Chapter 6
A/N: Aquila is right! Big ol� mistake. Disregard any mention of a "Bennett"; Logan�s contact in Portland is named "Danny."
Dawn was gray the morning after the fire and no one noticed. The sky gradually lightened, but the blaze had grown so high that most of the city had been lit up since around three in the morning. Perry stood with Logan overlooking the city, waiting and watching for any sign of Max. The two men stood in anxious silence, neither one wanting to voice their terror at what was keeping her from the rendezvous point.
Finn and some of the other X5s went back down into the blazing inferno of Sector three to find her, but came back less than an hour later, with reports of blocked roads and mobs of people in the streets. Finn reasoned that if Max was going to make it to the top of the hotel building she�d do it herself, without any help�or she wouldn�t do it at all. Logan almost broke down then, but managed to keep his cool as Perry started shouting out directions for the division to split up into pairs and try to get out of the city.
At dawn, the only ones left waiting were Finn, Perry, Brin and Logan. Brin clutched a few pieces of clean, dry clothing on her lap, waiting for her sister to get back and change into them. No one wanted to voice their greatest fear, that Max was dead, or worse�trapped in a burning building somewhere. Instead they sat in silence, watching, waiting, breathing soot-filled air and praying that the last X5 would make it back alive.
Logan numbly stared towards the fire, unable to comprehend the fact that Max had long since passed the deadline for the checkpoint meeting. Images that he�d thought deeply buried came back to taunt him�holding Max in the woods, feeling her hot blood run over his hands, listening to her last words and last breath and then waking up with a killer headache, arms empty. Logan didn�t want a repeat performance of the woods near Manticore. He wanted a happy ending, and with each passing second he doubted that would happen. He�d seen her for mere moments the past day. Not long enough to talk, to comfort, to hold her so tightly she couldn�t move. It was all business, all saving the world and trying not to die. Typical fate, denying him even the tiniest bit of peace.
"We should have had a contingency plan," Perry muttered, not for the first time. "Should have had a second meeting place, in case she couldn�t make it here."
"What if she�s just wounded and it�s taking longer?" Finn tried to make his voice optimistic, but fell flat when Logan glared at him. Finn flinched, not prepared for the barely contained grief and fury in the other man�s eyes. "You�re the reason she betrayed her family," Finn said to Logan, looking to pick a fight. Perry and Brin didn�t stop him. "She dies, it�s on your head."
"I know it," Logan said calmly.
"She doesn�t make it back, I�ll kill you," Finn threatened.
"Go ahead."
Checkmate.
Perry walked away from the staring contest, over towards the small shelter Logan had rigged. There was hardly any food left, and barely any water. Just two backpacks worth of supplies to be split between the four of them, or, the three of them if Finn managed to kill Logan. Despite the stress of Max gone missing, Perry was more concerned about Director Renfro. She�d find the dog tags in the rubble, try to identify the corpses by dental records�would she guess that the missing X7s were really the missing X5s? Logan had promised that Manticore�s human genetics projects were being shut down, but what if it ever got funding again? Would that peroxide blonde bitch be back in the driver�s seat, ready to hunt them down like animals again? He didn�t want to run anymore, and maybe Max didn�t either. Maybe that�s why she stayed in Sector three. Death was better than running.
"Ohmygod," Brin exclaimed, her words running together with excitement Perry had never ever heard from the even-keeled soldier. "Look! Look, down there."
Perry ran to the edge of the building with the others and peered down to where Brin was pointing at a slow-moving figure hugging the side of a building across the street. She moved with excruciating slowness, dragging one leg behind her. Her head was down as she concentrated on each painful step.
"That�s Maxie," Finn said with relief, shooting Logan a guilty glance.
"Go get her," Logan said kindly. "I�ll meet you in the lobby. No need to drag her all the way up here."
Max leaned her left shoulder against the wall and looked up to the roof of the hotel building, hoping that someone had waited. She counted three, no, four shadows up on the roof, and they appeared to be cheering and hugging each other. Seconds later they�d all vanished and she was left alone to wonder. But it was them, it had to be them. Or at least Logan. He wouldn�t let her down now, not after knowing she was alive and still loved him. She�d said that, right? When he was lying in the dirt with the rats after Finn shot him? She couldn�t remember. Taking a deep breath, Max coughed and shuffled her left foot forward, using both hands to carefully drag her right leg along. The screaming pain in her hip made her dizzy and she stopped, leaned against the wall again until the pain subsided into a dull ache. A trickle of blood from her still-bleeding head wound tickled her skin as it coursed down her face and she wiped it away with her sodden sleeve. Then she pushed off the wall, took a half step, and dragged her right leg forward again. Move. Pain. Rest. Repeat.
"Maxie!" Perry yelled out. Max lifted her head again, her heart constricting with bittersweet pain. He hadn�t used her name since she was nine. God, he sounded so much like Zack�
Finn was the first to reach her and she collapsed gratefully in his capable arms. He lowered her to the ground, hands immediately pulling her hair away from her face to examine the wound above her temple. As he pressed a semi-clean cloth to the wound, Max saw Brin and Perry reach her. Brin looked like she was going to cry and Perry was crying, though totally unaware of it as he threaded his fingers with hers.
"Where are you hurt?" Brin asked, taking Max�s other hand.
"My head," Max said in a raspy voice. "Still bleeding."
"Got that," Finn said, granting her one of his winning smiles. "What else, little sister?"
"Dislocated my hip. And twisted the ankle on the other side. Hurts."
"Okay, let�s get her inside," Perry said. "Just relax, Maxie, you�re safe."
