A/N- I said a week but no one emailed me pouts . Are people still reading this?
Anyway. Here's the next part. Last part. Only an epilogue to follow next week.
Wow this is actually really hard. Just so's you know. TISSUE WARNING!!!!!!
Chapter 21b- Game over
Dek and Ben flanked Max and White looked up into their hard eyes, his face twisted and angry.
"Body guards," he sneered, "or guard dogs?"
He reached up and snapped his fingers and two cult members raced over, their faces impassive.
Max pouted, her body sagging and her mouth dripping blood down her shirt. "How come you guys don't come when I click my fingers?"
Dek gave her a smirk. "Who says we don't?"
Ben eyed him. "Speak for yourself, bro, takes a little more than that to get me revving."
"Too much information, thanks," Max said with a twist to her lips.
"Ok," Dek said, wriggling his shoulders. "I'll take the ugly one."
"Right," Ben nodded and regarded the three men in front of him. He paused and turned back to Dek. "Can you be a bit more specific?"
Dek rolled his eyes. "The one on the left."
"Ah," again Ben paused, "your left or my left?"
"My left!"
Ben waited a beat. "So which one do I get?"
Max raised her eyes heavenward and looked apologetically at Ames. "See what I have to work with here?"
White wasn't sure what to say to her teasing and merely snarled. "You should have all been eradicated from the gene pool!"
"So says a man who can't get it up," Dek mocked and looked at Max, "can we kill 'em now?"
"Please do," Max punctuated her words with a roundhouse punch at Ames White.
White snarled at her as he ducked the punch once again and back-handed her.
Max tumbled aside, tripping over a discarded metal drum with less than feline grace. She impacted with the floor and had to bite back a scream as something happened to her leg to make it scream in agony.
Max looked down, her vision blurring to see the tip of a Caltrop spike punch through her jeans, soaking the black material with thick dark liquid.
White mocked her as he sauntered around the drum, bending to grab a steel bar, probably the one that Dek had dropped not so long back. He leapt on top of the drum and glared down at Max who lay winded on the floor.
"Pitiful excuse for a species. I will take delight in wiping you all out."
"Asshole!" Max wheezed, the pain in her leg excruciating.
White merely grinned as he brought the bar down, hacking viciously down towards Max.
She was able to roll out of the way, just in time, and the bar slammed into the drum, pushing the rounded metal and unsteadying White who fell off backwards.
Max reached down and yanked at the metal spike in her leg, gritting her teeth so hard her head explode in pain. She threw the spike at White who had recovered enough to fend off the projectile.
"Why won't you just die?"
Max smirked. "Heaven won't have me and hells afraid I'll take over. What's your problem, Ames? Daddy didn't love you enough?"
He reared to his feet and aimed the bar at her again.
This time she knew she wouldn't be able to duck or roll, there was no room and so she brought both hands up, waiting for the descent and grabbed the bar with both hands, twisting it out of his grip.
Her hands stung as the metal resonated in her palm and her grip slackened. By the time she had her hands under control White had picked up another shard of metal and they faced each other like two duellists.
They circled each other cautiously, knowing that they were evenly matched.
Max let her eyes sail slightly over his shoulder to where Dek and Ben were working as a tag team to annihilate the members of the cult. Her eyes drifted a little further and her eyes softened.
"You've lost," she said, pinning him with a sure smile.
White allowed her circle him around until he could see what she had.
Whilst he had been so intent on fighting the ever-annoying 452 his fellow cultists had been doing their damned best to destroy everything else. They had allowed the fighting to rush out into the streets and some curious and too-dumb-to-procreate humans had gotten in the way.
Mole stood, Bertha in front of him as he shielded one of the humans from a cultist's rifle range, his cigar hanging from his mouth as he defended one of the people who had tried to kill him.
Zane stood by him, herding humans towards an alley where they could escape.
Neither of them saw what both Max and White saw—a hover drone with camera mounted to its front, taking pictures for prosperity.
Max smiled, despite the agony she was in. "Even if you win, even if you take us all out. You've lost. Humans have seen what you are, what your agenda is. No matter what happens here today they'll hunt you all down. There's more of them than there is of you and humans can be pretty tenacious. Think Auschwitz, Ames. You and yours hunted down by those you look down on and experimented on. You're about to become very unpopular."
