Deceptions: Chapter 6

Chapter Six

You know nothing about the world around you.
It’s not enough broken in two
It’s not enough speaking the truth
~ ‘Enough’, Gravity Kills

Alec was devastated. Hailey, his mate, the woman he took for his life partner, the mother of his child, was nothing more than a manipulative bitch. This can’t be right. She wouldn’t do that, she’s not like that! He couldn’t quite get his head around the things he’d heard, but the evidence was there, strong and solid and too terrible to accept.

Gotta hand it to Logan, he thought dispiritedly, not yet having processed everything he’d discovered and still in a stage of denial, the guy’s thorough.

It was obvious the older man had wanted a back-up plan, something to fall back on in case things went south. And his blackmail material was extensive, well documented and damning.

Alec scrolled back up the list and picked a random clip. He hit play.

“So, do we have a deal?” Logan asked.

“A few conditions, first, but yes, we have a deal,” Hailey agreed.

“Conditions?” Logan repeated with astonishment.

“Yes. I’m doing you more of a favor than you’re doing me,” she said tightly. “I have to do all the work, after all. I think ten thousand dollars would even it out nicely.”

“Ten-thou-!” Logan exclaimed incredulously.

“Too little? We can fix that, if-” she asked innocently.

“No, no. It’s fine. I just want it done. Ten grand it is.” He paused a moment before inquiring, “But tell me, what is it about Alec that you females find so appealing?”

Hailey snorted. “In my world, partner, Alec’s as good as it gets.”

“And the money?” he asked after a minute of contemplative silence.

“Will help tie up some loose ends. That’s all you need to know.” Another pause. “So, we in agreement?”

Alec replayed the message again, resting his head heavily in his hands as Hailey’s voice echoed through the room.

“In my world, partner, Alec’s as good as it gets.”

She never said or implied any care for him – as a person – in the least. He was just an easy way up the ladder of the Transgenic social hierarchy. I was a tool. A means for her to achieve recognition with the others.

He sank back in the chair and massaged his temples, trying to alleviate the pounding within his skull and the tension behind his eyes. I was a tool. A tool. A fucking tool!

Alec couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever come to mean anything to her the way she had come to mean something to him. He hadn’t claimed to love her either, but he’d grown to care for her with time. He’d felt he owed it to her to try; they had a child together and he refused to let his son grow up feeling any dissension between his parents.

Hot tears prickled behind his eyelids and he held them back forcibly.

“And the money?” … “Will help tie up some loose ends.”

A business deal. His life with Hailey had been born of a business arrangement between herself and Logan. A cold, calculated move on her part with monetary compensation. His place in her life, her heart, was all a joke. I was never there, was I? She never cared, not really. A business deal and a tool for advancement and nothing more. She played me like the fool I am. They both did.

-x-x-x-

Logan had time to kill before his midnight rendezvous. At first he drove aimlessly around the city, thinking about his grand plan and his future with Max.

Things had worked out beautifully. Hailey had managed to fix the test results without anyone’s knowledge and set Max up for the inevitable. Inevitable, of course, because Max had somewhat of a hero complex mixed with an astounding guilt complex that made it easy to predict her behavior. She would never have allowed Alec to sacrifice his dreams for her, would have – and did – go so far as to remove herself from the equation without explanation in order to keep him from giving up on what he wanted. Good old Max.

And with her falling out with Alec came the eventual distancing of herself from Terminal City and it’s inhabitants. She removed herself from almost all aspects of Transgenic life and was left virtually friendless, save for Original Cindy and that bonehead, Tetchy, or whatever his name was. It left her vulnerable to his manipulations.

Though Logan wouldn’t call them manipulations, no sirree. More like…helped her fit into the real world. To be the woman she could be with him – gifted, agile, strong; another freedom fighter. Only this time, she relied on him, and not the animals she’d been growing closer to.

Now the final stage of his plan was in motion. Max was practically alone in the world. Her ties to the Transgenics were mostly severed, her relationship with Cindy was strained due to distance and continued involvement with himself and her family was no longer in contact with her (thanks in part to his brilliance and a little pressure and guilting.)

The package he’d retrieved earlier was the last step. New identification papers, passports, plane tickets, all manner of documentation that would help them safely relocate to anywhere in the country. And he planned to move them – as far from Seattle as possible.

Logan pulled up in an empty lot near a secluded patch of beach, stretched out and settled down for a short nap.

-x-x-x-

Hailey’s statements repeated over and over in his mind. The recordings were playing in the background and every so often he tuned in to hear the words. His heart constricted each time she spoke of him as nothing more than a means to a better end. He kept picturing money changing hands, could see her coming home to him with a – was that fake? – smile on her face. He ached to remember a time, any time, when her words or actions may have been genuine. But Alec couldn’t tell. Had she ever been real with him?

