Hello again! Here is Chapter Eight, Monday Night and Early Tuesday Morning…

During the school year, I'm not sure about how many times I'll be able to update. So, I'm going to try and write whenever I can, whether it's on the computer or on paper during the oh - so boring subjects I have to take. I truly am sorry for this, but it's just the way things work.

Thank you for your future patience. (Hopefully)

Chapter Eight
"Another dark alley, 452?" White sneered, ignoring her 'It's Max!' as she dragged him down the narrow street between two fairly tall buildings. "But, I suppose you can't help it, considering your DNA…" he trailed off, silently laughing as the transgenic's hold on his forearm tightened. Not that it was painful, or if it was, that he could feel it.

"I'd rather be a cat then a snake." Max bit back, looking around, committing everything to memory. Coming to a three way turn, she slowed down and looked around; using what little light there was from the moon to see what was at the end of each branch off.

White watched as she looked both ways, bending lower to the ground and shadows.

'So this is how she always gets away.' he thought. 'Manticore taught them to blend in.'

Taking the chance he had, watching as the arm that held his dropped to her side as she slowly stood again, he came up behind her and pulled her to him, holding her waist. He nearly laughed when he felt her freeze, but instead leaned in and brought his mouth to her right ear.

"I would much rather be a killer then a stray." He said, his breath tickling her cheek before he moved away.

Before White was a good two feet away from her, he found himself on his back, against the cold cement and the light layer of grey slush. Max sat on his stomach, his wrists pinned under her knees as she straddled his waist. Slowly, she leaned down towards him until her mouth was by his ear.

"I would much rather be quick and agile then slow and old." She whispered before rubbing her cheek against his own and getting up off of him.

"I am not old." White said, getting up quickly and brushing the dirt and trampled snow from his leather jacket and jeans.

"Then you admit to being slow." Max supplied smartly, sounding bored and uninterested.

"I am not old, and I am not slow, you smart mouthed freak."

"You know what," Max said stepping back over to the taller man. "You're slowing down my process for getting through this city, okay? We haven't even been to half of the places I want to go to before Wednesday."

"I'll give you my key and you can finish in daylight." White said dryly, watching as her dark eyes narrowed.

"I can't do it tomorrow." she said, and White couldn't help but think that it pained her to say that. "Becky said she would love to take the day off to take me shopping," she said scowling. "Like there's something wrong with my clothes!"

"Well- " White began to say, but was silenced when a surprisingly hard snow ball collided with the middle of his forehead.

"So Aunt Becky, you're taking Max shopping tomorrow, right?" Ray asked drying a plate and putting it back in its proper shelf.

"Yes, I am. I think she'll appreciate it." Becky said, smiling as she handed her nephew a freshly cleaned glass for him to dry and put away.

"Well then, do you think you could help her pick some things from this list?" he asked, slapping on a big innocent smile as his aunt read over the paper that just happened to be in his back pocket at the time.

"You sure she'll need this? It is winter Ray…" she said, pointing to an item on the list.

"I'm sure!" Ray said, nodding enthusiasticly. "In fact, of all the things, make sure she gets at least one, okay?" he asked.

Becky looked down doubtfully at the young boy, wondering why of all things that would be on his list. It was winter after all. But when she looked down at that innocent face, and his big blue eyes, she couldn't bring herself to say no.

"Alright, if you were hiding a psychopath's son, where would you live?"

"That's a good question Alec. Perhaps you should think harder."

"Well, there's Abbotsford and Walnut Grove, but they're high society, so everyone would know you. There's Surrey and Cloverdale, but they're more like run down projects."

"Everyone would know you there." Logan said, pulling the car over. "Where else?"

"There's Vancouver and Coquitlam, but they're over the Port Mann, which is heavy traffic and rush hour pretty much every time of the day. Then there are hills, skyscrapers, and hobos…"

"A richer Seattle?" Logan asked. Alec moved the map away from him, nodding. "Anywhere else?"

"Langley and Brookswood." Alec confirmed, pointing to their location between Abbotsford and Cloverdale on the map.

"What's it like there?"

"Quiet, calm, pretty average." Alec said off handedly.

"In other words, the perfect place to hide an eight year old without really hiding him?"

Alec blinked several times, completely stunned that he had missed that. "Yeah…" he confirmed, blinking several more times.

Logan grabbed the map from the shocked X5 and looked it over. They weren't that far from where they could exit off the freeway onto the road that went straight through Langley.

Before he could finish looking over what streets intersected with 200th street and where they led off to, Alec snatched the map away and crumpled it in his hands.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" Alec asked. "Get driving! We have to get to her before she does something stupid!"

"Hello brother." A deep voice said, the owner of the voice pulling his car from the curb where he had sat with it turned off for a good five minutes.

"Hello brother." Another voice said, though this one came from a cell phone set on speaker.

"I have found 452's friends, the journalist and 494. I will follow them to the location of 452 and Brother White."

"Good, I shall tell the superiors or your success." The voice said, sounding proud. "Until then, keep following them, but remember to not let yourself be known. When you find their location, contact me and the superiors shall send out a team to bring them back."

"Of course brother."

"Fen'es'tol."

The driver smiled cruelly, following the car through the light fog.

"Fen'es'tol."

"Open the door White."

"I'm trying 452, but my key isn't working."

