister was alive, but that meant that she had chosen not to come back and try to patch things up with everyone. After what she did, I think she at least owes us an explanation for her behavior, or doesn't she think we deserve that? Something else was bothering her too. That was by far the most civil conversation she had ever had with White, and he had let her go too easily. Either he had something up his sleeve, or he was so distracted by this baby business that he didn't have the time to deal with her. It only made her more curious about why that baby was so important. Knowing White, it probably wasn't anything good.

Ben had stopped at a gas station in Lakeside to change Paige's diaper, which was an adventure all on its own. First, he discovered that the men's bathroom didn't have a diaper-changing table in it. I suppose they assume the mother does it most of the time. All the same, it was rather aggravating. He finally had to settle for taking off Jennifer's jacket and using it as a barrier so nothing could get on the seat, and transferring Jennifer's body to the trunk so he could use the entire back seat as his own personal changing table. He nearly gagged when he first opened the diaper, and the entire process of wiping Paige's little behind was far from pleasant for him. By the time he was done, he had come to the conclusion that he would never have children. It had crossed his mind before, back when his life had been something approaching normal, but this little rascal was quickly changing his mind. She looked up at him innocently when he finally finished putting a fresh diaper on her and picked her up to survey how well he'd done. "Don't try and look cute now, you're the whole reason my day is going downhill," he mumbled, carrying the dirty diaper over to the dumpster and dropping it in with a great look of distaste on his face.

He carried Paige around the parking lot, looking for a suitable enough car. Jennifer's was too risky, the other familiars knew what she had been driving. He didn't want them tracking him down before he was ready for them. He finally decided on a deep green SUV. It would give him plenty of room the next time he had to change a diaper. After his first time doing it, he decided he needed as much room as possible. He settled Paige as comfortably as he could in the front seat, then ran back to the car and collected everything Jennifer had bought for the baby.

Bling's truck pulled into the gas station on the north side just as the SUV pulled out on the south side. Stopping was the last thing Kay wanted to do, but the truck needed gas. While Bling filled it up, Kay walked around to soothe some of her nerves. Being separated from Paige right now was so painful that she felt on the verge of tears with every breath she took. Suddenly, she came to a dead stop when she saw Jennifer's car. She had almost walked straight past it, but with her eyes pointed towards the ground, she managed to catch the license plate out of the corner of her eye. She ran to look in the windows, but nothing was there. There was no sign of a baby ever being in the car. Still, when she went to the front and placed her hands on the hood, it was still hot. The car hadn't been here long, but what vehicle had they taken? Now she had absolutely nothing to go on.

While she was walking around the car, she slammed her fist down on the trunk in frustration, then gently tapped on it again. Unless she was mistaken, something really big was in the trunk. She walked to the front and opened the unlocked door on the driver's side, then pressed the button to pop the trunk open. She gasped when she opened it and saw Jennifer's body. This meant that Paige was with that man she'd seen earlier, the one who'd been watching the house while the others went off to follow Ames.

"Oh my God, where's my car!"

Kay ran over to where an extremely distressed woman was standing in an empty parking space. "Excuse me, but did you say your car's gone?"

"Yes! I know it was right here! I know it was stupid of me to leave the keys in it, but I was only going in for a minute."

Kay could have cried again, but out of sheer bliss rather than sadness. "What did it look like?"

Even though she obviously thought it was a useless question, the woman replied, "It was just a dark green Chevy Tahoe. I only bought it two months ago. God, why do things always happen to me?"

As Kay walked away, she couldn't help thinking sarcastically, Just be thankful you haven't had my day.

Author's Note: Please review! So far, Astra, you're my hero! Well, I guess heroine is actually the correct term. :) BR, you've been wonderful too, I smile every time I read one of your reviews.