Chapter 5: Survivor
The ride out to Terry Harbor was heavy with silence. Max stared out the window the entire time and all Logan saw of her face was a cloudy reflection in the window. They�d left Seattle after Max ended work at Jam Pony for the day. Max showed up at his place with a black duffel bag and an attitude, demanding they slip out of the city before curfew. Logan had his bag ready as well, and didn�t point out that curfew wasn�t for another six hours. He wondered if the drug was still in Max�s system, maybe causing her to be a little off her game, but he didn�t dare venture that idea. Her reflexes were as quick as ever when she grabbed his keys off the dresser and threw them directly into his lap without looking. No, whatever was eating at Max had nothing to do with her recent stint in a coma.
Max watched blankly as the city shrank from view and trees began to line the roads instead. The forest was supposed to be a place of grandeur, of freedom and beauty. Instead, all she saw were places to hide, dangerous terrain to run in, and potential traps in the dense foliage. Trees were useful for climbing to survey a wide area. They could be chopped down for shelter, for fuel, for weapons. As they approached Terry Harbor, her whole body tightened like a coiled spring. She knew the terrain here; rocky, scraggly pines, tall hemlocks and white pines, all damp and holding fog in their branches.
She could still smell the blood.
How long had it been, nine years? Ten? Max stopped counting after awhile. Time didn�t matter when you lived meal to meal, paycheck to paycheck, squatting in dilapidated buildings and hiding from military command. Still, she would never forget the massacre at Terry Harbor, no matter how many days stretched on into eternity.
Logan drove the car into a dark spot behind a boarded up dorm and shut the engine. Max could see the worry on his face perfectly in the dark and was tempted to tell him everything, right down to the way hot blood felt running through her fingertips. Instead, she unbuckled her seatbelt and faced him, expecting orders from Eyes Only, hardening her heart to the man behind the mask.
"You okay?"
"You asked me that seven times since we left Seattle."
"�Cause every time I ask, you mutter "fine" and roll your eyes. It�s not like you."
"Sure, �cause I�m all about sugar and spice."
Logan gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, counting to ten. Max watched him, trying to ignore the sharp guilt that she felt. She knew he cared, deeply. Being a bitch while he was trying to draw her out, trying to help, was pure meanness and she knew better. She also had years of combat training drilled into her brain and branded on her soul, and self-protective measures were the hardest to let go of. The problem was loyalty, any way she dealt with it. She could stay loyal to her secrets and keep hurting Logan, or she could come clean with the whole sordid past and risk his friendship. Either way, she was laid out completely vulnerable, which was the worst kind of failure according to Manticore.
"Fine," Logan said resignedly. "Tonight is strictly recon. We don�t know anything about the lab, so we need every piece of intel you can get. Entrances, exits, security, workers, everything. When you�re finished, which shouldn�t take more than two hours, we�ll go back to Uncle Jonas�s cabin for the night and tomorrow take a little jaunt into town, see what we can pick up from the people in Terry Harbor."
"What�s that awful smell?" Max wanted to know.
"That�s the paper mill."
"Nasty."
"Agreed. So, if you can take less than two hours I�d be grateful, considering I have to stay downwind from the plant."
Max nodded instinctively, the way she did when Zack gave an order for the group to fall out. Just a quick downward cut of her head with her eyes betraying no emotion whatsoever. Logan flipped the automatic door locks, preventing her from leaving the car, which surprised her into giving him one emotion�annoyance.
"What now?" she asked impatiently. "You want this intel or not?"
"I need to know you�re okay."
"I�m fine," Max spat. "I�ve had a crappy week, if you don�t remember, and if you must know, the past keeps kicking my ass. I�m dealing, everything will be fine, so back off."
"The past. Manticore?"
"Sure. You wanna unlock the doors, E.O.?"
Logan grimaced at the sarcastic nickname and jammed his finger down on the control to unlock the car. Max slammed the door shut when she left, but couldn�t help sneaking a look over her shoulder as she moved towards the lab. Logan�s face looked sad, not angry, and that finally made remorse kick in. It would be easier to hold up her icy fa�ade if he stayed furious with her, but instead he looked all "lost puppy" and that cut through all her cold armor. She resolved to tell him everything when they were safe in the cabin. Well, as much as she could stand without breaking down like a total wuss.
