Disclaimer: Don't own them, don't profit from them, just like to play with them
A/N: A slight divergence from Logan's POV. I needed to get Max's feelings in before I went further.
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It is cold and there is snow on the ground. The woods are quiet with an eerie stillness. Even the birds are not singing. It is as if the world is waiting, waiting for what is to come. Lydecker speaks to the man dressed in prison uniform; he hands him a knife and the man turns and runs. Deck counts down from 5 and then Zack gives a hand signal and we are off.
Off, running like a wolf pack through the snowy woods. Branches slap my face, stinging my skin. The rush of our passage dislodges snow from the higher brush and it falls on me, running in icy rivulets inside the back of my sweatshirt. I don't really notice. My heart is pounding and my blood is rushing hotly in my veins. Some instinct has taken me over, something primal and strong. I have been told I have feline DNA in my genetic mix, perhaps that is what has come to the fore guiding my steps as I follow the others through the dark woods.
Ben and Zack have caught up with the prey, for that is what he has become to all of us now. We are the predators, he is the prey. Not all of us have feline DNA, some have wolf or bear or others of the large predators mixed into them. (I'm not sure who has what, although each one of us knows our own mix.) The prey is down, lying helplessly on the ground as we surround him.
Mission accomplished.
We are supposed to stop here, hold him and wait for Lydecker and the others to come take him away but something happens. Ben is reaching down and tearing open his shirt.
I want to cry out "No, Ben, don't touch him." but the discipline of silence instilled in me is too strong. The shirt opens and there is a picture on his chest. A heart with a knife through it. Ben draws back and then cries out.
"A Nomlie, he's a Nomlie! " Of all of us I think Ben is most afraid of the Nomlies. He tries to hide his fear by acting brave and telling us stories about them to show his bravery, but I know. I don't know why Ben is so afraid of them. True, I hate to walk by their cells and I wouldn't want to meet up with one free of their restraints, but when I don't see them I don't think of them. Ben always seems to be thinking of them. Ben is the one who has created the rituals of the Blue Lady. Created the rituals so she will protect us from the Nomlies. I'm not so sure she can protect us from anything.
I've learned early that the only ones you can depend on are yourself and your siblings. The others, the Lydeckers and the doctors are the enemy. To them we are commodities, potential soldiers yes, but disposable if we are not up to standards. To me the Blue Lady is more of a wistful dream, an escape, a hope of something we don't know but somehow sense is out there somewhere.
I am brought back to attention by the sudden rush of the others falling on the man. Ben has attacked him and the others have followed. The smell of blood is in the air and the sounds of the others fill my head. It sounds like a pack of wolves that has brought down their prey. I am in the middle of it, carried along by my sibs. I feel his flesh tearing under my fingernails and the taste of his blood in his mouth. Somewhere inside of me the human part stands back disgusted and sickened by what I am doing but unable to stop it.
My training by Lydecker has taken over and the predator they have made part of me from is in control of my body…
I have never forgotten that day hard as I have tried. It lives in my memory, a nightmare reminder of what I have inside of me. I have suppressed the memory but it still lives on and now Ben has awakened it. Poor Ben, caught up in the nightmare of what he is and unable to ever escape it. I don't know his exact genetics but they may have used a stronger mix of predator in him than in some of us others. That is all I can think. His urge to hunt and kill was too strong for him and once released of the restraints of Manticore his human part was unable to keep it in check. Perhaps he always knew that could happen on some level. Perhaps he knew he could easily become a Nomlie and that is why he was so afraid of them. I don't really know, psych courses were never my strongest point.
I will never forget the look in his eyes as he begged me not to leave him for Lydecker. The human part, the sweet, afraid little boy came out in his eyes. He broke my heart at that moment. I think I knew what I was going to have to do from the moment Logan told me what Ben was doing but I didn't want to face it. What were my choices? Leave him to go on killing – not an option. Surrender him to Lydecker to be tortured and tested in their twisted medical attempt to see what had gone wrong with their product? I loved Ben too much to give him up to Lydecker. That left only the choice I took. I had to do it, no one else could have; no normal human could have handled Ben. I wished Zack were there because Zack would have seen what had to be done and done it as a matter of course. Zack is harder than me in that way. But Zack wasn't around. It was only me and I did what I had to do. And now I will have to live with it.
I will be okay. I'm strong and I have lived with everything I have done in my life. The nightmares are bad now and little as I normally sleep, I know I will sleep even less for a while. When I close my eyes I relive the horrors of that day long years ago and I relive the pain I felt as I snapped Ben's neck. I loved my brother. The brother who told me stories and made shadow puppets for me on the walls. The brother who held me when I seized and told me it would be okay, the Blue Lady would protect me. The brother who told me about the Good Place when I was young and afraid. That is the brother I will remember.
We never learned about religion or praying at Manticore. I don't believe in some all-powerful God overseeing our actions. But, there may be something. That priest, Father Destry, has a goodness about him. He reminds me of Logan in that way. I can't talk to Logan about all of this; I don't want him to know these things about me. He called me an angel in his poem and I can't bear to disillusion him. I want to be an angel in his eyes, possibly be his angel someday. But maybe I can talk to the priest. He said his God could forgive many things we can't forgive ourselves for. Maybe he can help me to make sense of what happened, maybe he can help me get rid of these nightmares. What the hell, it's worth a try.