It was with a sinking heart that he realised she was right. He could see the way the tide was turning in this fight, transgenics already ganging up and taking out the cult in droves and not giving up, protecting each other and those humans.
He had thought that he and his would one day be the superior species on the planet and they would be respected and revered. In less than two months the cults carefully laid plans had unravelled and he would be hunted, ostracised and dissected by the vermin he had thought to usurp.
He was beaten.
But damned if he wouldn't take as many of these filthy scum-sucking vermin with him as he could.
His pocket suddenly felt so heavy with the burden of what he knew he would have to do and he tightened his grip on the bar.
"I'm not done yet, 452."
Max stared at him for a long moment. "Yes you are."
She swung the bar like a star baseball player and he brought his up in time to block her swing. And the next.
And the next.
Max slashed and swung the bar like a sword at White and each time White managed to block the blow. He wasn't attacking and it took Max precious seconds to work out why. He was herding her, like a sheep. Every time she took a step forward he was positioning her. Max froze and she saw the instant he realised she had caught onto it.
"Not so very stupid," he allowed and shifted back. "But I think we're done here, 452." He reached behind him, letting one hand free of the bar. Before Max could swing, he'd dropped down and grabbed a gun from an ankle holster and aimed it at her.
The gunshot echoed in the courtyard and Max dropped the bar, her whole shoulder growing numb.
White smirked as she staggered back and dropped to her knees, her injured leg not able to stand her weight as she fell.
He stood over her and looked down. "I wish we could have continued this, 452, but I have a new mission now. Rats shouldn't be allowed to leave a ship but, in this case, I think that the end justifies the means. Oh, you didn't think we knew of your…mothers and babies plan?" he laughed as he taped her forehead with the barrel of the gun. "Did you ever study earth history? You know that the Black Death was caused by rats but didn't wipe out the rats, I think it's time to redress that balance."
He smiled, almost sentimentally and brought the gun up with a stinging pistol-whip and as blackness drowned Max she heard a scream.
Sounded like her name.
All Alec remembered of the few moments after Dek's frantic scream down the radio was pure, blinding fury and pain.
Drew would later tell him that he was like some dervish doling out blows and fists like candy. He felled several cultists before he couldn't take any more and turned away, racing for the gates of Terminal City.
No one blamed him.
Drew took up command and ordered a combined strike, the transgenics banding together to fight the common enemy.
Alec was impervious to all of this as he tore through the streets of Terminal City, his heart pounding as loud as his feet as his thoughts centred on reaching Max.
Max.
They had spent so long circling around each other back in Seattle and had fought hard on the outside, now things were all right for them he didn't want to lose her, couldn't lose her.
He skidded as he rounded a corner and his feet slid out form under him, his trousers tearing as he went down.
Letting out expletives that would have had Skye soaping his mouth Alec hauled himself to his feet, brushing grit from his hands as he started to move again.
Which was when he heard it; a low groan of pain coming from a pile of debris in the centre of the courtyard.
His heart screamed at him to ignore it, to race to find Max but his head and the sense of honour Max had instilled in him told him to at least look.
He scurried over to the rubble cursing loudly.
"If this is a cultist I swear I'll rip off your damned head!" His hands reached for a large stone and he hauled it over his shoulder before grabbing another piece.
There was a patter of footsteps behind him and Alec swung to see Isacar racing by.
"Isacar, help here!" he called but the boy didn't stop.
"Can't!" he yelled as he headed for a doorway nearby. "Feen and Techie are in trouble."
Alec's heart sunk. Feen and Techie and Max. Why were things going so wrong all of a sudden?
Hang on.
Feen was on the aerial team that meant that whoever was under here was also on that team.
Hands shaking now, Alec pulled the stones away faster, sharp edges tearing his hands as he worked, sweat trickling down his back and pouring into his eyes, blinding him as he frantically tried to help a friend.
As he moved one large piece that looked like an engine part he saw a swatch of blond hair, fine and pale caked with dirt.
He tore away more rocks his brain frantically trying to identify the person. Was it Sunny? No she'd been on the security team. Damnit, why couldn't he remember?
It wasn't until he heaved aside the sheet metal and looked down at a very bruised and battered face that he saw who it was he was saving.