"It's not working?" Max asked, seriously on the verge of laughter. With an ego his size, and though she would never admit it out loud, some skills to back up the gigantic ego, you would think he would be able to open the door.

"No 452, I'm just unlocking and relocking the door repeatedly for no other reason then to stay outside all night." White replied sarcastically, tossing her the piece of light sliver metal that was meant to give them access to the house.

"Well, number one," Max said, twirling the key around her fingers. "The name is Max. It's not a hard mane to remember, nor is it hard to pronounce. It's a very simple name, now learn to use it."

"Shut up and open the door."

"Number two," Max continued, completely ignoring White's sentence. "You will learn to respect the fact that I have the right to live and breathe just as much as you do."

"Will you open the door now?"

Once again, Max ignored him. "I'm here to help you. You understand that?"

"Are you done yet 452?"

"It's Max."

"You are not normal." White said, stretching out the words and saying them slowly. "Your creators didn't give you a name, they gave you a number."

"My name is Max." she said forcefully, more then ready to beat the simple sentence into his head, and more then willing.

"You don't have a name. People have names. Test tube bred soldiers don't."

"I have a name!"

"You have a number!"

"My name is Max!"

"Your so called 'name' is 452!"

Just as she was about to say something to defend herself, something in her mind clicked. She was here to help him, and he refused to do something as simple as calling her by her name. She was freaking out over something so small, and she had absolutely no idea way. He was the enemy, why would he call her by her name?

Ames watched thoroughly confused as 452 shut her mouth and turned around, kneeling before the door knob. He watched as she pulled something from the inside of her jacket, using it to quickly unlock the door. Before he could blink, she was gone and his key sat on the front mat, just inside the door.

Max paced the roof, a scowl on her face, and she tried to make some sense out of what had just happened less than ten minutes ago.

She was angry, offended, frustrated and pissed off. Why? Because her arch nemesis of the year wouldn't acknowledge the fact that she was not just a number.

'He's Ames White.' she reasoned, still pacing along the roof silently. 'He hates me, and I hate him. So why did I flip out? If there was a book dictating all that was to happen during those times we're in the same room and not fighting, it would say that he is to call me 452, and I am to call him White. It's that simple.'

'Then why does it not seem that simple?' an uncertain voice asked from tits place within the back of her mind.

Max sat down on the tiled rook, laying her arms on her brought up knees, her head moving to rest of her arms.

'I'm stressed.' She thought, nodding to herself. 'That's it, I'm stressing myself, and he's not helping.'

'We don't get stressed!' a sharp voice said, one that was buried far deeper then the first. 'We pull through everything without error! Without stress!'

'I know.' Max thought, wrapping her arms around her legs tightly. 'I know.'

Ray sat down on his bed, lying down slowly so that the frame wouldn't creak. He had heard and watched the whole thing from the other side of the door.

At first he was going to open the door for them, realizing Becky must have given his father a key for one of the older locks, but then they started fighting. He couldn't help but listen in, and instantly felt his stomach clench when Max didn't say anything back. He'd been around her long enough to know that she never gave up and it was never anything good when she gave in by begin absolutely silent.

He'd watched his father pace for a few minutes in their room before going to bed, and Ray took the idea as a good one and silently moved to his own room to follow his fathers' example.

That was before he heard it.

It wasn't a loud noise, but it was a noise non-the-less, a noise that sounded like it was coming from the roof.

That was where he found her, pacing through the snow atop the roof like some kind of wild cat being teased with meat on a stick on the other side of a chain link fence.

He watched silently as she sat down in the snow and looked off into space.

Now that he though about it, he couldn't help but admit that she looked extremely lost, sitting there alone in the cold and the darkness of the night.

'She'll never look like that again.' Ray thought, staring at the green glowing starts he had put onto his ceiling in the formation of the star consolations. Like the ones back in Max's room in Seattle that he had put up for her before he left…

"I'll make sure she never looks like that again."

"Brother."

"Brother."

"The two are now staying in a motel in down town Langley. They believe she is within the vicinity of the city."

"Good job. Stay close to them. Help will be there soon.

"Thank you."

"Fen'es'tol."

"Fen'es'tol."

End Chapter Eight

Once again, in the timeline, that would be Monday night and early Tuesday morning.

Kelzaa –

Thank you, I hope you thought this chapter was good too. And as for Ray playing cupid, well, you'll have to wait and find out later. Thanks for the review!

Jen Drake –

Thank you! I hope you liked this chapter too.

angelofdarkness78 –

Thank you! I'm sorry this chapter a somewhat shorter then the others… But I thought that I'd post something up before I go to school next week. And I seriously hope no do-gooders go come a report me! Then I'll have to start ALL over. That would kill me. So lets pray I have some kind of luck on my side! -lol- Thanks for the review!

Aurora –

Thank you for your advice. And I'm happy you like Kitz, makes me think he's coming off as a real cat… I don't know how to write about kittens because I have dogs that like to eat cats. And I put the walking at nighttime… That way the people after them don't see them… See, I have the ability to plan things ahead in this story. ANYWAYS – Thank you for the review! I hope you liked this chapter as well.

Right, really short chapter, I know… And I feel kind of bad for not making it longer, but it's served it purpose. Now you know what's happening, and I believe I left a cliff hanger or something to tie you over somewhere in there… Anyways, Reviews are beautiful things!

-Kasumi