He thought back to the night they met.

“Hi there,” a dark haired girl with sparkling grey eyes sidled up to him at the bar and perched on the stool beside him.

Alec ignored her presence, hoping she would get the hint like dozens of others he’d dismissed already. However, that wasn’t the case this time.

“So you’re the infamous 494,” she leaned towards him with a bright smile that faltered as he flinched at the use of his designation. “Erm, Alec, right?” she amended quickly. He nodded, features once again relaxed yet guarded, drawing deeply on his drink.

“I’m 189; go by Hailey now,” she extended her hand in greeting which he pointedly ignored.

“Um, I was wondering if -” she started tentatively only to be cut off when he glanced to the side sharply and gave a semi-smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Look, Hailey, was it? You’re pretty and all and you see nice so don’t take this personally, but I’m just not interested.” Alec turned back around and went back to his drink.

Anyone who knew Alec recognized the closed-off, unapproachable look on his face and knew better than to press him, but Hailey had never been one to back down and she sure as hell wasn’t planning to start now.

“Yeah, about that, listen,” she plowed on temerariously, “I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression. I just got out of a nasty relationship of my own; I’m not looking for a new man.”

At this, Alec looked up and caught her eyes. “So what are you lookin’ for?” he asked edgily, warily.

“I heard you were going through something similar. Thought we could drown our sorrows together,” she said emotionlessly, nodding her head at the half-empty bottle of alcohol on the bar between them. “Just two people having a drink.”

He chuckled mirthlessly. “You don’t give up, do you?” The annoyance wasn’t lost on her but she just shrugged.

“Wouldn’t get all that far in life if I just gave up, now would I?” His answering smirk was encouraging. “Manticore didn’t make us weak and I’m no chump. I know a good thing when I see it.”

Alec frown again. “So I’m a good thing, am I?” he asked with a degree of uncertainty and a half-snort of disbelief. “She doesn’t think so,” he muttered beneath his breath.

“Well then, she,” Hailey stressed disdainfully, “doesn’t deserve you.”

“And you do?” Hard eyes with an edge of sadness locked on hers again.

“Never said that,” she hastily denied, holding up her hands in mock surrender. “But you can’t let her dictate your future, Alec. You deserve to be happy and if she can’t be the one to do that for you, you have to find it somewhere else. Live for yourself.”

Alec passed her the bottle in silent acceptance of her words and they proceeded to get drunk. The night passed in a blur, conversation forgotten and events hazing from exhaustion, mental anguish and moderate intoxication.

That seemed genuine enough. Neither party had proclaimed dying love or adoration. They’d simply used each other to mute the pain of rejection, right? Or was it all part of the game? he wondered, bleakly, unsure of what real and what was not.

-x-x-x-

Hailey was glowering as she made her way out of Terminal City. It wasn’t easy evading the patrols, but she didn’t want anyone enquiring after her late night excursion outside the compound. If word got back to Alec, there would be questions. Questions she wasn’t ready to answer, considering she hadn’t had enough time to prepare.

Damn you, Logan Cale! She scowled fiercely in the darkness, face pinched with anger. He knows I can’t be running around at all hours! I’ve got that brat to take care of and people to answer to, damn it! But while she raged internally at the lateness of the hour, she couldn’t fault his timing.

Hailey had good reason for insisting on a cash payoff from the wealthy hacker. Aside from the man’s flush financial state, making him an easy target – desperate people will do crazy things, after all – she had a payoff of her own to make and needed the money very soon.

She thought back to her last meeting with the angry young man to whom she was in debt.

“Where’s my money, 189?” he growled impatiently.

“I’ll have the rest of it by the end of the month, Jay, I swear!” she pleaded for an extension.

“Listen, sweetheart, you agreed. Now you’re fucking delaying and it’s pissing me off.”

“Jay, I swear! Gimme three weeks and I’ll have it for you in full.”

“You better, 189, or that brat of yours is dead. I should never have let you keep it in the first place. Shoulda killed the bastard when I first found out.”

“It’s a he and his name is Kaie,” she retorted defiantly. “And if you ever lay a hand on him I’ll kill you myself.”

Jay laughed. “With what, a diaper? Toots, you couldn’t beat me if I were blind and had a peg leg, and you know it. I’ve always been better than you, stronger. It’s how we got into this mess in the first place. And I don’t care about the kid. He’s not mine.”

His eyes dared her to challenge him.

“Unless that money doesn’t make it to me in three weeks’ time. After that, all bets are off, baby. And that kid’ll find out what it’s like to be on the wrong end of my fists.”

Hailey had never loved her son, never wanted kids to be honest, but when she’d discovered she was pregnant she couldn’t find it within herself to terminate the pregnancy. She’d made the mistake of telling Jay and he’d used that information to blackmail her with. He’d demanded ten thousand in cash, small denominations, no less, and as soon as the child was born. She’d barely managed to hold him off until now.

