His
apartment was dark when she returned. Max quietly entered�thank Manticore for
lock-picking skills�and softly walked back to the bedroom. She still hadn�t
recovered from her earlier scare. What would she have done if Logan were gone
forever? If not for an old woman�s accident and an overflowing sink� Max
shuttered at the thought.
After he had put away the gun�casually, too casually�Logan had told
her he was tired and was going to bed. She had pretended to leave, but had
climbed up the outside wall and peered back in his window. The bottle of sleeping
pills in Logan�s hand had almost made her break through the window, but he
only took two before awkwardly climbing into bed. Max stayed, a guardian angel
in black, hovering at the window, until his breathing slowed and he was finally
asleep.
The bottle of champagne was an extravagance, yes, but how often did a
girl get to celebrate her own personal liberation from oppression? As the night
cooled and the wind blew across the Needle, Max tried to recapture the peace she
usually felt when she was high up, looking out over the sleeping city. But her
mind kept returning to a 22nd floor apartment, where an empty
wheelchair sat beside a bed, waiting for morning, when it would become necessary
again.
Before she knew what she was doing, Max found herself
at Logan�s front door, not remembering how it was she got there.
Now, as she sat in the darkened bedroom and watched him sleep, she began
to wonder what her life would be like without Logan. Deep inside her, down
beyond the reaches of her soul, was a great yawning emptiness. During the day
she could almost forget about it, but through the long, dark, sleepless hours of
the night, it reared up like a black hole, threatening to swallow all that was
pure and good and light within her. But the mere thought of blue eyes sparkling
mischievously behind wire frames, a cultured voice commenting earnestly on the
problems of the world, a smile that promised so much more than she had ever
had�these would drive the darkness back down to the empty place and chain it
into subservience, at least temporarily. Sometimes when she looked at Logan, the
air would catch in her throat and she would feel a lightness that filled every
corner of her being and banished the darkness to almost nothing.
Logan moaned and rolled over. Max pulled back into the shadows, the noise
jolting her out of reflection. She looked closer at Logan and saw the telltale
signs of nightmare. Apparently darkness and terror were not the birthright of
Manticore-created genetic super beings only. Briefly she wondered whether she
should leave, but she couldn�t turn away from his suffering, not after he had
already suffered so much. She slowly sank down to the bed and reached a
tentative hand toward him. As she smoothed the hair from his forehead, Logan�s
face cleared and he settled back into deep sleep. Max knew she should go, but
she couldn�t resist stretching out beside him on top of the blanket. She would
just rest there a moment, then she would go. They seemed to fit together
perfectly, as if her head were made for resting on his shoulder and her legs for
lengthening out along his.
Max had a brief moment of panic when Logan sighed and wrapped his arms
around her, holding her closer to him than she had dared to get, but as she lay
there, frozen, she could hear his breathing and realized he was still asleep.
She relaxed into the warmth of his body, into the comfort of his arms, the smell
of him surrounding her. Slowly, so slowly, the darkness receded and Max slept
deeply for the first time in a long time.
In his sleep, Logan smiled.