****
Max scaled the building with ease. She didn�t even need her climbing gear, due to the decorative bricks that jutted out from the wall at convenient intervals. Free climbing at night was one of her favorite Manticore exercises. She could see in the dark, she wasn�t afraid of heights, and she liked to be fast. The old chemistry lab was almost exactly the height and width of the old Manticore trash/recycling building. Even the texture of the bricks felt the same. Beyond creepy.
The roof had one window that poked up like a bubble on a pizza. The panes of glass were painted from the inside, so she couldn�t peer in. There was no audible sound emanating from that exit, so Max slipped down the opposite side of the building, avoiding the large windows. On the third floor there was a small landing that around the side of the chemistry facility to connect it to the warehouse next door. It was that ledge that led Max to an open window just small enough for her to shimmy through.
She landed soundlessly on the floor of the warehouse, her eyes immediately adjusting to the dim fluorescent lighting. Typical warehouse fare; splintered wooden pallets, dust, scratched forklifts, cement floor with rusty drains, broken sprinkler system. She crept around the floor, opening crates with her gloved fingers, taking mental stock of all the illegal contraband contained in the large space. They weren�t just shipping Carfanol, though there were plenty of little bottles of the dangerous hot pink pills. They also had filled invoices for morphine, vicodin, codeine and other addictive painkillers. The invoices had overseas addresses on them, which was both unsettling and a relief at the same time. Max was glad they weren�t pushing the drugs into the city, but it still didn�t fare well for their warring neighbors. The door leading into the chemistry lab was locked with a combination keypad. Max had left all her equipment in the hatch of the Aztek, so she contented herself with running her fingers over the lock and whispering "soon" like it was a lover. A locked door was like candy on Halloween. Never enough, every bit of it sweet.
The lab had no windows on ground level, so Max let herself into the basement, but found no access there either. It seemed the only way into the lab was through the warehouse, and the warehouse was empty. No timecards, no leftover lunch bags or post-it notes, nothing to signify that humans ever occupied the space. It was obvious that the main office was housed in another building, in case they had to leave in a hurry.
Max climbed back up to the small window and arched her torso through the small space, easing her backside and legs through seconds later. It would have been easier to sneak out the ground level door, but then she wouldn�t have the pleasure of climbing back down the wall.
Logan was monosyllablic on the trip back to the cabin. He didn�t press her about their earlier fight, nor did he ask what she�d discovered. Probably doesn�t wanna get called "E.O." again, Max thought smugly. She made herself extra helpful by carrying in both their duffel bags and spreading out the sleeping bags: his in the bedroom, hers in front of the fireplace. Logan looked wiped out and Max didn�t blame him for going straight to bed. It was two in the morning, after all, and just because she didn�t need sleep didn�t change his needs at all.
She didn�t blame herself, either, for waiting until he fell asleep and then creeping to the door of his room and sitting in the doorway to watch him sleep. Logan slept on his back with one hand resting on his stomach and the other resting at his side. He breathed heavily but didn�t snore, though a few times Max heard him say a few random words like "soccer" and "hoverdrone." She watched his chest rise and fall and memorized every inch of his sleeping face. She ached to slide into bed beside him and fit herself against him, maybe throw one leg over his and hold on tight. He wouldn�t even have to move. She wanted strands of her hair to get caught in his ever-present five o�clock shadow, wanted to fight over the covers, wanted to warm her cold feet against his warm ones. It suddenly struck her that she couldn�t have the physical intimacy if the emotional intimacy was absent.
Lydecker be damned. She would tell Logan about the massacre at Terry Harbor. All of it. Soon.
Why not now?
Max looked at her watch. 4:12 a.m. He�d had two solid hours of sleep, and her tale shouldn�t take that long. She was fairly bursting with it now, every pore screaming to get it off her shoulders and half onto his to help bear the load. With feline grace she joined him on the bed, kneeling next to him. Up close he smelled like Old Spice deodorant and sleep.
