Author's Note: Stymied, I'm going to repeat what I said in the prologue of this story: This is a sequel to "The Second Key," which is also a sequel to "Outside." I can guarantee that you will be completely lost if you don't read those first. After you read those, you'll be able to understand more of this.
Disclaimer: Kay and Paige are mine.
Black Ice
By Be Boring
Chapter 4: If the World Was Perfect
It was nearly three in the morning when Bling and Kay arrived in Seattle. Kay had been searching relentlessly, but she never saw a dark green Chevy Tahoe except for once, just when they first pulled onto the interstate. Now she wasn't even sure if it was the right one. She hadn't seen it since then, which had been around four hours ago. What were the chances that Paige's kidnapper was going to Seattle? Bling offered her the only comfort he could, even though it didn't make her feel much better.
"You know, Logan could probably track down this person you're following in no time. You know he has all those contacts."
Sure, Logan could probably do it. But would he? Everything in her screamed that she couldn't tell anyone about having a daughter. She didn't know what their reactions would be, and she knew Logan would never keep it from Max. If she told him, it would eventually get spread to the others. The last thing she wanted was for Zack to know what the results of his despicable trick on her had been. "Maybe I'll ask him," she replied softly. Perhaps if she could come up with a good enough lie for why she was tracking this person, he would do it without getting too suspicious. Of course, if the world was perfect, Paige would be right here in Seattle and I wouldn't have to bother with any of that.
As she was thinking this over, Bling asked, "Do you have anywhere to stay?"
Getting a place to sleep had never occurred to her. "Now that you mention it, no, but I wasn't exactly making arrangements to come into town."
"Well, if you're interested, I have an extra room in my apartment. I'm sure the place will be dusty, I haven't been there for a while, but it's up to you."
"As long as you don't mind," she said tentatively. As nice as Bling was, she wasn't sure she felt like living with him. What other options did she have, though? She didn't want to waste the money she'd stolen from Ames, and a hotel would suck all the money right out of her. As long as she had someone willing to take her in, she might as well take advantage of it. She just wished she were on the run with her daughter right now, instead of on the run and looking for her. She had never been separated from Paige for so long, and she was stunned at the physical need to hold her daughter in her arms. She needed to feel Paige's warm, soft little body against her, whether she was sleeping or feeding or even crying her eyes out. The pressure in her chest was already growing as the milk started to build up without a release. Was that man taking care of Paige? Was he feeding her? As soon as she was in Bling's apartment and he had pointed her in the direction of the guest room, she threw herself down on the bed and bit down as hard as she could on her lip to hold back her tears of frustration. The worst scenarios were rising in her mind, nearly all of them ending with Paige wasting away from some form of neglect or another. What if that man was violent? How would he handle a crying baby? What if the cult was planning on killing her because she was a hybrid? If the first six hours of separation were so dreadful, she didn't how she would handle it if she didn't have Paige in her arms by the end of the week.
The clerk at the Yum Yum Tree Hotel seemed surprised to see someone at such hours of the night, so Ben felt relieved when he didn't bother to ask questions. He must have assumed that someone coming in at this time was hiding from something, and generally people hiding from something weren't fun to tangle with. Ben had had to change Paige's diaper one more time during the drive, as well as mix some of the formula Jennifer had bought so he could feed her. For some reason, she had no interest in taking a drink from the bottle he offered her. Eventually, her hunger took over and she sucked on it greedily, staring at him suspiciously the whole time as though she knew this was not the person who usually fed her, but he also had the strong feeling that she didn't like the formula very much. She's awfully young, maybe she was breastfed before.
Now that he was alone with the baby in a place where he could really settle down and think, he found that he was incredibly curious about why she was so important to White. None of this made any sense to him. From what he'd overheard at the laundromat, he knew that it had been Jennifer's job to grab the baby, while the other men would take out the people in the house.
"Yes, sir, the child is everything he said she was. Is he in charge of removing her from the mother?"
"He believes he is, but I have another plan. That's why I called you here. He told me that he's planning on taking the child today, and I want you to be there. I'll be sending a team of our people with you. They will be in charge of setting explosives around the house, while you will have to remove the child before they are detonated. I believe he will kill the mother, so I want you to be removing the child at the same time she is killed. With any luck, his house will blow up before he realizes that the baby is gone."
