Season 2, Episode 14 - Love In Vein

Max and Original Cindy wait on the long line outside the terminally upscale Vertical Club. Four members of a gang called The Bloods breeze past the line and cause mayhem inside the club, robbing and beating up the patrons. Lida, the blond member of the gang, urges one of her cohorts, Push, to chill out. With their stolen money, the gang leaves the bar, knocking down O.C. on the way out. They take off in their Tornado car, exclaiming, "To the marrow!" Cindy spots the barcodes on Lida and Push's neck. She alerts Max.

The next day, a dazed and sickly Lida goes to a clinic and asks for help. Dr. Shankar notices Lida's barcode and notifies Logan. He then calls Max at Jam Pony and tells her about the girl. Max doesn't want to bother him with her Manticore problems, planning to deal with it herself. At the clinic, the three other Blood members swarm Lida. They kidnap her, telling her that Marrow is the only one who can help her. Max arrives and tries to stop the Bloods outside. Rain, the other chick from the gang, attempts to fight Max, but Max gets the best of her. The other Bloods take off in their Tornado, leaving Rain. Max realizes that the barcode on Rain's neck is only a tattoo. She's not a Manticore transgenic after all.

In an abandoned church, Marrow, a transgenic with piercing blue eyes and bulging veins, gets briefed by the Bloods about Max. He yells at Lida, who is suffering from withdrawal. He taunts her with a thin glass wand, and she begs to take a sip. Without giving her what she craves, Marrow has her thrown in a storage room. He then kills her.

Max shows Rain her own real barcode, but the only thing Rain will fess up is that Marrow will come for her. Rain, who also suffers from withdrawal, recites some kind of mantra. Max finds a church collection envelope full of cash in Rain's jacket. She goes to the church name printed on the envelope and spies on Marrow giving a eulogy about Lida to the Bloods. He holds up the glass wand, saying that their choice is forever. None in their covenant could survive without it. He then jabs the wand into his arm to draw his own blood. Each of the Bloods sips from the wand like a straw. Suddenly, the hiding Max is found by one of the gang members.

Chained to a chair, Max questions Marrow. He explains that Manticore made his blood perfect. He got the kids hooked on his blood so that they would revere him, and someday they would be willing to fight for him when the world turns against transgenics. Marrow lets Max go so that she'll return Rain to him. While Max gives the lowdown to Logan at the clinic, Dr. Shankar unsuccessfully tries to treat Rain. With no other hope in saving her, Logan offers to take Rain back to Marrow. On the way there, he explains to her what Manticore really did to Marrow and Max.

Alec lures Joshua into taking over some of his Jam Pony runs with the promise that he can use his bike and wear a full-face motorcycle helmet. On a delivery, Joshua has a run-in with a cat and gets scratched. Dylan, another messenger, hands him a hash pipe to ease his pain. Joshua, remembering his father's pipe, takes a hit. Dylan brings the wasted Joshua to a messenger bar. Cursed with the munchies but unable to show his face to the crowd, Joshua pours pretzels into his helmet. The other messengers laugh, and pepper him with questions. As they begin to warm up to Joshua, he takes off his helmet. This time, they scream in horror. Joshua runs out and takes off with his bike. Max finds Joshua at home. He is stoned and is freaking out.

Marrow offers up his blood to Rain, but she refuses, knowing that he has only been brainwashing them. Her shakes die out when she realizes that it is all in her head. She really does not need his blood to survive. Marrow only convinced them of that. Max arrives at the church, and Rain informs all the other Bloods that they've been duped. Marrow attacks her, but Max steps in his way. She pushes Marrow, and he is gorged by a wrought iron candle stand. Seeing him dead, the other Bloods think they are now going to die without his blood. Rain explains that she didn't sip and she is perfectly fine. Marrow had killed Lida to make them all believe his lie. But when the gang turns back towards the candle stand, Marrow's body is gone.

The next morning, Max wakes Joshua. He is saddened that he can never go out into the real world because people are frightened by him. Logan lets her know that the kids in the gang are all doing fine. They probably won't expose them because they just want to forget the whole ordeal. Yet they still don't know what happened to Marrow.

In an alley somewhere, Marrow tempts his next victim with everlasting life from the sip of his blood.

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