A/N: I hope that you all enjoy this "faster update than normal" chapter, because I had to type it twice.


Joanne Foster was in trouble and she knew it. Huddled under several musty, dusty old military jackets, she sat before a computer in the top floor of an abandoned warehouse by a sea that was only just beginning to calm. The windows behind her captor were just beginning to glow with the telltale signs of a rising sun. The slats in the blinds angled the light in just a way that dust particles glimmered in the air. Even though Alex Mercer had given her all night to find what he wanted, even by the late hours of the morning she'd been unable to deliver.

What she'd found had been fascinating enough, but none of it had been answered any of the questions that Ragland posed. There was plenty of information available on Redlight, but Blacklight-DX1118 leads were taking her only to dead ends. It was actually quite suspicious, being that it appeared information had been there at one point. It was becoming a tedious time waste, she surmised. Rubbing her eyes, she turned slowly in her chair to eye the only other occupant in the room.

Blacklight was lazily skewed over the chair as though he'd flopped that way into the cushion and long ago sunken into a deep slumber. His face was peaceful, the muscles relaxed. His chest rose and fell in small, rhythmic breaths. She was so sure that he was asleep that she rolled the chair closer for inspection. By nature she was an overly curious sort. After all, she was a journalist.

She looked at him more closely now, and noted the pallor of his skin and the dark circles under his eyes that curled deeply to form a canyon between his cheeks and his eyes. Maybe he was dying, she wondered. He certainly appeared to be. He could be infected with what was going around, she thought, curling back a little with repulsion. Although, when he held her down just hours ago, there'd been an uncanny strength in him. Could a seriously ill, dying person do that? She wasn't sure, and tilted forward in her seat to get a closer look again.

They always did say that curiosity would be the death of her.

She'd blanked out for a moment, perhaps from the exhaustion. She wasn't sure how long he sat there staring right back at her. When she refocused she became acutely aware that she was hovering over her murderous captor like a scientist ogling through a microscope. It was a wonder that he simply sat there and returned the passive stare. Her hackles rose, conscious of one of her knees touching his only because now he seemed very much awake.

"Good morning," she croaked, swallowing. His eyebrows didn't furrow into that perpetual scowl, and for this, she figured herself lucky. Yet, the smoothness of his expression did nothing to sap the eerie feeling his stare produced within her, and she found herself slowly rolling her chair away without making it obvious.

"I… was unable to… to find what you needed," she whispered, unable to remove her eyes from his for fear she'd miss a telltale twitch that might give her warning to her unfurling demise.

"So you really were a waste of time?" He grumbled. His voice was hoarser than usual, but strangely, didn't hold any malice in it. He slowly righted himself in the chair, slouching right into the back of it and letting his hands drop lazily into his lap.

"No!" She spat. "Maybe there just isn't anything to know. Maybe Blacklight's just a stupid biological weapon. Maybe that's all it was. Just some… stupid… petty idea cooked up in a fucking lab." She stopped when Mercer's eyebrows had risen up into his hood. Something grumbled from within his chest, and she felt goose bumps prickle along her arms thinking it was a growl. It occurred to her a little late that he'd just chuckled. As soon as she'd realized it, the air about him had already become densely serious. He leaned forward then, propping his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.

"There weren't any files that specifically detailed the process of finding or creating Blacklight?" He asked, his skill at maintaining eye contact steadily unnerving her.

"No," she sulked. "If there had been, don't you think I would have, oh, I don't know, said something? I already told you-" Mercer stood and snatched her jaw in one fluid, painful motion. He pinched her face in his hand. The tendons in her neck tensed against him and she felt her jaw lock awkwardly.

"You're a little low on the food chain to be mouthing off at me, Foster." He threw her back into the chair so hard the furniture flipped over backwards, spilling its contents onto the floor in a tumble of limbs and hair. It happened so fast that she'd not even been able to yelp. Her head was the first thing to crack against the tiled floor. Stars spun under her tightly closed lids, and a headache sprang up immediately at her temples. She stood up slowly, eyeing him as he crossed to the door. It'd hurt, and tears of pain had sprung to her eyes.