"Logan. Logan, wake up," Max said softly, pushing on his sternum. It wasn�t the easiest way for someone to wake up but it never failed. Logan opened his eyes and took a deep breath, squinting at her in the darkness.
"Max?" he asked concernedly, reaching blindly on the bedside table for his glasses. He inadvertently pushed them onto the floor and put his head back on the pillow with a groan.
"I have to talk to you."
"What�s the matter?" He propped himself up on his elbows and then pushed himself up to a sitting position, covering a mighty yawn with one hand. "Are you alright?"
"No. I have to talk to you about Terry Harbor."
"Now?"
"I was at the massacre. I helped," Max confessed, her words coming out in a rush. She focused her eyes on the window past his head as she talked. "I was on my way to Seattle after the escape from Manticore. The Pulse was the best thing that ever happened to me because no one cared about a lost little girl when everyone was lost. Terry Harbor was a great place to hide because it was always filled with people and I liked the ocean. They didn�t have a paper mill back then. Just hotels and an aquarium and the university. When September came, people were still trying to pretend that life could go on the way it did before the Pulse, and it was the students who revolted against the military command and the media propaganda. They were right, Logan�it was chaos, almost war, and the government wanted to pretend everything was fine."
"Max, I had no idea."
"Wait," she begged. "I didn�t know where to hide when they started bombing the hotels. They ate the fish in the aquarium. They wanted to take over the university and turn it into a prison, so the students staged a huge, bloody resistance and almost won. They were fighting against the town, and I considered myself part of the town so I joined in with the residents of the town and the military presence. All I knew from Manticore was that military presence would keep order. I didn�t understand who was right and who was wrong. Making a prison for the bad guys seemed good to me at the time. I didn�t know, really, I didn�t know. I didn�t know the students were fighting for freedom, and I helped take it away from them."
"Max, it wasn�t your fault."
"The police just handed me a weapon like everyone else. It was a bayonet. My arm never got tired. The only reason I had to finally let go was because the blood ran down the blade and made the handle too slippery to hold. My sleeve was soaked to the shoulder. I thought I was doing good. I thought I was on the right side, so I completed the mission and killed as many of them as I could. I was good at it. I liked it."
Max was dimly aware of Logan wiping tears from her face, but didn�t realize she was outright crying until he pulled her into his arms and she realized the horrible wailing was coming from her own self. Ten years of repressed guilt and torment couldn�t be assuaged with a simple pat on the back and a "forget about it." Luckily, Logan was astute enough to realize this and waited until she didn�t have any more tears left. He groped for a kleenex and handed it to her to mop herself up.
"I hate killing," Max confessed. "But I�m a killer. That�s how they made me. Sometimes I think that�s what I am."
"Max, you know that�s not true."
"Not now. But can I really change genetics?"
"If pure genes determined your vocation, Manticore wouldn�t have had to train you. You�d instinctively wake up and live a life of evil. And sure, maybe you would have stayed that way if you hadn�t escaped. But Max, you took all the things they gave you�determination, speed, agility, loyalty, cunning, all that stuff�and used it to help others. And steal the occasional grapefruit."
"You�re saying I should just be let off the hook for helping to slaughter dozens of helpless college students?"
"No. I�m saying you should forgive yourself. You can�t atone for something that big, Max, you just can�t."
Max searched his eyes, making sure he was for real. It shocked her to see a lack of horror in his dark blue gaze. His calm acceptance of who she was finally convinced her to put the old ghosts away, or at least try. Logan Cale, mighty Eyes Only, wouldn�t keep company with a depraved psycho-killer. If he could forgive her, love her in spite of her past, she should honor him and try to do the same.
"Easier said than done."
"So, it�ll take time."
"You don�t sound worried."
"I�m not." Logan saw the unspoken "why" and hurried to explain. "I guess it�s because I�m in love with you and I can�t imagine anything changing that, no matter what."
"You�re in love with me?"
Logan groaned and ran a hand through his spiky hair.
"I said that out loud, huh."
"For real?" Max asked, wincing inwardly at how shaky that sounded.
"For real, forever."
Without his glasses, in the dark, Logan couldn�t see her smile.
But he could feel her kiss.