So, did that mean that White was the one who believed he was in charge of getting the baby? That meant that the man in the laundromat wanted him dead. Why would they want to kill White? And what did this baby have to do with it? As though she knew he was thinking about her, Paige squeaked softly in her sleep and stretched slightly, then remained motionless. He had placed her at the head of the bed and surrounded her carefully with pillows so she couldn't move, while he lay sideways on the bed and tried to figure everything out. The other thing that had occurred to him was that White had gone into the woods to look for the mother and child after Jennifer told him not to. The baby was here with him, so where was the mother? Unless one of the familiars had killed her in the woods, which he doubted because he would have heard it, then she was very much alive and probably wondering where her baby was. Maybe I shouldn't have taken the baby. I might have been able to kill them all in the woods, Max be damned. Maybe I didn't need to go to these measures.
Ben shook his head fiercely, trying to block the guilty thoughts from his head. He had done a marvelous job at holding his feelings at bay ever since the day of the fight, the last thing he needed was to go soft now. Finders keepers, so he was the one who would get to use the baby for his purposes. If the mother really wanted to find the girl, she would be able to track her down to whatever orphanage he left her at. If he really felt guilty, he could drop the kid off at a police station and tell them he'd come across her in a dumpster or something. When the notice went out, the mother would be able to find her. Of course, he could always leave the kid on Logan's doorstep, Logan would be sure to have her back to her rightful home in no time.
Why did I come to Seattle, anyway? The truth was that he didn't really know. He had no reason to be here, but something had pulled him back. Maybe it was seeing Max in Montana, he really didn't know. She had passed him on her motorcycle on the interstate, she had probably beaten him into town by a half hour at the rate she was going. Her presence had confused him as well. He understood that for some reason the familiars wanted that baby, but why was Max there? Now a new issue rose in his mind. Should he let Max know he was alive? That meant it would get spread around, and pretty soon his siblings would surround him again. He wasn't sure whether he wanted that or not. He missed Zack and Brin, but did he really want to be close to them again? Zack would immediately put a stop to his search for a human being worthy of the Blue Lady's protection. His faith in her had never wavered, although he learned to keep some of his methods of expressing his reverence restrained. Even during his time at the farm when the X5s and even Lydecker surrounded him, he hadn't changed his mind about the Blue Lady. It was just that somehow his life had felt so complete. Of course, that wasn't because of Brin or Zack, it was because of Kay. Her presence in his life had changed everything. At first he had wanted to kill her so that she and the Nomlies couldn't corrupt his family like he believed they were doing, but it had slowly changed.
It was when she rescued him from White and they had come across Brin that he realized she couldn't be an ally of the Nomlies. He had a strong belief that Lydecker was also their ally in a distant way, but Kay's hate for the man was obvious to everyone, even to him. Why would allies hate each other? Rescuing Brin wasn't something he would expect the Nomlies to want either, so he had started to doubt his own beliefs concerning Kay. Although his conviction that Nomlies existed never faltered, his certainty that she was working with them faded away. When they were back on the farm, she made every attempt to befriend him, which worked quickly because he didn't know anyone else other than Zack, Brin, and Lydecker, and Zack didn't trust him, Brin was still in soldier mode, and Lydecker…well, his past record was against him. Kay was the only outlet he had, and he learned quickly that she was nothing like he had expected her to be. She was actually nice, and during the time that Alec was around, he got the chance to see her much lighter side. When she turned to him after Kody's murder, it had completely changed him. Unknown by anyone, even Kay, she was the first woman he had ever been with. His focus on the Blue Lady didn't exactly leave him time for romance, which he had absolutely no interest in, but suddenly he knew what it was like to be as close as you can be with someone. It wasn't until her nearly fatal fever that he realized he was in love with her, and somehow that filled up his life in a way that he felt no urge to kill anyone. His reasoning was that the Blue Lady had given him a gift for how good of a servant he had been for her, and he also took it as a signal that his job was done. She didn't want him to kill for her anymore, she was finally going to live up to what he'd always wanted her to do; she was going to protect him and let him live a happy life. It didn't turn out so happily, though.
Ben never knew what happened to Kay after their last conversation, but he had seen White hiding outside that room when he left with his gun in his hand, so he could only assume that White was going to kill her. Maybe it was all for the best. Now he didn't have to worry about running into her ever again. Suddenly, Paige started to cry her little heart out over in her soft nest of pillows. He sighed and sat up to take a better look at her. He couldn't smell anything, so her diaper didn't need to be changed. She must be hungry. He sighed and pulled out the formula and the bottle. He would have to go down and see if there was a way he could get the milk heated up. By the time he had everything done and returned to the room, Paige was entirely red in the face from screaming. He distinctly heard the grumbles of neighboring rooms as their occupants opened their doors to look out and see what was going on. Once again, Paige made every attempt to avoid the nipple of the bottle he presented to her, but like before, she gave in to her hunger before too long. Her large blue eyes gazed up at him as she drank, hardly blinking at all. He could see the confusion in her eyes at this strange person holding her. If anything, it amused him. She couldn't have been born more than two weeks ago, but she knew perfectly well who should be holding her and who shouldn't. He'd never had the opportunity to take care of a baby before, and as much as he disliked changing diapers, he was starting to see why people wanted kids. Great, I really am going soft.