She was carefully setting the chair upright when a huge explosion rocked the building. The boom had sounded below, shaking the structure at its core. Bits of dry wall dribbled from the ceiling and dusted everything within the room. Foster's already unsteady legs had been shaken out from under her, and she'd crumpled to the ground in her disorientated state. Mercer's clammy, warm hands grabbed her and an arm snaked around her waist and hastily pulled her up. Another explosion tore into the structure, and Foster could only think how odd it was that the man was completely unshaken and in perfect balance with the building crumbling all around them.

"What's going on?" She choked out.

"This is why Eric suggested we take your pathetic hacking skills elsewhere," Alex whispered, and a chill crawled up her spine when she realized she was trapped against him. He reeked of rotted flesh and felt sickly warm, like someone fighting a fever. Panic ran through her at the thought of catching whatever he had, be it what was going around or possibly something else. She angled her shoulder into his chest and pulled away, but he hissed something at her and edged toward the window. Both of them peeked through the blinds to see a tank and several men propping bazookas on their shoulders down below.

"Shit," Foster gasped. Mercer was comfortably silent, analyzing the situation. It took her a moment to shove the panic elsewhere and notice this when a third explosion pounded the structure. Something within the building whined in protest, and before she could comprehend what was happening, the whole building began to slowly topple toward the street. It was a slow tilt at first, warning them of the fall to come. "Alex! Alex!" Foster clawed at his chest, no longer worried about how he stank like rotted bodies and felt of clammy fever. She no longer cared that she might catch his sick. The floor went out from under her and she clung to the only stable thing left in the room. Joanne shut her eyes tightly and felt the blood rush from her fingers as they lost feeling while locked in the folds of Mercer's clothing.

She felt weightless as he seemed to spring into flight. She refused to watch, keeping her eyes tightly closed. There was a crash and she was sure they'd broken through a wall. How that was even possible, she didn't want to know. She felt him come into contact with a solid surface again, only to spring off once more. Her heart was going to burst out of her chest at the mere conclusions she was drawing in light of what she felt happening.

At last he landed, and remained so.

"You can let go now," he mumbled, and she felt the words in his chest more than she heard them with her ears. Her eyes opened slowly and from where she was buried against the leather jacket she could see sky and rooftops. Before she could entirely bring herself to unlock her hold on him, he shoved her to the rooftop. She tumbled back hard onto her rear and let out a howl of pain.

"Why are you such an ass?" She cried, rubbing her elbows and slowly sitting upright. She glared up at him through the haze of moisture in her eyes. He returned the glare with far more menacing effect.

"Why are you so pathetic?"

"I'm only human!" Her voice echoed out over the rooftops. He twitched noticeably, opened his mouth to retort, and then clamped it firmly shut. Unbridled fury crossed his face in a wild blaze before her bent forward with inhuman speed and snatched her up by the front of the dusty jackets. His face was inches from hers and she could smell the stank of his foul breath washing over her face. She gagged and turned her face aside, but he didn't seem to notice this. He seethed at her, his nose touching hers.

"Stop," she croaked, when he didn't say anything. She could feel him tremble through the hand that was buried in the front of her clothing. The whole of him shook with burning anger, and he radiated an anger that she didn't understand. "You're overreacting," she reasoned.

"Overreacting?" He bellowed into her face, and he shook her hard with one mighty lurch before tossing her straight down onto her knees. She could feel the cement tear into the exposed skin, and she gritted her teeth. "How the fuck did you intend to survive something like this if that's your excuse?" He formed a fist and struck downward to emphasize his point. She gaped up at him, unable to understand where this pent up rage was bubbling up from.

"It wasn't a thought," she answered, scrunching her expression as she studied him. He was coming undone, like a frayed blanket unraveling quickly because a child had tugged too hard on a loose end. "What's your problem?" She whispered.

"What's my problem," he repeated, flippantly dodging her gaze and looking off into the distance, a sardonic laugh barking into the end of his sentence. "My problem is that you, and people like you, are not worth saving. You're alive, and the people that are worth saving aren't. That's my problem. Explain to me why I should want to preserve a specie that's so pathetic."

"Because everyone deserves a chance."

"Is that right? Everyone? Even those who aren't human?" He tilted his head to the side, staring down at her challengingly.

"What are you getting at?" She mimicked his stare and the tilt of his head, her eyes squinting up at him as she studied his threatening posture. She watched his jaw clench, that glint rise into his eyes, and prepared for another thrashing. Instead, he growled and spun away.