She quickly slipped through the fence at the far end of Terminal City and made her way stealthily towards Seattle’s city center.

-x-x-x-

Alec continued down memory lane, every step into the past more painful that the one before it.

They coupled more times than he could count and he was amazed at his stamina, given the amount of alcohol they’d consumed. But it was a way to try and numb the pain; he lost himself in Hailey and she in him, until they’d collapsed boneless and drained, and passed out tangled together in the damp, sticky sheets.

The morning after, Alec awoke to find himself in Hailey’s apartment, naked, smelly and disgusted with his actions. He rose quickly, dressed and vowed to forget the night had ever happened.

Which he did. Until she approached him weeks later with a statement that had him reeling:

“I’m pregnant.”

His entire relationship with the girl was in question and he hated the suspicion that was churning in his gut, the tingle of dread; that heavy, tight, hot and cold feeling he got whenever he questioned her motives and thought hard on other situations they’d been in, in the past.

They were hanging out at Crash with a group of friends from TC. Mena, Axel, CeCe and Quinn were talking animatedly about one of the more exciting missions they’d been on back in their Manticore days, exchanging anecdotes and the like. Hailey was scowling darkly at them while Alec was absorbed in the storytelling. She reached out and softly touched his arm. When he looked at her, he caught the fleeting glare but it disappeared and was replaced so quickly with a sweet smile, that he thought he’d imagined it.

“Baby, let’s get out of here. I’d rather spend some quality time with you,” she purred seductively.

Now he knew. He hadn’t imagined it; she’d really been glaring at his friends. How many other things, situations and conversations did I ignore or pretend never happened? What else did I turn a blind eye to just to keep my fantasy intact?

Alec had wanted so badly to be loved, to know he was cherished the way he’d cherished Max. He had tried to find that with Hailey, used her to fill the hole in his heart that Max had left when she ripped him wide open with angry, hateful words that night long ago. He’d been so desperate to fill the void that he’d taken his mate’s words and actions at face value.

Sucker.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, they say, and Alec was seeing clearly, way too long after the fact. Well, to be fair, he hadn’t exactly been over the moon when he’d asked Hailey to get serious with him; he’d done it for Kaie. But Alec still recalled a conversation with Axel long ago. And he wished more than anything that he hadn’t been so noble and had followed Axel’s advice.

Axel looked speculatively at Alec before shaking his head. “That girl’s bad news, Al. End it before someone gets hurt.” The unspoken ‘You’ came though loud and clear.

“Just lay off, Axel,” Alec protested defensively. “She’s not that bad; you just don’t know her.”

“Al, you’re my best friend, man, and I don’t wanna hurt you, but understand this,” he took a deep breath, “I don’t think I want to know her. She’s nasty to everyone but you.”

“Max was a bitch to everyone, too,” Alec insisted fractiously.

“Max was bitch-y,” Axel said pointedly, “But she was never outright nasty and hateful. Hailey isn’t right for you, man. You’re just too blind to see it! What freakin’ spell did she cast on you, huh? Cuz I don’t recognize you anymore, bro, and I don’t like it.”

“That’s enough!” Alec hissed angrily. “You don’t get it, Ax. It’s – she- our,” he faltered, swallowed hard and his gaze turned stony, “It’s complicated.”

“Alec, the only thing complicated enough to tie you down would be-” Axel’s eyes widened in comprehension. “Aw, hell! Fuck all, Alec!”

Alec nodded miserably and returned to cleaning and sorting the ammo.

“Just keep this between us, okay, man? I don’t want anyone to know.”

Axel stared sympathetically at his friend. Of course he wouldn’t want anyone to know. He’d been trapped brilliantly, whether deliberately or not, and Alec hated not being in control. He considered it a weakness.

“‘Course I got your back, bro. I always do.”

Alec felt overwhelmed by the enormity of his discovery. His mate’s betrayal, Logan’s manipulations, his own stupidity and – if he admit honestly – denial of facts and signs over the past year, were hard and bitter pills to swallow. Owning up to one’s own mistakes is never easy, and to find he’d been played so perfectly burned like acid.

I’ve gone soft, he thought in disgust. I let love, or the prospect of love, screw me up royally. I never learn, he reflected bitterly. You’d think the mess with Rachel would have taught me something.

He shakily rose to his feet and crossed the room to Logan’s liquor cabinet. Yanking it open, he reached for a couple bottles of Logan’s finest, pre-Pulse scotch, ripping the lid off one and swallowing a large part it’s contents in one swig.

Drunk. Must get drunk.

His mind was working overtime, thoughts, feelings and emotions swirling angrily within. Alec felt overloaded and lost, and so very alone.

He sank to the floor and leaned against the couch as he poured the remaining fiery liquid down his throat like water.