Ames paced the laundromat relentlessly, impatiently waiting for the High Priest to return. The more he thought about everything, the angrier he became. He didn't believe a word Jennifer said, she hadn't been there to make sure the job was done, she had been there to take over. By now he had no doubt that the other men were meant to kill him. Why is this so surprising? They know what you are, what you've created, and you haven't exactly been a stellar servant to them in the past, he told himself, enraged that he hadn't expected something like this. Now everything was wrong. The Conclave had Paige, Kay was still alive, and somehow he hadn't gotten the chance to be involved in anything. Ray was spending the night at a friend's house, but Ames knew they would have to move on soon. If the Conclave wanted him dead, they couldn't very well stay here.
Alistair Bougeman watched Ames silently from the small television screen in front of him. Did that foolish little man really believe he was going to go back there? His people hadn't elected him High Priest for nothing. He had always been wise beyond his years, with a cunning and cleverness that he was sure had been held by Alexander the Great himself. Of course, Alexander was one of his distant ancestors, so he felt that his family line was destined for greatness from the beginning. He had absolutely no intention of allowing this new key to be a true member of the cult. She would serve her purpose, then he would be finished with her. The same went for Ames White. Seeing as how Jennifer had not yet contacted him and the team he had sent with her had seen her leaving with a strange man attempting to get into the car, he knew he couldn't eliminate White just yet. He might know how to find the girl again, and at the moment she was his highest priority.
When he thought about it, Alistair realized this entire situation was irony in its greatest form. Not only was Sandeman part of the family his people had worked so hard to find, but he had also created atrocious creatures that went against everything the Conclave stood for. Now, it was the offspring of his son and one of his creations that could ultimately bring about the one thing he had been trying to prevent. Alistair laughed out loud at the sweet justice of it all. He wished that for just one moment, Sandeman could come back to life, just so he could see the look on his face when he realized how futile his attempts had been, and in the end, how helpful they had been to the cult.
Alec had stayed at Crash most of the night, wondering why Brin hadn't called him yet. Had she already left but felt like playing a joke on him? He couldn't see how she could still be there. What in the world could they be talking about? He had flirted meaninglessly with some women, but turned all of them down when they invited him to come to their places. Flirting was all good and fun, but he was with Jondy. He couldn't believe how much loving someone could change him. He very easily could have gone with one of those women, but his guilt would have killed him. The truth was, even though he had seen several women that were more beautiful than Jondy, he wasn't as attracted to them as he was to her. He wasn't quite sure how that made sense, but that's how it was. Bickering with her was his favorite pastime, right along with what they did behind closed doors. They were perfect matches for each other.
His head jerked around when he heard a very distinctive set of feet walking towards him. He usually didn't notice the sounds of people walking, but somehow he could always hear it when Zack was approaching. "What are you doing here?" Zack snapped as he reached the bar. "Getting bored with my sister already?"
Alec gritted his teeth, clutching his glass of beer nearly to its breaking point in his effort to hold himself back from lashing out. "Not that it's any of your business, but your girlfriend is talking to her at the moment and I got the very clear feeling that I shouldn't be there. Is she getting bored with you already? Not that I blame her, you're not exactly a barrel of laughs."
Zack turned to him, choosing to ignore Alec's last remarks. "Brin's at your place?"
"Yep, and I'm starting to think she and Jondy got drunk and passed out, because I don't think they've ever talked this long. Jondy's usually talking to Max, but I couldn't get a hold of her."
"Wait, are you saying you called Brin to have her talk to Jondy?"
Alec couldn't see why Zack was bothering to have this conversation with him unless he was hoping to use it against him somehow. He was sure that if he told Zack about Jondy crying, he would jump to conclusions that Alec had done something wrong. "Jondy wasn't feeling so hot, so I thought having Brin around would make her feel better."
"You're lying to me," Zack commented matter-of-factly as he grabbed the pitcher from in front of Alec and poured himself a glass of beer. "If Jondy wasn't feeling well, you wouldn't have had to leave. You said that Brin is talking to her, so what's she talking to her about?"
"Don't ask me," Alec mumbled, looking around the bar for anyone he knew so that he could get away from Zack. "Why are you here, anyway?"
"I couldn't sleep," was the only answer he got. "Did you do something to upset Jondy?"