Max nodded, clenching her teeth to keep from crying out when they lifted her. It was a slow procession to the lobby of the hotel, as they didn�t want to jar her any more than necessary. The lobby was quiet and smoke-free, which is more than Max could say about the streets. She let her head rest against the cushion of the couch they laid her on, closing her eyes for the first time in hours. It was weird to lose the sense of sight and just focus on touch; someone was smoothing her hair back, picking out shards of glass and wood splinters. Someone else was undressing her with incredible gentleness while other hands unlaced her boots and slipped them off. She heard the pull of clothing as it left her body, heard the quiet murmurs of her siblings as they debated the best way to relocate her hip joint, heard the unmistakable whir of the servomotors in Logan�s exoskeleton. So he was here after all. Max kept her eyes closed, wondering which hands were his. It hardly mattered, but she wasn�t ready to open her eyes yet. She knew by the sharp intakes of breath that they�d discovered her many bumps and bruises, knew she looked like death warmed over. Literally, with the fire being as hot as it was in Sector three.
"Max," Logan said, near her head. Max nodded but refused to open her eyes. Her eyelids felt swollen now, her eyes dry and itchy. "We�re going to stitch up your scalp and relocate your hip." He took her hands, moving one to the back of the couch and curling her other arm around his own waist. "Hip first. Hang on."
Max felt firm hands on her bare leg, turning her, then pulling so fiercely she felt like she was on fire. She screamed, arching her torso to try and buck them off but the hands held her down, lifting her leg, applying counter-pressure until it popped back in place with an audible crunch. After that the stitches were nothing, and she barely even felt them wrapping her ankle. Someone held up a cup to her parched lips and she opened her eyes for the first time in what seemed like hours, grasping the cup with both hands and drinking it like a greedy child, her eyes never leaving the bottom of the cup.
"More?" Logan asked, even as he refilled the cup and she drank again and again. Brin was there too, helping her into a t-shirt and loose cargo pants that probably belonged to Logan. They all looked like they were wearing some variation on his closet, actually; Perry was even wearing her favorite gray turtleneck. Happy to remember Logan�s wardrobe, Max smiled and stretched her arms, drew her knees up to her chest and back down again. The pain in her hip was now just a dull ache.
"Feel up to a little field trip?" Finn asked, taping a final piece of gauze to her temple. "Your boyfriend�s the sector pass fairy."
"Not sure how I feel about the fairy metaphor," Logan joked, "but it�s true. Brin, Finn and Perry are scheduled to meet up with Krit and Syl in Chicago while you and I go to Portland. Uh, if that�s okay with you."
"Fine with me," Max said, pulling herself up on the couch. "Kinda jealous, though, how come they get a reunion and I don�t?"
"Did I mention that Jondy and Original Cindy are in Portland?"
If Max was the squealing type, she would have done it just then. Instead, she smiled and chuckled a little.
"We gotta get out of here," Perry said urgently. "Now."
"But�" Max protested, looking longingly at Brin. There was so much she had to say, to apologize, to explain. The other girl shrugged and rolled her eyes at Perry, who was busy checking the backpacks for departure.
"Don�t worry, Maxie, we know where you live. Big ol� X5 reunion this summer at your new place," Finn promised. "Independence Day weekend we�ll be invading your picket fence for sure."
"We have a picket fence?" Max asked Logan incredulously.
"Well, it�s covered with graffiti�"
Hugs were shared all around, eyes suspiciously wet, until Max and Logan were alone in the cavernous lobby with nothing but ghosts between them.
"I�m aware it�s incredibly presumptuous for me to announce you�re going to live with me," Logan said nervously. Max was standing now, stretching sore muscles. She picked her head up and gave him a saucy grin, loving his discomfort.
"Incredibly," she agreed. "Logan Cale, I�m surprised you�re giving up the good life to live in a shack in the country with an escaped government genetics failure. Gave all your clothes to the poor and everything."
"Not all of them. Bling and Cindy went ahead with a trailer full of stuff I couldn�t bear to give up. I knew your brothers and sisters couldn�t leave Seattle if they looked military, so I just shared the wealth a little. And you�re not a genetics failure."
"Whatever. So, how we gonna skip this hellhole?"
"Mmm," Logan said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Your hip feeling okay to drive?"
"Drive what?" Max asked suspiciously. Logan looked very pleased with himself as he walked over to a sheet-covered lump by the old registration desk. He whipped the sheet off with a flourish, revealing�
"My baby!" Max cried, running over to her old Ninja. She ran her hands all over it, checking the pipes, peering underneath, looking for damage or wear. "Oh, sweetie, I missed you! Are you okay?"
"I�m jealous of a motorcycle," Logan muttered good-naturedly. "New carburetor," he added when Max looked to him for explanation. "Full tank of gas. If we leave now, we can make it to Oregon by lunchtime, barring roadblocks."
"Not a problem," Max said, reverently rubbing the leather seat. She hunched over the mirror and moaned in dismay at her reflection. "God, I looked better when I was bleeding from the eyeballs."
"You�re beautiful," Logan corrected gruffly. "Ready to go home?"
"Home," Max repeated, the word tasting strange on her lips. She frowned, biting her lower lip as she considered that word. Home was Manticore for awhile. Then home was that apartment she shared with Kendra, then Original Cindy, and then home was Manticore again. She never really belonged in any of those places, especially Manticore. No one loved her there. No one there cared about the people she loved. No one called her beautiful and looked at her like she was more precious than a lifetime�s worth of class one sector passes.
"Max?"
"I am home," she said quietly, moving closer to him, taking his hands and drawing them around her waist. She cupped his face, his five o�clock shadow tickling her palms. He smelled like fire smoke and sweat, felt like solid warmth and comfort as he pulled her close and memorized her features with his eyes. "You are home to me, Logan."
When he kissed her, Max was sure the sun came out.
