She ran down the hillside, heart rising up in her throat and choking her as it broke there. Tears blinded her vision. So, she stumbled, but she kept going. Max. Oh, Max. I hope you'll be happy. Because she knew she would never be happy again. She ran. She ran until her throbbing legs and the stitch in her side ached just a little bit more than her chest.

And, all of a sudden, the toe of her sneaker caught a small, upturned, rock. She felt herself go airborne. But before she could hit the ground, she collided with something hard. Something that wore a neat suit and tie and had a face so stunningly handsome that it was evil.

Pierce? Wasn't Pierce dead?

And then coherency came back to her. Behind the brilliantly cold gray-blue eyes was something worse than a warped human soul: an alien without a soul at all.

"Nasedo!" she gasped, shrugging off the hands that steadied her. Sickness pooled in her stomach...along with memories of the cold blackness of his kisses and a malevolent carnival. Fresh tears rose in her eyes.

"Hello, Miss Parker," he drawled in Pierce's honeyed tones...so much more husky and inviting than Ed Harding's cheer or his leering version of Max.

But there was no real sweetness. None at all.

All there was...was ice.

"Wh-what do you want?" she demanded, pretending there wasn't a quaver in her tone, pretending her cheeks weren't wet.

It was almost admirable.

Her eyes were dark brown...darker and deeper than Tess's. And so liquid. Puffy. Reddened. So full of anguish. So full of sacrifice.

He smiled.

"I want to make sure that we understand the situation," he told her, calmly, watching her thin lips tighten. "You've let Max go so he can fulfill what is expected of him and you will adhere to that."

"That's my decision, not yours!" She spat, conceivably before she realized what a risk it was to anger him.

Fire transformed her face, he mused. It lost the pallor, the weakness, and the gaping stupidity. "Human decisions are nothing in the scheme of the universe," he reminded, shrugging easily.

"What would you know about human decisions, Nasedo?" Furious tears strengthened her. The fire was staying and burning bright. Perhaps because she'd lost everything else. "You've been on this planet fifty years and you've never really been one of us. Jumping from shape to shape? You don't know how strong we are."

"Strong?" He laughed. Such an overused word, 'strong.' "You're weak, Miss Parker," he countered. "Ruled by your emotions, your passions, and your ridiculous set of values and morals."

She crossed her arms over her chest, tilting her head and just staring at him for a second with her huge eyes. Her hair spilled to one side like a brown silk curtain. "And you're above all that?" she asked, finally. "Above emotion?"

"Of course." Scruples, inevitably, made one spineless. Less likely to take risks. Although River Dog had tried to teach him a more even path...it was the scientists at the base who had really hammered home the important lessons.

The two casual words seemed to incense her. She stepped closer, a tiny bundle of vibrating rage. "And what's loyalty, then? What's the urge to kill? The urge to protect Max from me? What's kissing me because I'm his? Those are emotions. And you like them," she hissed. "That means you're just as weak as we are."

"Does it?" Two more innocuous words. He arched an eyebrow, watching her throat convulse as she swallowed. Oh, but she was right. He did love to kill. It was a surge of power unlike any other. Beauteous. Consuming. "Why the mention of kissing, Liz?" he questioned, drawing soft silk from Pierce's voice. "Did you enjoy the darkness you saw within me? Was it Max's face that made you so willing? Or was it the emptiness...the ice? Did you like it?" he mocked as she shifted from foot to foot and broke eye contact. "I have known human women in half a century...and they say that being with me is a little like dying. Do you want to die, Liz?"

The paleness came back to her cheeks. Her spine melted just a bit. "No!" she gasped. The one word was full of shuddery horror.

And a lie.

He wondered if she even knew it herself.

"Come on," he urged, clicking his tongue. "Tsk tsk, Miss Parker. Dancing on the edge is heady. It's the dizzying sensation of a falling dream. The cold moment between life and death? It's power. Paltry human compassion...sacrifice...it's nothing in comparison to who I am. Are you so very sure that you don't want a taste?"

Her heart was beating like that of a tiny little bird caught in his hands. Flapping desperate wings and wanting to be let go. "Max, Michael, and Isabel have compassion," she pointed out, voice struggling for an upper hand she no longer had. "And they're three times what you are."

"But they're not here, are they? If they are so compassionate, why is it I, with my mercenarial interests, who followed you?" He batted the truth back at her and smoothly ran a hand through Pierce's wavy hair. Such gestures were fairly enjoyable with the agent's young, firm, body. Theatrical...even attractive. And it held her gaze. "Because they have a future that doesn't involve you, Liz Parker. And I am all the alien mystery you're going to have now."

She was such a small girl. So insipid. But curious. Oh...so curious despite her loss and her agony. "You stay away from me!" she cried, backing up a step, shoulders shaking.

"Or what?" He laughed, heartily, watching the clouds dancing up above in the bright blue sky. "How would Agent Pierce put it...? I am going to dog you every day and every night...I am going to dog you until you're so scared and so absolutely certain of your own death, that you will never set eyes on Max Evans again."

She gasped.

"Yes, I think that sounds accurate, don't you?" He offered her another charming smile. "Even if I go to Washington to tie up loose ends...I'll need a hobby, won't I?"

"Fuck you!"

Profanity? From the perfect human princess? He was vaguely impressed. He stepped forward, bypassing the rock that had tripped her earlier. "You could," he supplied, with amusement...with a Luciferian promise. "You could bathe in ice, Liz. It numbs pain, you know."

Her voice wavered. Her face was raw from the streams of saline. "Y-you're sick, Nasedo. You're disgusting."

"Am I?" He watched her wrap her arms around her midsection. He watched her violently shake her head. And he watched her eyes and her soft, nervous, breaths, react to Pierce's inherent good looks...or was she reacting to him? To his chilling lack of conscience? How lovely. How lovely, indeed. "If I'm so sick...then why are you picturing us together? Are you remembering that I can wear any face? That I could be Max for you again?"

"Y-you're not like Max. You could never be Max!"

She was right. He would never be humane. Never be a leader. Never be as complex. His duty was to serve and his needs were simple. Basic. To survive. To kill. And to keep the four from being killed.

"I don't want to be Max," he assured, coolly. "I just want to protect him from you and your contagious normalcy."

She shuddered. "You'll get your wish, Nasedo! Just stay away from me."

He bowed, mockingly. "With pleasure."

And, then, he let her go. He let her run. Again. Run until she fell. And spiraled down into her own private falling dream where everything was perfect and untouched. Where he didn't exist. But death still did. Because death existed everywhere, didn't it?

He had no doubt that she would dance on that edge one day soon.

It would be heady. So very heady.

And she would come back.

He stared dispassionately at the faintly scorched earth where Liz Parker had stood mere moments before. It was a shame...for if she had said even one of the things in the scenario he had just considered, instead of staring up at him with silence and grief-dulled eyes, perhaps he might have spared her. If she had done more than cry like a wounded cow, perhaps she could have lived.

Perhaps.

But his imagination had offered more possibilities than her pathetic little heart and her pathetic little brain, hadn't it? Nasedo was almost sorry.

Almost.

After all, killing was still beauteous and consuming.

Shoving his hands into the deep pockets of an FBI agent's coat, he walked out of the desert. And, because the mortal whim was suddenly upon him, he whistled.