"No!" Alec snapped, turning to face the other X5. "She's just a little bit emotional, and I'm not good at handling that. It's not too unusual, sometimes she gets a little moody around this time."
Zack rolled his eyes, this was the last thing he wanted to hear about. The X5 females sometimes became moody just before a heat cycle because their hormones were going insane as they prepared for it. He didn't want to hear anything about Jondy's cycles, because he had the feeling that Alec wasn't the type to hold back information. Suddenly, Alec's cell phone went off. He looked at the caller ID, mumbled "Finally!" and answered the phone. "Hello…You sure?…What took so long?…Fine, you don't have to be rude, I was just asking…Yeah, I know you were doing me a favor…Ok, I got the point, I'm coming home!" He sighed and hung up the phone. "Brin's leaving and I'm supposed to go home, so as lovely as this little conversation as been, I'm going to have to cut it short. See ya later."
He sped back to his apartment, his curiosity eating away at his insides. He desperately wanted to know what they had been talking about, and he hoped Jondy was going to tell him. When he reached his apartment, he saw with relief that at least she had stopped crying, but she looked extremely nervous and the redness in her eyes hadn't quite disappeared. She really didn't look her best at the moment. "So, what's up?" He wanted to make a sarcastic crack about how long her visit with Brin had taken, but he didn't think now was the right time.
"Um, I think you should sit down, because I don't know how you're going to react to this." He obediently sat down, waiting for her to start talking, but she just bit her lip and started fiddling anxiously with her fingers, her eyes darting back and forth as she struggled with how to begin.
"Why were you crying earlier?" he prompted, hoping to give her a way to start talking and get everything out.
If anything, it made it more difficult for her to start because she only became more nervous when he started to push, but at least it gave her a nudge in the right direction. "I overheard you talking to Max earlier, and it scared me a little." She hesitated, but held up a hand when she saw his mouth begin to open to give her another gentle push. "I heard everything you said about not wanting kids, and it really hit me hard because…" She broke off fearfully, unsure if she could get the words out. "Because, well…I know this isn't something we were planning on…" God, why is this so hard? Is he going to be angry?
Alec's eyes widened. "Jondy, are you pregnant?" He saw the moisture start to build up at the corners of her eyes as she nodded, and suddenly he could have kicked himself. Of all the conversations he had had with Max today, she had to overhear that one? It wasn't her fault, but he felt like an ass for saying what he had even though he hadn't known at the time what the situation was. He stood up and hurried over to her, picking up her hand and completely enclosing it in both of his. He wasn't sure what he thought about this, truth be told it definitely wasn't something he had been looking for right now, but he couldn't say any of that to Jondy. They were going to have a baby, and she was going to need him through every part of it. "I'm sorry about what I said earlier, and I'm even sorrier that you had to hear it. How long have you known you are pregnant?"
She looked up at him, suddenly feeling hopeful at the sudden tenderness he was showing. "A couple days. I took a pregnancy test because I've been feeling weird lately. I don't know how far along I am, but I'm sure we'll find out when I go to the doctor." She stood up so that she could look more easily into his eyes. She knew her own were conveying her apprehension. "I guess I'll need to get used to saying the words. I'm having a baby." The sentence echoed in her mind, stirring up a confusing mixture of combating emotions.
Alec smiled down at her. For some reason, those words had a special ring to them, but he wanted to change them just slightly. "No, Jondy, we're having a baby." Suddenly, a smile broke out on her face and she hugged him, overwhelmingly grateful that he had accepted it so quickly. He wasn't sure how happy he was, but he hoped he would adjust to the idea. I'm going to be a dad. Wow, who'd a thunk?
Max was pacing around Logan's house, listening to his deep breathing in the other room. He hadn't expected her to return tonight, so she didn't think it was right for her to wake him up. Just because she didn't sleep didn't mean that she had the right to wake him up at all hours of the night. She could tell him everything that went down in the morning. Besides, she doubted he would have any more insights into the situation than she had. She knew his first order of business would be to find out who the baby was. Or, more importantly, what the baby was. Was it another familiar? She doubted it was human, but she also didn't think it was likely that the baby was transgenic. She couldn't see what the big deal was. The only thing she could think of was that maybe one of the women chosen to be paired with a familiar had found out about them and ran off with the kid. It was a possibility, but surely they wouldn't need so many familiars to track down an ordinary woman? And where was the woman? The only other two women Max had seen in the woods were definitely not ordinary, both had been moving at incredible speeds. She wished she could have gotten a better look at them, but it was hard to see something when it was moving at insane speeds through trees.
