Zack's Perspective

"Max, little sister, ... Max" I hollered at her. She looks up at me with so pain in her eyes, I have to look away. I don't want her to see that I am feeling some of her pain. When ever she looks at me like that I feel so guilty. I start to wonder if I might have been able to do something. "You have to stop zoning out like that little sister" I tell her. It's more for my benefit that hers. I've been zoning out a lot lately too. It has been a lot harder to focus since that night I found her. I'm supposed to be the leader, the strong one, but what happened in the morning when she woke up really struck a nerve.

*****
Max was disoriented and talking to me like I was Logan.
"Logan, I had the worst dream last night. I dreamed that Lydecker shot you and I didn't get there soon enough to stop him."
I felt so bad for her. I didn't want to tell her the truth. I wanted to let her believe it was just a dream, but I couldn't let her do that. I had to tell her the truth. I spoke to her as softly as I could, "I'm sorry little sister".
She immediately jumped up, now alert of her surroundings. She gave me a look of disbelief. "I'm sorry, they took him last night" I said. I couldn't look at her; I didn't want to see her pain. Surprisingly all she expressed was anger.
She started yelling at me "It's not true, you're trying to trick me into going to Canada with you."

"No I'm not, come here Maxie."

"You're lying to me. Logan went to get breakfast. He'll be back any minuet."

She didn't want to believe what she knew to be true. I'm not sure when she started crying instead of yelling, all I know is that I had her in my arms. "It's not your fault Maxie, there was nothing you could have done, your alive that's what is important." It started to hit her really hard.

"I never got a chance to tell him how much I love him. I can't live without him. How am I supposed to go on without him" she cried to me.
I didn't know what to do. She had so much self-pity. I thought Logan was bad, but she is so much worse right now. She needs to move on to what is important, staying away from Manticore and keeping her freedom. Which means we needed to get moving, I don't know how long it will be until Lydecker comes back, he's not one for leaving loose ends. I didn't know what to do. I have never dealt with an emotional breakdown before. I don't know how long I stood there with her and listening to her cry about how she wanted to end her life. At this point I was starting to get a little annoyed. I'm not sure if I was annoyed because of her self-pity, or because she wouldn't listen to me and let me get her away from the penthouse.

That's when I brought up the idea of revenge and that seemed to sustain her for the moment, or at least until we could get to safety. We quickly rigged the penthouse to blow and took off running away from the penthouse and the bad memory of the previous night. I hoped that by the time we got away this would all be forgotten.

KABOOM

*****

Max could have easily been killed and taken away along with Logan. If I wouldn't have been there, ... I don't even want to think of what she would have done if I she wouldn't have woken up to find me. I didn't realize how much I cared about her until then, until the thought crossed my mind that she might have gotten killed. I'm not going to give anyone else the chance to take her away form me. Manticore or Lydecker are the only things that could do that, so I'm helping her get revenge. I probably shouldn't have brought up the revenge thing, because now that's all she thinks about. It's really sad to see her like this. Taking down Manticore will be good for two things, it will ease her pain, and destroy the only other thing that could threaten her. I will support her and do anything I can to help her. I have to; I love her.