She got up to follow, if only because she knew she'd not be able to outrun him. He took them down the fire escape. Rounding a corner, she recognized the front of Ragland's laboratory. The door slammed shut in front of her, but she'd become accustomed to his lack of manners enough not to be surprised. Slowly opening the door, she entered the threshold only to bump into the back of Mercer. He swiftly spun and shoved her by her shoulder to the floor. She issued a loud yelp and one fierce obscenity, looking up just in time to see him cast her a dignified glare before walking away.


Lily Lapinski had been staring avidly at the clock for some time now. She wouldn't have been able to tell the time, though, for all the other things occupying her mind at the moment. Their backpacks sat to her right and her little brother was curled up beside her on her left. Nesting in her mind were a million worries of varying kinds. Even though she was young, she'd quickly picked up her mother's habits of tending to every detail she could muster up the ability to notice. Still, she knew herself to be inexperienced and fretted over anything she might have missed. Pulling and plucking at her fingernails, she twitched at the slightest disturbance of the silence. The ticking of vermin clambering through the walls, the occasional clank of a water pipe and anything she'd long since become used to all became foreboding signs of danger.

For a long time they'd been sure that the Lapinskis were the only ones left in the apartment complex. She had always wanted to believe that was true until now, when various sounds intermittently presented themselves to make her jump. However, it wasn't until just now, when a loud and hard to miss scraping sound resounded through the apartment, that she'd allowed herself to take any of them seriously. She spun around, waking her brother up in the process. Something dropped from the ceiling and clanked onto the tile. Glancing upward, she saw a man staring down at her from the exposed air conditioning vent.

"Jon!" She squeaked, eyes wide like saucers. Her brother mumbled incoherently as he rubbed his eyes and followed her line of sight.

"G'mornin'," he mumbled, half grinning at the stranger peeking into their living room through the air conditioning vent. His sister turned to stare at him as though she'd never seen him in her life, before looking up at the stranger. Outside, she heard tires squeal against the broken pavement outside the complex, then the soft click as the rumbling engine cut. Lily's heart began to pound as she watched the kind-faced stranger raise an index finger to his lips, signaling her to keep quiet. He motioned her to come under the vent as he began to lower a rope.

The question of whether or not she could trust this stranger with her and her brother's lives ran full circle in her mind several times before a door slammed downstairs and feet began pounding up the flights of stairs. Hastily, she grasped the rope and shoved her brother onto it. It was her instinct to get him to safety first, and right now, the stranger seemed to be safer than confronting whatever herd of strangers were stamping up the steps to their door. Jon placed his toe into the noose on the end and grasped the rope firmly in his hands. The man in the vent pulled up quickly, hoisting her brother into the hole and squeezing him past and out of sight. Lily swallowed hard as the rope was dropped to her. She grasped it quickly and felt him tug her up. 'Pull faster,' she whispered in her mind, begging to be hidden when the door burst open and men spilled in. She had just squeezed into the vent, and she lay trapped beside the stranger in an awkward fashion. He'd frozen, willing everything to remain silent as the men searched their apartment. She was staring at what would be the man's shins, clothed in a thick black material. His boots were smooth, and she was sure that he was a soldier of some kind. Only soldiers wore boots like these after all.

"They're in here somewhere, boys!" An authoritative voice hollered. "Find them!"

Lily shook with ever sharp syllable the man bellowed. Why were they looking for them? Where was mom? Did they have her? The questions crawled below her skin like a sinister parasite teasing her with their elusiveness. She was shaken to the present calamity when someone commented on the spilled milk in the kitchen and some other men yelled from their room about the mess they'd left.

"Looks like they left in a hurry, sir."

"No one's left anywhere, Fenelli. The cameras didn't pick up anyone leaving." She was terrified of that voice. It was sharp and gravelly, snapping attention to him by sheer force of will and power.

There was a loud clank behind her, and she peered up over the edge where the vent became horizontal to see that her brother had face planted and his box had come down with him in his right hand. She tried to glance down as the stranger tensed beside her, but he was in her way. The soldiers must have looked at the hole in the ceiling, because the stranger pushed her up and she made as many awkward attempts to clamber to safety. There was yelling down below and guns fired, but she couldn't bring herself to take recognition of any of it. She ushered her brother forward, and when he didn't move, she shoved past him and began leading the way. She knew he followed by the rhythmic clanking sounding behind her as the vent curved upward.

