Max shook herself awake and looked around at her new environment. She quickly realized that she was in a small, rectangular, holding cell. She squinted through the darkness at the other cells in the room, and cursed in frustration when she saw that they were all empty. Alec was obviously being held somewhere else within the compound but Max didn't have a clue where.
Suddenly the door opened and flooded the room with daylight. Max groaned when she recognized the figure standing in the doorway.
"452, so nice to see you again."
"Too bad I can't say the same thing about you."
White walked farther into the room and chuckled at her words.
White smiled, "you're so predictable. I guess we finally get to finish that conversation we started a while back."
"I'm not in the mood for talking."
White snapped his fingers and a guard instantly appeared in the doorway.
Max watched as he and another of Whites goons drug Joshua's unconscious body into the room and threw him into one of the vacant cages.
"Oh, I think you will be," said White accepting the stung gun the guard offered him.
He walked over to the cage and stuck it through the bars.
"So tell me 452, where is my son and where is my bracelet?"
Max thought of a nasty retort but checked herself when she looked at the gun hovering just inches away from Joshua's motionless body.
Max shrugged and mentally kicked herself as White stuck the gun to Joshua's chest.
When Joshua stopped convulsing White turned to face her again.
"My son and the bracelet?"
"What do you care anyway? It's just some dumb turn of the millennia trinket and your son hates you."
Wrong answer. White stuck the weapon to Joshua again, but the result didn't seem to please him.
"I don't have time for this 452. Either you tell me what I want to know now or…"
He let the threat hang in the air as he pulled a gun from inside his jacket and leveled it at Joshua.
Max knew that he would shoot Joshua without blinking an eye, so she didn't hesitate when she grabbed one of the guards that had gotten to close to her cage. She snapped his neck as she twisted his gun out of his hand.
The room was suddenly filled with the sound of gunfire.
Max shot the lock off of her cage and ran for cover behind a huge storage bin.
When the shooting stopped Max was the only one left standing.
She walked over to the unconscious form of White and fired once but the gun was out of bullets.
Cursing she walked over to the guard and snatched the keys off of his belt.
Five minutes later she was dragging Joshua down the hall way as she tried to evade hundreds of security guards. She was so glad when he finally woke up and was able to walk.
"What are we doing now little fella?"
"We have to find Alec. Then we have to find some sort of bracelet. White wants it bad, I'm not sure why, but it's probably for some ritualistic end of the world thing."
Joshua nodded his understanding.
Max saw movement ahead and took cover in an adjacent hallway. She waited in the shadows as the figure got closer and closer.
"Hey, hey watch it Maxie," said Alec as he ducked underneath her punch.
"Alec! How did you…never mind. We have work to do."
Alec put out his arm to stop her. "Way ahead of you Max."
He held out a small gold bracelet with a tiny blue stones set into the metal.
"Hey," said Joshua snatching at it, "that's mine."
"What?" said Alec and Max in surprised unison.
"Annie gave it to me."
"Annie? Blind Annie?"
Joshua nodded.
Max and Alec looked at each other in shock.
"That's why he killed her; she didn't have the necklace anymore."
"But why would she have it to begin with, unless she was a familiar, or she was helping them?"
"But why is it so important," asked Alec.
"I don't know," said Max, "but I know someone who might."
"Logan?"
"Yeah. Come on let's get out of here."
"Uh, Max," said Alec pointing down the hall, "that might not be as easy as you think."
Max looked up to see at least forty armed soldiers closing in on their hiding place.
"Let's use the back door," Alec suggested, tucking the bracelet into his pocket as he lead the way.