She thought Alec was probably shot, though she could not know if he was hurt badly… or even alive. God…Alec… She desperately clawed at the floor to get away from White, who was walking closer and closer to her. Horrible bouts of pain shooting up her leg with every movement.
Max wildly glanced around her. There was nothing, no one to help her.
White looked down at her cruelly, pointing a barrel in her face, and she did the best she could to look up at him unwaveringly.
She heard a click and braced herself, squeezing her eyes shut despite herself.
"White!" a voice demanded. Max opened her eyes. Alec!
He was standing with a gun aimed at White's head. Oblivious to the small army of assailants that inched closer, encroaching slowly on him.
"Let her go White" Alec growled menancingly. So coldly and deadly. His eyes glaring, sending off knives in its path.
"Let her go NOW!" he cocked the gun. "Don't think I won't do it. I am not so nice." Alec sneered wickedly. As White and Alec stared each other down, Max could only watch the interaction between them, frozen.
What was going to happen?
Strangely, and in a moment of almost surrealism, White smiled smugly and lowered his gun, walking away.
Max almost let out the breath of air she's been holding, until suddenly White whirled around in the doorway, before stepping out, and muttered drippingly "kill them."
Suddenly, she found herself being dragged across the floor by Alec to a defensible corner of the warehouse, before he was picked off her by the henchmen's hands.
Max had never seen him fight so so primally. He seemed crazy and panicked, out of his mind with anger, flinging men this way and that, head butting, kicking, screaming. It was no where near the Manticore standard of precision fighting.
With his bare hands, he twisted necks and broke their necks. Threw others violently into walls. Smashed into their stomachs and faces with his boot. He roared and raged horribly.
Suddenly, Max gasped as she felt hands gripping around her neck, from an assailant who got by Alec. But she flipped him over with her good leg and sat on him with her weight. She hesitated, but watching with desperation as the swarm of men continued to assault Alec, she too, remorsefully, also twisted and broke the attacker's neck.
One by one, they went down. Alec's fighting grew even more ragged. Until he was swinging dizzily, without much force, wildly off the target. Gasping harshly, he lunged to grab a handgun that was kicked aside, and he took out the five remaining men one by one, in the head.
Max turned away and shuddered at each shot. Disappointed in him. In her. Some of those men were humans.
She heard a clank and saw Alec drop the weapon. His head lolled to the side and his eyes slowly closed.
"Alec!"
His blood was all over the floor. Dripping, still dripping.
Suddenly Max understood why his actions had been so rough. Alec was badly hurt…and she was about to be killed. White knew this and left them to die. And Alec did everything he could to protect her.
Finally, Alec crumpled to the floor.
"Alec?! Alec?!" She crawled closer, dragging her bad leg behind her.
He opened his eyes, and she saw they were filled with tears threatening to break. She had never seen him even come close to crying before. He gasped for air. He turned to look at her. He didn't know what to do. That fight took everything he had to give.
He couldn't believe he had been so strong. It made him realize that keeping her alive was all he wanted in the world.
What was going to happen now? He looked at her, gasping with more desperation for air. Gasping at the horrible thought of going away without her.
Tears dripped from Max's eyes and fell on his face. She didn't know what to say. But she couldn't say anything, if she opened her mouth, she would surely never stop sobbing.
So she roughly grabbed his hand, kissed it, and laid beside him, wrapping around him tightly.
She took out her cell with her free hand, dialed TC.
"I need help now," her voice quiet and strangled.
She turned her attention back to the quieting figure next to her. She held onto him for dear life.