Hello everyone out there reading this! Thank you so much for clicking on my story. This is Chapter 6 of Marked and I love how this is coming along. I hope you do too. :) I apologize for the delay: I'm moving. Either way, here it is.

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Chapter 6: Exit Wound

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A huff of air passed her lips to silently express her irritation as both Max and Zack scoped the buildings just outside of the doorway that led to the roof. Just one step out into the gravel covered surface and there was a huge possibility that they would only be greeted with a kill shot. Through paranoia and self preservation alone, is where they got to where they stood today. For yes, they may be on the run but they were still alive… and that was still something that many others would not ever again be able to say.

Zack made a hand notion in her direction to stay put, hidden within the makeshift cover, and she had to gulp down the feeling that grew upward from her stomach; tightening around her throat and leaving her to gasp for air. She damn well knew that she shouldn't have dragged Zack into her mess, and should have fought against his stubbornness more than what she had. Too late now, Max thought dryly. She couldn't help but be annoyed with herself for going to see him in the first place, for pushing him back into the life of the run but Max also would be kidding herself if she said that Zack wouldn't shadow her just to spite that line of thinking. Still she wished that they could have easily parted ways with a 'Don't you dare die' kind of hug, a tight and comforting embrace before they extracted from each other's arms and went about their lives. Nothing is ever easy, Max have found out in the early stages of her life, and she had no way to know for certain that being apart from Zack really was for best. For either of them.

Max paused in the shadows with clenched teeth, every fiber of her being telling her to get out there on the roof and watch Zack's six - just like they had promised each other years before - but reluctantly did what the man asked of her. Zack was the older brother figure that protected her more than once, the one that assumed the role to watching her back without anyone asking him to. She slowly tilted her gaze down, locking her doe eyes with the blood that oozed from their wounds and remembered how he took those bullets to the back for her - not more than ten minutes ago. He always protected her… she just prayed to the God above that it didn't get him killed.

Max held her breath before releasing it slowly, steadying against the wall behind her before the female X-5 twisted her body to the left and walked out from the cover. Sirens blared from the streets below them, echoing through the air as Max overlooked the Washington landscape that enveloped around her after she stepped into the light. Zack gave her a look, one of annoyance for not waiting until he deemed it was safe but Max thought he was fooling himself. If there was a sniper waiting for them, she was faced with the sad realization that Zack would no longer be breathing. What did he expect for her to do exactly? Retrace her steps and be faced with what awaited them in the building? She thought that she would be able to take down some but certainly not all.

The only one that would be safe from getting hit was the man that stood up to him, stood up to Manticore, and Max didn't even know what he looked like. It was still so unheard of, so unbelievable… that Max had to fight the sudden impulse to laugh. No one had be brave or even stupid enough to stand against Lydecker, and she couldn't help but hope that the man proved to be everything she hoped he was. Different. How long would that last though? How long until that brilliant show of defiance from that one individual would wane? Manticore shown others time and time again (if said others lived in the end, that is) that they weren't above blackmailing, mind warping, and/or killing to accomplish whatever objectives they set out to do. Anyone involved that dared to move on, dared to live a life outside of Manticore - out of a life where you were only regarded as nothing more than a test subject instead of the person that you were born to be… anyone that defied them was hunted down and killed.

Aren't we the lucky ones? Max thought sarcastically; growing even more wary that what she had been because she knew with unwavering certainty, deep within what was left of her very soul, that any attempt they made at a life would lead Manticore to them. Nowhere would ever be safe, not from the likes of them and if they made connections to others - it would only put those people in danger because of them. Shooting a glance sideways at Zack, she cautiously peered her head over the edge to the ground below only for four agents to slowly notice her face and raise their guns upward to take aim.

Max quickly pulled her body back from the ledge, taking two paces backwards with gravel shifting underneath her feet and calming the adrenaline that pounded through her veins. Relax there, Soldier. She eyed the ledge cautiously for what seemed like just a few moments before a scoff left her lips. Either they weren't Manticore or they were rank: Amateurs. Even so, they should have been waiting for us up on the roof. What they didn't make it a requirement to scale a building for 'training' anymore?! "Four." Max gave Zack another side glance, though this one was definitely more amused than the previous one that she offered him. "Newbies, my guess. That or non-experiments. They took a total thirty seconds just to look up."

Zack shook his head softly in response to her cheeky to tone, though the look in his eyes was one that was of fondness instead of in repremendment. Yes, he wished she would be more serious about this but didn't have the heart to speak against what amused her. She grew into a beautiful woman, a free bird that learned to live despite the cage it had been trapped in… it was all he could have ever hoped for Max. For his sister, the woman that he knew instinctively upon meeting her again exactly who she was. Despite her appearance, Max hadn't changed much in their years apart; she still had the sense of right and wrong that combated with the inner steel that she acquired at a young age. She still had her feisty, stubborn edge.