Zan.
The man who had betrayed his secrets to a serial killing psychopath, who had done his best to get Alec's girl, who had turned on him without a second thought.
Zan was here bleeding to death and Max was somewhere dying without Alec being there.
He had a choice here.
He could walk away now, run to Max and be with her if she was dying, he could be at her side and get her to the infirmary and be with the woman he loved.
Or he could choose to save Zan, take him to the infirmary and give him a chance to live while Max was without him.
Alec stopped and stared down at the fine blond strands, coated with blood and ash and grease, and chose.
Isacar raced up to the tower and bolted onto the roof. As his lungs burned her vowed to stop reading so many books and get some damned exercise.
The sunlight is fading to a dim glow as he makes it out onto the rooftop and his chest burned as he saw Techie slumped over the still form of Feen.
He swore, long and low and edged over to Techie, barely noting the man laying inches away, bleeding slowly.
"Tech?"
At the sound the man jolted back, tears streaming down his face. "She's dead, I couldn't—she's gone."
Isacar's own eyes filled up at the raw pain on Techie's face. He looked like his heart was broken, shattered into pieces at his feet, the shards scattered among the red.
"What can I do?" Isacar asked helplessly, as tears tracked Techie's cheeks. He edged over to Techie and touched his shoulder.
Techie seemed lost, not knowing what to say. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he looked up like a lost soul at Isacar.
"I don't know, she'd always tell me."
Isacar swallowed the lump that blocked his throat and wiped at his damp cheeks. "I know, Techie, I'm sorry."
There was a screech from overhead and they saw the hover drones lift into the air, taking in the final battle and enabling those at Headquarters to better see the battle. He knew that there was still one helicopter out there, badly damaged but, with the improved drones, they'd find it and get rid of it easy.
The tide of the battle had turned and soon it would be time to take care of the injured and count the dead.
Techie dragged his fingers through Feen's hair, getting tangled in the strands and coming away soaked with blood and dirt.
"Tech?" Isacar asked again and he sighed.
"Can you take Aiden down to med bay? He's got a shot but I don't want to leave . . . leave her."
"Sure." Isacar knew that no matter how heavy Aiden was, he would find a way to leave Techie to his grief. He placed a hand on Techie's shoulder. "She knew you loved her, you know that, right?"
Techie smiled gratefully up at him. "Yeah, I know. But thanks."
"I'll be back," Isacar said desperately, hating the defeated look on Techie's face. "I'll help you carry her back down. I will be back."
Techie patted Isacar's hand. "Good friend."
Isacar nodded hesitantly and leaned down to pick up Aiden, grateful for transgenic strength even as he cursed the man's dead weight against his slight body.
Techie watched as Isacar struggled with Aiden's body, staggering over to the door and hauling him over his bony shoulders before heading down the stairs. Poor Aiden would probably end up with broken ribs and a bashed head, but at least he'd be alive.
Unlike Feen.
Techie knelt down by her side and touched the rapidly cooling skin and hating the blue tinge to her lips; or maybe he was imagining it.
Manticore knew, he wished he was imagining this; imagining her gone.
There was no Feen left here, she was gone; that spark that he loved about her, the parts of her that made her alive, made her bounce and shine and just . . . Feen, they were all gone.
Leaving a shell that was cracked and broken and so damn fragile.
Feen had never been fragile, not ever so this couldn't be Feen. Couldn't be. He had to be dreaming. Please. Please.
The staccato rhythm of gunfire made him look overhead to where the helicopter was in furious battle with several ground-force enemies and Techie knew that he had to get out of here, get back to central command and his responsibilities.
He knelt and picked Feen up, letting her body drape over his arms like delicate silk, her red hair drifting down to brush against his hip, the silken tresses still absurdly soft. Shouldn't they be brittle? Shouldn't everything about her be hard and cold, not lukewarm and soft, supple; like she had just fallen asleep?
He closed his eyes in sheer pain and leaned down to kiss her forehead, a sharp pain searing through his heart.
He sniffed and shook tears out of his eyes as he stared at her body; a body that was suddenly covered in far more blood that it should have been.
Was she still bleeding? That meant that she was alive.
There was a moment, just a nano-second, of hope, of joy, of belief until he looked down at his own chest.