She sat down at the computer and nudged the mouse, effectively turning off the screensaver and revealing the picture of Ray's Little League team that Logan had left on the screen. If he was going to that school, then he couldn't possibly still be in the cult, which meant that White had done exactly what he told her he would do. He had taken his son and gone into hiding. Up until now it appeared that they had been living a fairly normal life, excepting the fact that White was killing himself with an impossible workload. He hadn't even gotten the chance to use whatever he had bought from Lethil & Prowdovet. She was surprised that he hadn't used it against her while she was there, but he had seemed so preoccupied with everything that was going on that perhaps it hadn't occurred to him. He may have forgotten that he had it.
Max clicked through all the other information Logan had left on the screen. Most of it was what he'd told her already, while the rest were just little tidbits of information relating to his other Eyes Only projects. Suddenly, she came across his video player. Why was this open? She clicked the PLAY button, then sat back to watch. It turned out to be footage from the big fight, but it was focusing on a door on the east side of the stadium. All of a sudden, Kay stepped through the door and looked around, surveying the scene around her. It was pretty obvious when her eyes landed on Thula, because she took off at a brisk and determined walk. The angle changed so Max knew this footage was from another camera at the same time, which followed Kay's pursuit of Thula into the hallway that led to the locker rooms. From there Max knew they would weave through the corridors until they reached the heat room, where Thula was planning to set off the Coming. That wasn't quite how it worked out, however. The camera never moved from its position, but a quick black flash and a jump of the numbers on the bottom right of the screen told her that time had just moved ahead nearly fifteen minutes. Wait a second, that's White! He had told her about finding Thula dead, but he never mentioned anything about being the one to carry her out and dispose of her body. If the cult had seen any of this footage, she was sure they would have killed him in the woods when she was there.
The camera remained in its position, but no time lapse was required. Two more people were entering the passageway. One was tall and incredibly muscular, and he was half carrying the other man, who looked somewhat emaciated. He certainly wouldn't have been able to move around without help. Not long after they had disappeared down the passageway, White returned and headed after them. She waited as the earlier pair came back out, and then winced when she caught a glimpse of the frailer man. The footage wasn't perfectly clear and she couldn't see much of his face, but from what she could see, his head was a horrible mess of scar tissue. She waited longer, expecting White to emerge, but he never did. She sat quietly with her eyes on the screen for over forty-five minutes, but all she could see were the people fighting in that corner of the stadium. White must have taken a different way out. She didn't see why Logan had been watching this, unless he had been hoping to find out something more about Kay's disappearance. Wait, I never saw Kay come back out either. Was White lying to me? With how distracted he had been during her visit, she wouldn't have thought so, but he could have been. It came easily enough to him.
She minimized the player on the screen and sat back, looking again at Ray's picture. Her eyes lazily wandered away from the screen, running over the various pieces of paper on the desk. That's when she noticed the slip of paper just to the right of the keyboard. It contained all his notes on the video that she had just watched, but he had viciously scribbled something out near the bottom of the paper. It couldn't have been more than just one word, it wasn't long by any means. She looked around at the other papers around her. This had all been here before, but that paper hadn't. If she was lucky, he had written on the paper while it was still on the pad, then ripped it off, changed his mind later about what he had written, and scribbled it out. She picked up the notepad and smiled when she saw the light indent of the word "fight" on the top of it, exactly where he had written it on the paper she was curious about. She immediately looked down at the bottom and smiled again when she saw that there was definitely a word there and not a scribble. Turning her chair so her back was to the lamp, she held up the notepad until it was bathed fully in the light and concentrated on what he had written.
Together?
Max stared at the word for a minute. Why had he followed it with a question mark? Suddenly, her eyes shot back to where she'd minimized the video player. Neither White nor Kay had exited by means of that passageway. Did that mean they had left together? She dropped the notepad on the desk and ran her fingers through her hair. Had Kay been in the woods in Montana? She had caught a glimpse of a blonde woman, and even though Kay's hair had been red the last time she saw her didn't mean that she hadn't changed it back. She hadn't been able to focus on the woman, but she had certainly been very fast and extremely powerful. Taking out three familiars was no easy task. Now none of this made any sense, she had even more questions than before. Finally, she shook her head and walked into the kitchen to get something to eat. It was ridiculous, Kay had made it clear that she hated White. The blonde woman in the woods had been another familiar, that's all there was to it. I swear, Max, you're starting to lose it. After filling her stomach with some leftover pasta in the refrigerator, Max walked to Logan's bedroom. Even if she didn't plan on sleeping, nothing was preventing her from lying next to him and watching him sleep.
A/N 2: Please read and review!