"Amusement about Lydecker's ever so lack of teaching can wait for later, when we are actually safe and not in a red zone." He spoke, forcing a reprimanding element into his voice that had Max rolling her eyes. "For now we have more pressing issues to worry about, Max. Such as: how to get off this rooftop and disappear underground while we still are able to." Let's not forget that we are both still losing blood, Zack mentally added on as he stared down at the crimson droplets decorating the gravel beneath their feet and he had to admit to himself that it was strange that no one had noticed the blood trail that led up the roof. How no one was already up here to… greet them. Amusing and very convenient as it was.

"Obvious, isn't it?" Max raised an eyebrow to the person whom she thought of as a sibling, as the brother that she never got to have, and contemplated why he didn't acknowledge that they were going to have to jump. Hell, it isn't like that it would kill them. They were far from human and if nothing else, Manticore was to thank for making them durable in such ways.

He offered her a long look before nodding sarcastically, because Zack's intuition flared and made him know where exactly she was going with this even without hearing an assessment. "Oh, how forgetful of me. We could have easily jumped down from this height being genetically enhanced and all. It wouldn't have been much of a problem to take out any guards… if we weren't injured, Max!"

"Details, Details." Max rolled her doe brown eyes with an air of dismission even though they never once stopped scanning for a threat, her tone of voice was one of familiarity. What one would teasingly use with a family member that 'worried too much', because that was how Max viewed Zack even though she loved him all the same. Finding none, she aimed a smirk at the one she called brother, "You say that like we never been wounded and had to… survive, before. It's not like it would hurt us, at least any more than what we are." It was the best word she could ever come up with to describe all that they had been through at the hands of Manticore. How they fought to stand where they were today, even as the odds were against them.

"You mean because of what we are." Zack clarified sharply, eyeing her with a long glance and glints as hard as his tone. He was protective of her and now remembered just how much Zack wished she had more self-preservation. He would always look at for her, that he swore to uphold until his dying breath... he just wished that she would make the task a tad little bit easier on him.

Max moved her lips into a thin line, before releasing them to ask Zack if he had a better idea… though someone else filled the silence for her. Someone with a voice that was vaguely familiar and it was only after a mere moment that her brain supplied the person's name. How had this guy and his team… found her and Zack before Lydecker and his legion of mindless super soldiers discovered them? How the hell does that even happen? "Either way, it isn't worth it."

Zack stiffened before spinning around his lethal body to narrow his eyes at the doorway, his right hand swifted darting to the gun in his waistband just as a man appeared slowly out of the shadows with his work worn hands raised in defense. How long he was listening in on their conversation was beyond her comprehension but as Max stared steadily into the blue orbs that were locked upon them, she knew with certainty that Gibbs - whomever he was - stood before them in a soldier's stance. One that came with being at ease, despite how he tracked and categorized each movement they made like he was a hawk. Fox, Max claimed mentally instead, a silver haired fox. This was the man that stood up to Lydecker, the very same one that could be on borrowed time if he wasn't careful. Something within Max knew he would be though, this was the same man whose voice Ducky was speaking with on the phone when Ben attacked. The same one that wasn't involved in any of this, with Manticore, but he wormed his way through the hoops that Lydecker chucked at him. Interesting, was what is was.

"Gibbs, I presume?" Max questioned cheekily as she stared at him for a long moment, before she shook her head slowly as if to shake away a thought that warred with everything else that she knew of. He was looking at them - though mainly her - like he actually gave a damn about them. He could be scanning them for weapons since Zack pulled out a nine millimeter… but why did apart of her think that he was actually cataloging their injuries? She knew him to be different, just like the sky was blue… just like she knew that the part that was X-542 would always be within her, a soldier. Just how different was yet to be determined.

"Max Guevara." Gibbs responded to the dark haired woman after giving a nod at her question, "If that is your real name." He watched silently as her lips twisted into a sad smile of remembrance, her eyes growing distant as if she had been suddenly trapped within her own mind at his statement. X-542 is what the man that claimed to be her father called her, Gibbs recalled easily but the more he stared at her, the more it dawned on him exactly what she was. A lost soul, one that he could help. He didn't know anything about the man she called Zack, but he did see that the younger man saved her as best as he could from being shot. From what he had seen from the shadows before he made himself known, Gibbs noticed that the two of them had a bond of sorts… family ties to one another even though the two of them looked nothing alike.

She shook her head once more before responding softly to his statement that was more of a question than anything else, her carefully chosen seven words that she uttered carrying itself upon the wind, "It is to the people that matter." She eyed him silently then, trying to decipher how he was going to play this. Max wanted to know who he was as a person, what he stood for but all she had of him was one name - probably his last name. ..No, that wasn't true at all, was it?

"Jethro, we may have a major problem."

Well, at least the name 'Gibbs' wasn't the only information she had on this stranger. Max thought with amusement in her veins as she recalled what Ducky had called him, before she tilted her head slowly to the right. Definitely a Marine. I damn well know a well trained soldier when I see one. It was in their code, to adapt and overcome… to know that pain was only weakness leaving your body. Semper Fi, Gibbs… you have me cornered for now, what is it you plan to do?