The crack he'd heard hadn't been his heart breaking; the pain hadn't been the organ shattering into a thousand pieces.
He'd been shot.
A laugh bubbled out of his mouth as he fell to his knees, still managing to cradle Feen against the chest that was pumping out thick, red blood.
It kind of figured that Feen had made him hurt more than being shot. Damn it was a good shot too, straight through the chest, fatal wound. He'd have, maybe, seconds.
Precious seconds.
He placed her gently to the ground and tucked her coat around her tighter, wanting her to keep her warm as long as possible, even as his chest erupted in a blinding agony, the pain almost making him blackout.
Techie doubled over, dripping precious life-water onto her. His hands shook and he fell next to her, his hands seeking out hers.
He stared at her closed eyes and smiled sadly.
He was a little slow, but he'd always followed her eventually.
Awareness swung back to Max in fits and starts; a red haze, a blanket of white sifting behind her eyes and faces peering down at her.
"Max, Max, Max?"
She had no idea that her own name was so damned irritating, especially when she wanted to sleep.
"Max, Maxie?"
She muttered something impolite and tried to catch that elusive slumber again, but the hand currently tapping her cheek and poking at her body make it uncomfortable, if not downright impossible.
"All right, dammit!" she growled and opened her eyes, squinting against the bright sunlight.
She blinked. "Dek?"
Dek breathed out, his hands shaking. "Shit, Max, don't do that to me."
"Wh—?" in a flash it came back, along with a blinding ache in her shoulder. "That son of bitch!"
"Yeah, you're lucky he's a crap shot, Max," Ben said from behind her. "A few inches lower and we'd be crying at your funeral."
"Only the good die young," Max bitched as he ripped a shirt into pieces and started to bandage her shoulder.
There was something swimming around in Max's subconscious—something that was serious.
"Wait- where's White?"
"Son of a bitch got away," Ben muttered. "Turned tail and ran, like a big old rat."
Rat? Max frowned, her brain grasping at threads of thoughts that meandered around.
"Rats shouldn't be allowed to leave a ship but, in this case, I think the end justifies the means."
"Rats?" Max swiped at her face, smearing blood across one cheek.
"Hey, Max, how many fingers am I holding up?" Dek looked worriedly at Ben and waved a hand in front of Max's face at her random words.
"Move it or there'll be one less," she muttered and he looked more relieved.
"Maybe we should get you to the infirmary, things are winding down now, should be safe to start seeing to the injured."
Ben glanced behind him. "So much death, at least they're not all ours, we kicked ass!"
"Did you ever study Earth history? You know the Black Death was caused by rats but didn't wipe out the rats?"
"Ain't over yet. Our new mission is to seek out those who have been injured," Dek laughed in relief, finishing tucking the bandage into Max's shirt and looking around at the few remaining battling couples.
"I have new mission now."
"Maybe we should call some of the others back to help?" Ben suggested. "I hate getting my hands covered with blood."
"Oh, you didn't think we knew about your mothers and babies plan?"
"Okay," Dek grinned. "But you get to tell Cece that she's got to clean up."
Ben shuddered.
Max shook her head. There was something she should be putting together here. Something that was essential, if those two idiots above her would stop talking for one second.
"Do you think we should check see if any of the ordinaries were shot? Might bring the wrath of the army down on us if they were?"
Ben considered Dek's words. "Nah, we'd only get in trouble for poisoning their asses. This place is still toxic to humans."
Toxic. Toxic to humans.
The virus, the bio-toxin that the cult had created to rid the world of humans and then modified to kill transgenics was still out there
"The first trial failed so spectacularly that they had to evacuate the whole city…killing hundreds of ordinaries… They based the virus on the specific gene sequence that Sandeman had uncovered… everyone who didn't have that particular gene sequence would die… they were the ones to poison Terminal City and they did it because of us."
"The Black Death was caused by rats but didn't wipe out the rats."
"I have a new mission now."
What use would it have been if they didn't have it on hand as a fail safe?
"This place is still toxic to humans."
"The cult created the virus to threaten humankind and later on to rid the world of us abominations. The Pulse happened before they could finish the virus and when all systems shut down, it escaped."."
Who better to infect than those who were going out into the world; those who weren't prepared to fight, those who'd head out, unaware that they carried the infection and would join others of their kind with safety in numbers in mind.
