Title: Demons
Name: Joy
Email: SleepingBeauty2@ziplip.com
Rating: PG 13
Max stood in front off a boarded up restaurant with Fiona in the middle of the afternoon. Fiona found a large stone and chucked it at the building. "It's OK. I bought the building a year ago. I have every right to destroy it if I want to. It's supposed to come down in a few weeks anyway," Fi said to Max's quizzical face.
"You have something against the building?" Max said.
"No… This is where it happened. This is where my life changed forever…" Fiona said pausing as her eyes glanced over the building. She pointed to the front door of the restaurant, "We were coming out from dinner and heading to our cars. I had only another week and a half before I was due. I loved this place so my parents took us here since it would be our last meal out for a while… I was right there when I saw the man with the gun. Ryan swung me around, put himself between the shooter and me. My father did the same to my mother. I screamed for a minute and then fell silent as I watched the man come towards me again. I was lying on the ground here when he shot me in the shoulder and then kicked my stomach. I remember seeing my father's body lying over my mother bleeding. He was gone. I heard Ryan whisper's to me, 'I love you, my sweet Juliet.'"
Max watched Fiona's face. She was smiling at the love of her husband, "I was Juliet and he was Romeo in our high school play when we first met. For almost ten years of my young life I had the love of that man. I got to have the great romance. I got to live happily ever after with the prince, even if it was for a "short" time… And now I start over." She was still smiling.
"Where was Logan?" Max asked cautiously.
"Logan was being harassed by Valerie's lawyers anew. We were on our way to his house, to comfort him. I was staying with him while he was trying to get his life back together. It was going well too. The papers really weren't that big of a deal, so he always felt guilty that he wasn't there too."
"I guess I can see him putting that on himself… Why did it happen? I mean what the shooter have against you, or the restaurant?"
"My husband became aware of some corruption in a high ranking official's office that he worked for. He let a reporter know about it. Ryan asked the reporter to wait to run the story until after the baby was born and we could more easily get to safety. Some other information was leaked from the same office about the corruption, so the reporter thought it was safe to run the story. He didn't know that someone at the paper told the official the story went to press. We were mowed down in the street the night the story ran." Max watched her new friend speak of all such horrible things without a glimmer of hate. The sight was a marvel; she spoke of her life with such peace. Only peace.
***************
Max crept into Logan's apartment later that night as Logan fixed dinner. The day with Fiona was tiring, but she felt the need to let him know she was aware of how his parents died as well as his brother in law and nephew.
"Hey, there. I thought I was going to see you today," he said childishly from the kitchen.
"I spent the day with Fiona… It was a great day. She really trusts me… She seems to really want to be her sister," Max said with a smirk.
"Yeah. She did always want a little sister."
"I think I should tell you… Logan, Fiona took me to her house today…" she watched as he looked up from the food he was cooking. "She took me to the graveyard and the restaurant… I'm so sorry Logan. You both lost so much in one instant."
He looked down at the food and cleared his throat, "Yeah… Did she tell you about what happened?"
"Yeah… Ryan really was a brother in arms to you, huh? Turning in corruption, and all."
Logan became very agitated and angry, "Did she tell you about the reporter?"
"Yeah… I mean that Ryan leaked the story to a careless reporter…"
"I knew she felt that way… I knew it. Bling, told me that she didn't told it against me, but I know she does," Logan yelled.
"Why would she hold it against you?" Max asked.
He became very calm with tears in his eyes, "Because Max, I was the reporter. I was the one that wrote the article that got my family killed. I'm the one responsible for my parents' death. I'm the reason my little sister is a widow and childless…. I'm the careless reporter."
Max went to him as he slumped to the floor. She held his head in her arms and rocked him back and forth as he cried for all he had lost. "Logan I'm sorry. I didn't know. She didn't tell me. She didn't say you were careless, Logan. I used that word, not Fiona. She doesn't blame you. She didn't even sound mad at you. She just was so happy you weren't hurt. I shouldn't have said it. I didn't mean it… The guy who shot them is to blame not you. You didn't do this Logan…" Max said with as much conviction as she could. "I love you."
They sat on the floor for a long time while Logan wrestled the demons in his head. He had been pretending for so long that nothing had happened. Like his family just went away on some trip for a long time or he had moved and didn't see them that often. The truth was he had always blamed himself for what had happened and had been so unwilling to face it that he turned his back on his sister too.
Eyes Only was created in a moment when he could no longer hide from the pain in a bottle. He became a reporter without a paper, an anonymous journalist who was a phantom. No one left to kill but himself. In some ways, helping Lauren was his attempt to be shot down in the street like the rest of his family. He should have died with them. But who would have guest both he and Fiona were too strong to die in the street. On the floor of his kitchen with Max, Logan Cale took his first emotional step toward healing, toward the truth. He did have a family and most of them were gone. But there was one strong, boisterous, obstinate woman that survived with him. Now he had to face how he had failed her to save himself.