The sound of something larger shuffling farther behind them came to her ears, and she glanced back to see the stranger following her brother. His face was bleeding and the sight of the blood made her stomach flop around like a flailing fish. She continued up the vent, moving faster now. Her arms and feet pushed against the sides as the angle became steeper. Her muscles burned with the effort of pulling herself up. Her heart pounding and her lungs ready to burst, she was sure she was going to lose her hold and tumble down on top of the two below her.

"Grab the rope," the stranger yelled, and that's when she noticed the black cord trailing down the vent. She grasped it quickly and accidentally kicked someone in the head.

"Sorry!" She gasped, and heard her brother mumble something. As soon as she'd grabbed the rope a force began tugging her upward. She swallowed hard, her throat dry. Her head was beginning to pound along with the rapid beating of her heart. Light came into view, and at the end of it, was a tall, broad shouldered man with a scarred face pulling the chord through the opening with powerful arms.

She stared, wide eyed, at him even after he grasped her by the shoulder and pulled her out of the vent as though she were a cat he was picking up by the scruff. He did the same with her brother, who offered him a similar expression as hers, before offering his hand to the kind, bloody-faced, stranger. The stranger, Lily thought odd, laughed as he was pulled onto the roof. He swayed a bit on his feet before pressing his hand to his ear. The scarred man didn't return the jovial expression. He turned, pointed his index finger toward the sky, and spun a circle. This seemed to put everything into a flurry of motion as men in grey uniforms sprang up from the edges of the roof and started toward a large helicopter perched several hundred feet away. The vessel's blades had been rotating lazily, but now they sped in earnest. They'd been prepped for immediate flight.

Lily and Jon stood rooted to the spot; Lily for fear and Jon out of confusion. The stranger was heading toward the helicopter before slowing to glance back at them. He waved them on, and Lily willed herself to follow. Clasping her brother's hand in hers, she took off toward the helicopter. The stranger settled her in between himself and the scarred man who had two fingers to an ear piece and was speaking into it.

"Acquired targets. Proceeding to safe house." He let go of the earpiece and gazed out the window for a few moments as they took off. Gunfire erupted from the vessel in response to the loud dinging sound that ricocheted off of it. The stranger handed her and her brother large ear muffs that she put on immediately. It effectively quieted the deafening sounds of the warfare and the spinning blades that lifted them quickly into the air. She clutched her brother tightly, who sat there beaming at the revelation of being on a helicopter. She felt a bit of loathing for him and how little he worried, but refused to address the feeling. Instead, she clung to what little safety they had for the moment and hoped that she'd placed her trust in the right people.

"I hope this isn't a mistake," she whispered to herself, wondering where in the world their mother was. Her mumblings went unnoticed beneath the sound of chopping blades and rolling engines.

"Take us on a roundabout," came the scratchy voice of the scarred man over the speakers, and she glanced up at him. He must have been communicating with the pilot, who banked the helicopter so hard to the right that she slid across her seat, bumping into the broad shouldered man. Across his shoulders she could look out the window as see the city far down below. An intense feeling of ill overcame her, and before she could hold it, she vomited. The man beside her didn't jump away in horror, rather, stared down as the vomit rolled across his covered forearm, gloves, across his lap, and dribbled down the other side of the seat. Slowly, he looked at her, and she felt as though under an x-ray of some kind. She couldn't help herself then, and tears sprang to her eyes.

"Sorry," she sobbed, hiccupping. He shook his head, eyes softening somewhat.

"Don't worry about it," she heard over the speakers. She watched him settle into the back of the seats and stare out the windows once more as the helicopter righted and flew straight.

"What's your name?" She heard her brother ask through the speakers. He seemed a little too pleased with the whole concept of talking into a real headset instead of an imaginary one. She followed his line of sight to see him looking up at the bloody faced stranger that had pulled them out of the apartment.

"Morris. Eric Morris," he said. "Try not to talk till we get to where we're going." Her little brother nodded, smiling as he settled into the seat and laid his head on her shoulder. He was prepping to sleep. She wished she could get her nerves to calm long enough to allow such solace. Instead, she sat and fidgeted, worry coursing through her with each rapid, adrenaline filled heartbeat until they finally touched down.