"Time to redress the balance."
"Rats shouldn't be allowed to leave a ship… oh you thought we didn't know about your mothers and babies plan?"
They'd pass on the infection and eradicate the transgenics like the rats who carried the plague—but this time the rats would die too.
"They were the ones to poison Terminal City and they did it because of us."
"And they plan to do it again."
Max sat up abruptly, her shoulder and leg both screaming in agony. "Skye!"
Dek looked at her oddly. "Nooo, Dek and Ben."
"No f—" She didn't have time to explain. Max tried to get to her feet but was stopped by Dek.
"Hey, now, Max, you aren't in any condition to—" he faltered at the look that crossed her face. It reminded him of her back at Seattle when everyone had turned against her and she was out for blood.
"Okaayy," he hedged and pulled her to her feet. Max's vision swam as she tried to stand on her injured leg.
The world spun and she almost fell back on the floor again.
"Gun," she growled and Dek handed over the Glock he had managed to hold onto.
"Max?"
There would always be a part of Max that Manticore had instilled in her. It was the part that had allowed her to keep on living, to face things that Max didn't think she was capable of. It was the part of her that would drag her up by the throat and make her move, even when all she wanted to do was to give up, to lie down and die. It was the part of her that was primal, the part that wanted survival at all costs.
The part that would do anything to protect herself and the people that she loved.
It was 452.
452 reached deep inside Max and it was her turn to stand up and take over. Max was concerned about the way her leg gushed thick blood, 452 ignored it.
Max felt sharp twinges of pain in her shoulder, 452 felt nothing.
Max worried about Alec, Skye and all her friends.
452 brushed away the panic and the distraction and focussed on the mission.
Find White. Kill White. Destroy the virus.
That was all there was and she would eliminate anything that got in her way.
Dek stumbled back at the blank look that overtook his friends face and frowned as she turned smartly on a broken leg that shouldn't have been able to twist that way.
"Clean up," she ordered over her shoulder. "I'm going after White."
"Wait! Max!" Ben called but it was almost as if she didn't hear him.
Tara had never minded getting dirty. It was a bit ridiculous to worry about a bit of dirt and grime when you were expected to be up to your elbows in blood; but right now all she wanted was a bath.
She had set up the infirmary with the certain knowledge that she would be seeing death and destruction in her own back yard. She knew that it was possible she would operate on, and possibly lose, friends and family tonight, but she hadn't quite grasped the scale of what she was up against.
Within minutes of the first call of battle she had been inundated with the injured.
Broken arms and legs hadn't even featured in her walking wounded, they were all gun shot wounds or severe lacerations. Tara had thanked Manticore every second for the fact that they were all given some sort of medical training because there was no way she could have dealt with this herself.
She'd sewn up cuts and removed bones; she'd pulled out slug after slug and even reattached an entire arm as well as amputating someone's leg. After the third bullet removal Chance was well versed enough to take on those particular injuries herself and had freed Tara up enough for her to perform the most essential and intricate surgeries.
But the beds were filling up faster than Tara could even see and the wounded just kept coming.
One of the younger X series brought in his friend, a green-scaled transgenic with two flippers, one torn off and hanging by mere bloody tendons. Tara had taken one look at him and known, just known that this was one she couldn't be able to save. His breathing had faded whilst his friend was dragging him over from the edge of the city and she had to look down into the eyes of the child and tell him that his friend was dead.
Her throat choked and her eyes stung even as she pushed the emotions back.
"Sorry, Reynolds, he's already gone."
Reynolds looked up at her, his purple eyes filling with tears. "Okay."
His cool yet sad acceptance broke her heart and she reached down to touch his shoulder in sympathy. "I'm sorry."
"Tara?" Chance's frantic voice called her from one side and Tara hurried over as two men brought in what appeared to be a bag of blood soaked skin.
"It's Kelpy," the soldier said. "He's been sliced."
Tara pulled the rags away and almost retched skin came away with the cloths, making a strong sucking sound as the skin peeled away from the body.
"Kelpy, can you hear me?" she asked, taking his pulse, her gloved hands slick with body fluids.
"Hurts!" he whimpered and promptly passed out. Tara motioned for them to take him over to the back of the room and set up a morphine drip to help him with the pain.
