Just Acting? Part 3

By lissa Mahon

To see my disclamier please go to the first or second part of the story. Thanks!

Author's Note:: If you think I should continue this story or have any ideas or suggestions, please leave a review. They help me to decide if I want to continue writing the story. Thanks again!!! ~Lissa

--Logan's apartment--

Logan woke up the next morning and wheeled himself into the kitchen to see if Max was their. Upon getting there, he found a note she had left. It said:

" Dear Logan,

Sorry I didn't say goodbye. I had to run 'cause Normal wanted us in early, besides I had to think of a good excuse for not coming in for the next three weeks. When I'm done at work I'm gonna run home and pack some stuff. I'll meet you back at your place around 4:00 so we can discuss how this little charade of ours is gonna run. Cya later. ~Max

When he finished reading the letter, he folded it up and left it on the counter and went over to his computer to obtain a passport that would allow Max to go with him.

----Meanwhile, at the Jam Pony Express..--

"Hey Normal, you got a minute?" Max Guevera asked her boss preparing herself to drop the bomb on him about not coming in for three weeks.

"I suppose." he replied and led her to his "office".

"You have one minute." he told her, setting a timer on his watch. The look on his face told Max that this wasn't the best time to be telling him this, but it was now or never so:

"Well, you see," she began, "I have to go visit my... family for the next three weeks. You see, my dad's real sick and I need to go see him, so I'm not gonna be able to come in for like three weeks," she said talking as fast as she could trying to get it over with and brace herself for his reaction.

Normal just looked at Max, clearly not believing a word of her story.

"I thought you had no family," he told her dully.

"Well, yeah that's right, I have no real family. You see... I was adopted when I was ten. So they're only really my adopted parents," she lied again.

"Right," Normal said slowly. "Just don't expect me to keep your job for you."

"What if I were willing to give you...say half of the salary I would have made while I was gone...in return for you holding my job for me?"

Normal appeared to be in deep thought for a few minutes before he turned to Max and told her:

"Alright, but you have *three* weeks and no more," he told her sharply.

"Deal," she told him with a big grin on her face and then left the office.

Once outside the room, she met up with Original Cindy and Sketchy.

"Hey, Max, can you do me a favor, you see there's this guy who wants me to-" Sketchy began to ask Max when she cut him off with-

"Sorry Sketch. I can't. I'm gonna be out for the next three weeks. i have to go visit my family."

"Oh. Where do they live?" he asked her, actually believing her.

"In...Scranton, Pennsylvania," she said having absolutely no idea where this place was.

Meanwhile, Original was glancing back and forth between her two comrades not accepting a single thing Max had said and had begun to formulate in her mind what Max was really gonna be doing for the next three weeks.

"Yeah right girl," she said in a sassy manner. "What are you and wheelchair boy eloping and going on your honeymoon or somethin'?" she chortled.

"Haha. Very funny," Max sneered.

"Oh Max, by the way, these military guys are posting these reward signs with this picture of some girl on them. Man, she looks so much like you it's funny," Sketchy said laughing hysterically.

"You have to see it. There's one right out there," he told the girl, pointing to a banner on a nearby telephone pole.

Max ran out of the garage to the post to see the poster. What she saw was an announcement stating that anyone who could capture this "dangerous runaway" would receive a $10,000 dollar reward from Colonel Donald Lydecker.

/Oh, god. What if they find me? What am I supposed to do? No. What if they find Logan first? Oh god help me./ she prayed for the first time in the eighteen years of her life.

Max's face had fear, something she almost never expressed, all over it as she leaped onto her Ninja and sped off to her apartment.

She had to get out Seattle and fast. Max parked her motorcycle and dashed up the stairs to her apartment peering over her shoulder ever now and then to make sure no one was following her. She slammed the door behind her, causing her roomate Kendra to jump, and quickly locking it.

"Max, what's wrong. Are you okay?" she asked. She had never seen Max in such a dither before. It was really worrying her.

"I'm fine. I'm fine," Max reassured both Kendra and herself.

"I just have to get some stuff 'cause I'm going to visit my family for the next three weeks," she told Kendra breathlessly. Kendra could see that Max was obviously not in the best mood to explain what was really going on at the time, so she just nodded her head while Max rushed about her bedroom taking stuff with her.

As she was running out the door, she yelled over her shoulder to Kendra:

"If anyone asks you where I went, just tell them you don't know. Okay."

"But Max. Why? Why can't I just tell them that you went on vacation?" Kendra asked her.

"Just promise me that you won't tell them anything okay. Please. You have to trust me on this. Okay," she hollered.

"Okay, but Max. Be careful okay." Kendra said to her as she ran from the apartment, got on her motorcycle and sped off toward Logan's. Not believing how much danger she had just put her friends in.

---Logan's Apartment--

Max burst through the door to find Logan and Bling having sitting having a conversation about pre-Pulse economy. The two men just looked at the deranged girl in bewilderment. Logan was the first one to say anything.

"Max. Are you okay? Is something wrong?," he asked.

/Please let her be okay/ he thought.

Max walked over to Logan and whispered into his ear, so Bling couldn't hear

"We have a "situation". There are posters of me up all around the city. Lydecker and his guys have the whole town looking for me. We have to leave and now."

Logan barely heard what Max was saying. All he was concentrating on was the way her breath tickled his ear. But, what he did get out of it was that she could be hurt if they stayed where they were and that wasn't a risk he was willing to take. They had to get out before they found her.

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