Gibbs eyed her with growing softness, one that he usually reserved for Abby and no one else… until now. He usually didn't warm up to anyone this quickly but no one other than her saved Ducky, one of his own, before they met face to face. It was strange, yes but no less than what he thought to expect. Max Guevara clearly had the capabilities to be like Ben, strong with a clear diagnosis of PTSD, but despite how they both went through the unknown - Max was stronger than Ben was. Mentally, she remained standing with her sanity intact. "Fair enough." He offered shortly in response, making her eye him after his lack of question.

Sunlight glinting in the corner of her eye captured Max's attention, making her spin her head sharply to eye Zack whom had remained silent throughout the short exchange and how leveled his gun directly at Gibbs. Gibbs didn't seem much like a threat, Zack… at least not yet. Max thought exasperatedly before she swiftly moved to be in Zack's line of fire before Gibbs could even fully reach the gun at his hip. She felt Gibbs' eyes burning holes at the back of her head but heeded him no mind as Max held up her hands in front of her, eyes pleading with her brother to stop. The two that were Gibbs' foot soldiers stepped out of the cover then, and though she couldn't see them Max knew with certainty that one gulped and the other shuffled his feet.

"Give me the gun, Zack." Max demanded of him sharply, carefully skimming over the fact that she almost called him Ben and turning over one hand to outstretch it to him. Palm up, in offering. "Give. me. the. Gun." He tried to make an argument, but she cut him off before he could get too far. 'We have no idea who these people are-' "You're right, we don't. We have no fucking clue if they are actually friend or foe. So what do we know? He stood up to Lydecker, name one person still alive that did that?"

"So he's a dead man walking." Zack scoffed, trying to determine if she was right or blinded by what she thought was. "I'll be damned if I let you get caught in the crossfire. I swore to take care of you and dam-"

"Zack!" Max barked at him, taking a fearless step forward. "No he's not, wanna know why?" She gave him a moment to respond but all he did was silently eye her, waiting, and then she resumed. Though this time, it was calmly, "Because he's different… somehow, and you're an idiot if you don't feel it too. I may not know who he and his little band of misfits are, but I know damn well that they aren't Manticore. And that? That has to count for something…" She shook her own hand that hung in the air, putting emphasis on it to capture his attention. "Now… please give me the fucking gun?" She smiled then, one that went from comforting into satisfaction as he heeded to her words finally and placed the weighted weapon in his hand.

She slowly stepped back, hitting the clip release button to have it fall into her other hand before pulling the trigger while directing it at the ground so Max made sure that there wasn't a bullet in the chamber. "You can have this." She threw him the emptied gun, which Zack caught with an incredulous look on his face that Max had a hard time not laughing at, before she waved the fully loaded clip in in the air without even looking at the three agents. "And if you lot get any smart ideas? If you try and prove me wrong? I will give this back to him and I can assure you, we never miss."

"Neither do we." Gibbs responded gruffly, never taking his eyes off the duo before him.

Silence shrouded them then from where they stood on the rooftop, before the corners of Max's lips twitched upwards into a smirk. "Fair enough. Now, I have to ask. How's Ducky doin-" She cut herself off from asking her question - that though she may have been asking playfully and didn't know him well, she still said Ducky's name gently - because she turned and came to a standstill at the sight before her. Past where Gibbs was standing closer to them, there were two other agents slightly behind him. Max bypassed McGee, the one that had dutifully got the child out of harm's way, to look at the third and final member of the trio… and couldn't look way even if her life counted on it. For a brief moment, her mind conjured an image of the same person before her in a wheelchair with those green eyes still reflecting with his fighting spirit even if he couldn't physically show it. His brown hair mirroring this man's hair now; a mess. She didn't know him well before all this happened, before Manticore struck at her once again in that other world… but she connected with him in a way that she hadn't done with anyone else. She remembered stealing from him... and he didn't seem angry as much as she remembered him being lonely.

And it was now, that Max stared wide eyed at this familiar face… wondering if he had been cloned just like she knew the X-5's had been. Had we ever escaped Manticore or is this world just another ploy that they conjured? A life that I couldn't have had with- Her name echoed within her ears, the voice contorted though it sounded much like Zack's voice; worried and cautious as he always had been with her around. She took one step forward in his direction, to the left, and then her other foot mirrored the action. It seemed like only seconds until Max was stopped when she felt Zack's hand clench around her right forearm, to pull her back even as he was confused by how she was reacting. Worse yet, she knew she couldn't explain just yet why she was drawn to the name before her. To discover what made him differ from the one she knew, to know him as a person. A flicker of self-preservation sparked within her mind, asking Max what made her think that this wasn't Manticore's ploy after all… to draw her in like the moth that she was acting right now, and manipulate her like they were always good at doing.

How did she know that any of this was real? The answer to that question was, she didn't know… but what Max did know was that she had to try.

One word spilled from her lips then, seemingly on it's own accord as it saturated with the incredulous tone of voice she used, and she could only lie in wait to see what kind of reaction he would give her. She knew that it couldn't be him, even if it was only because of the fact he wasn't in a wheelchair. Still, even with all that Max faced, her rational mind couldn't seem to process any of this.

"...Logan?"

I hope that you liked this chapter. Thank you for reading, if you could leave a review for it - please do so. :)