"They keep coming," Chance said, her face drenched with sweat and a smudge of blood over her alabaster cheeks.
"The rear guard is over," a soldier said. "Pix called for them to help Beta West, we're winning."
Tara rubbed her chest as her eyes poured over the hundreds of wounded. "Doesn't feel like it."
"Ain't nowhere near as bad as it could be," the man said brushing a grimy hand over his face. "What do you need?"
"Triage," she said steely-eyed. "We need some system for this. Okay, listen up!" she called and a hush came over the infirmary. "All the walking wounded, those who can stand, I need you to take up positions as nurses. Anyone with any medical expertise at all automatically becomes a doctor. This half of the room in for critical cases only, those with immediate needs. Thos who can wait an hour or two go to this section and those who can't move but aren't in danger of dying today get moved to the next room. Let's get organised."
There was an instant of silence before everyone started to follow her orders and move. A small group of X-series children who had stayed behind to help her out were put on supply and cleaning duty and started to get things moving again.
Tara walked through the infirmary diagnosing patients and directing them to the areas and order in which they'd get treated. She had the power of life and death in her hands and as she made her way across the beds of dying and decimated she felt panic rise in her throat.
"All right, what do we have here?" she questioned, grabbing clean gloves from one of the children.
"Triple gunshot blast to the legs and one to the shoulder," the woman who had brought him in said.
Tara looked him over quickly. "Chance, you get this one."
The dark haired girl nodded and motioned to Roma, one of the impromptu nurses. "Sew this guy up, he's good to go."
Roma dived in with her suture kit and left Chance to follow up.
Tara had moved over to a woman who had her eye gouged out when the doors swung open and Alec ran in, a body over his arms.
"Tara!" he called and she glanced up quickly, passing the patient over to an anomaly she recognised before heading over to Alec who was gritting his teeth.
"Alec…shit, Zan?" Her hands ran over the blond hair draped over Alec's arm.
"Crushed under a fallen helicopter."
Tara's jaw dropped. "What the hell are you guys doing out there?"
"Playing tea parties! What do you think?" Alec swore and Tara gestured for someone to take Zan.
Alec turned to go just as soon as the body was taken away from him but Tara grabbed his arm.
"Where the hell are you going?"
"Max is—" he begun but she cut him off, her eyes intent.
"I need help, Alec. We are way understaffed and I need everyone I can to help me."
"Max is in trouble." He said desperately.
Tara spread out her arms to show the hospital. "Who isn't?"
Alec backed away, his eyes wide and fraught. "I'll do a radio call for help, but I have to go."
"Alec—"
"Sorry!" he turned and ran as fast as he could.
Tara watched him go with her heart in her throat and turned, walking past two rows of men she knew wouldn't last very long, and opened the supply closet, shutting the door behind her and leaning her head against the comforting wooden wall.
Her shoulder shook with silent tears as she stifled the feeling that she was in way over her head. A moment's weakness was all she wanted, to wish that she didn't have to do this, to wish that she wasn't here, but somewhere else, wrapped up with Carrot and not covered in blood and death.
But she was a doctor, the doctor and she couldn't afford this weakness.
She took a deep breath, pulling herself back together and walked back out into the room.
It was bravest thing that she had ever done.
Skye pushed herself back further into the shadows of the dark warrens underneath Terminal City and listened intently to the headset.
She could hear the sounds of battle, the ebb and flow of victory and defeat and the screams of the dying.
Gem and Cece had taken the younger children deeper into the underground bunkers of Terminal City, once built as a nuclear fallout evacuation route. The tunnels had caved in long ago and it had been one of the many jobs that Alec had instigated that the tunnels be cleared so that the 'mothers and babies' could escape.
Affixed to the walls were old fashioned torches; the kind found in gothic horror tales, and Max had laughed as Alec explained that they were not only atmospheric, but essential to any escape plan. The reality was that they couldn't afford to have electricity wired down here and so fire was their next best bet.
The torches cast demonic shadows; flickering demons who danced against the stone walls and gave their flight an eerie, almost sepulchral tone.
Right now they were holding their positions deep in the tunnels, not wanting to run away in case they won and not wanting to be too close to the action in case they didn't.
Icarus had been of great help in persuading the young teens to help and they had more hands to aid than they'd originally assumed, something that was coming in handy when the numbers tripled as more came out of the woodwork. Skye had never seen so many children in her life and wondered, not for the first time, exactly what Manticore had been up to.
She'd heard the order for Drew to join Alec and her hands had clenched as she'd heard the explosions on the aerial front. Knowing that Flex was in Alec's group where they seemed to be hit the hardest made her snap at Cece in frustration and anger and had sent the transgenic off to work with the other expectant mothers.
When Nyx had heard the explosions of the helicopters and the silence from Aiden's team, her jaw had clenched and her eyes had gone hard and cold. Skye grabbed hold of her hand and held her surrogate daughter in fellow feeling as they listened to the news praying for the safe return of the ones they loved.
Then came an explosion that rocked the caverns, and dust and rocks rained down on the fleeing women.
"These caves aren't safe," Nyx announced and started to herd them all to safety, out of the tunnels and into the outside of Terminal City. Skye was so glad that she had someone upon whom she could rely to take care of the front whilst she brought up the rear guard. She had ordered little Zeph to take point with his older sister and that left her and Galen in the back to ensure that they weren't being followed.
Dirt and dust particles caked the air and she wiped smudges of muck away from the boy's cheeks even as he looked up at her with trusting eyes.
"When all this is done, me and you need a bath," she sighed and Galen smiled at her, leaning over to plant a little kiss on her nose, his face lit by the dancing flames of a nearby torch.
Skye smiled at him and hefted him higher onto her hip.
She suddenly heard something coming from the tunnel they'd just left. It was a scrabbling noise, like a large rat or animal. Skye let Galen go and pushed him behind her.
"Stay down," she whispered and Galen nodded, melting back into the shadows like a ghost. It took Skye aback for a second to see him vanish and then her attention was all on what was coming at them from the rear.
She held her gun tight in her grip and edged forwards, allowing her feline eyesight to enhance the dark space.
She scanned the walls and only heard the drips of the damp, running down the stone like Japanese water torture.
A rush of wind made the nearby torch flicker and die down and the light fled. The blackness was disorientating and she bit her lip, wondering whether to march on in fearlessly or hang back and wait for them to come to her.
She edged forward, straining her sense to hear anything, to feel anything.
Then, out of the darkness, something attacked.
Skye didn't even have time to get a shot off before the gun was knocked from her hands to land with a metallic clatter to the floor.
A body rammed into hers and she fell backwards, her legs coming up automatically to deal a harsh blow to whatever it was that had attacked.
A sharp gasp attested to its human nature and as she sprang up her eyes adjusted and she growled.
"You!"
452 raced down the corridor as fast as her leg would allow her, she'd taken precious seconds to tighten the makeshift bandage Dek had made for both her shoulder and her leg. It would do Skye no good if she died from blood loss.
But even 452 couldn't hide from the pain totally. Her eyes rolled back as she slammed into something in the black tunnels and her vision swam, the torches duplicating in her mind until she was sure there was a swath of them in her path, obstructing her from her goal.
Bracing her hand against the wall she pushed herself away, pushed the pain away, dragged the fear down and stamped on it. She didn't have time for this. She had to get to Skye, had to find White—had to end this.
Once and for all.
White smirked at Skye, the blood caking his face making him look feral and deadly. "Look what was made with the cat's leftovers."
He held a gun in his hands and Skye eyed it carefully.
"As opposed to last night's dinner?" she spat back. "Hate to tell you this, Ames White, but you're no picture either. Obviously attractiveness was bred out of you, along with a sense of humanity and, oh yeah, sense of humour."
"Oh, I have a sense of humour, bitch," he snarled as they circled one another, his shaking the gun at her. "And a sense of irony that's hard to ignore. I find this situation here, hugely funny."
"You can't laugh off your own death!" Skye surged forwards and kicked the gun out of his own grasp. It flew into the air and she dove to attack.
The fight was brutal and grunts and gasps echoed in the small cavern as they traded blows, fists hammering into skin as the sound of flesh on flesh reverberated, the crack of a backhanded slap, the thud of a body hitting dirt and the snap of a bone breaking.
The flickering torch flames made the fight a shadow dance on the wall, their two shadows intertwining and drifting into one another until you couldn't tell where one began and the other finished, just endless undulating forms of light and dark, fighting and dancing for their lives.
Skye stumbled back to swipe blood from her split lip as she glared at him, wanting to keep him where he was so that her friends, her family could escape. She would stall him for eternity here in this little alcove if she had to.
White smiled, almost charmingly and reached into his jacket, for a moment Skye's heart stopped as she wondered if he had a gun there and she dropped to the floor, ready to the duck and roll any bullets that flew her way.
But he pulled out a vial and held it in his hands, the lights turning the dark blue liquid into the night's sky, thick and heavy with promise.
"Know what this is?"
"Time for your medication?" she guessed and shuffled back, scanning the ground for their discarded weapons.
"No," he smiled. "Death."
"Funny," Skye spotted one of the guns about three feet away and started to edge back. "I always thought death was a tall guy in black, anorexic looking."
White twirled the vial in his fingers, watching her slide back in amusement. "You animals, think you're so clever. What you don't realise is that you're all dead. My people have won and you are the last front. Even if you kill me now, my army has decimated yours. Terminal City is home to the cult. You're all dead . . . or prisoners."
Skye froze. "You're lying."
"Am I?"
They stopped for an eternal moment, staring at each other like they could read the truth in each other's eyes.
Then White moved, diving for the gun before Skye could twist, he kicked her in the face and grabbed the weapon, rolling in mid-air to point it at her.
He smirked. "Gullible, too."
Skye lay on the floor, her chest heaving as she stared down the barrel of the gun. The other was nowhere in sight and even if it had been she wouldn't have been able to reach it in time.
Steve had died from a bullet wound, how ironic that she would die from the same, almost a year apart.
Maybe there was more to that twin bond than she ever thought.
White sneered down at her. "Which tunnel did the rats scurry down?"
"Fuck you." She wouldn't plead for her life and she wouldn't betray her family. She was Skye; the biggest bitch in Manticore history. She pleaded for no one.
"Useless vermin." He raised the gun.
Out of the corner of her eye Skye saw, as if in slow motion, Max hurtle down the dark corridor, dragging her leg, just a touch too slow.
Her gaze flicked back to White who grinned and squeezed the trigger.
A shot rang out in the cold cavern.
Skye closed her eyes automatically, waiting for the blast of pain, waiting for the hot metal to enter into her and end her life.
Nothing.
She looked up.
His eyes were wide and white, an expression of disbelief on his face as he looked down, down past the dark clothes to the blood splatter on his hands, covering the barrel of the gun.
Blood; thick, red, hot and his.
A gurgle escaped from his lips as Ames White stared down into the sickened face of Skye.
The gun slipped from his fingers and he fell to his knees in front of her, blood pouring from his mouth like a torrent of speech.
Her gaze slid to over his shoulder and to another gun barrel, another set of hands, another cold expression.
Galen lowered his hands and looked up at her with a fierce face, chocolate brown eyes piercing.
"That's my mother," he said clearly and dropped the gun.
The air rushed out of Skye in a burst, a half-sob, as White choked and dropped to lie at her feet.
Skye kicked out at him and he rolled over, away from her.
Galen edged forward and placed his arms around Skye's neck. "Not hurt," he decided and kissed her nose. "Game over now?"
Game? Game?
Oh, God.
Skye nodded frantically, pulling him into her arms and staring at an equally horrified Max.
She stroked his back. "Yeah, Galen. Game's over."
With those words 452 let go and Max slumped to the floor, her legs giving way heart pumping furiously. She dimly heard Alec call her name from behind her and his footsteps race along the corridor, looking to take care of her.
"Max?" he yelled as he saw her on the floor. "God, Max, I heard … are you okay?"
Max nodded as Alec knelt on the floor and wrapped his arms around her. He was there, the battle was over and they'd won.
They'd actually won.
As the lights flickered on the macabre tableau no one noticed a small glass vial roll out of an outstretched hand, the blue liquid bubbling slightly as it rolled over and over, to land in a small pile of dust.
Forgotten.
Please please review. Anyone who has enjoyed the series at all, even if you've never reviewed at all. Please just let me know if there are any loose ends, things you didnt understand thinsg you'd like to see etc...
Epilogue and notes to follow next week.