Chapter 27

            "Hey thanks again for letting us use your cabin." Zack spoke into the phone in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.  An impatient Max sat at his side, pleading with her eyes for the phone.  She'd been a real treat lately, thinking that just because she was injured the world should revolve around her and Zack was getting sick of it.  She didn't need to be babied; yet the others seemed to find it fitting.

            "Someone here wants to talk to you.  And if I don't hand over the phone right now, I'll have a herd of transgenics on my back demanding I give the girl what she wants.  Honestly you'd think the girl had almost died or something.  I blame you for spoiling her when she was staying with you." Zack dragged on giving Max an evil smile and thoroughly enjoying his little sisters pain at having to wait to talk to Logan. 

            Sticking her tongue out, she snatched the phone from his hand and smiled victoriously.  Zack merely returned her raspberry and left his spot on the couch.

            "Hey." Suddenly she felt shy with all her siblings pretending not to listen in.

            "Hey back. You had us worried." Logan answered in a soothing tone. Seemingly sensing her hesitancy.

            "Yeah, well, it was nothing." She boasted as a few of her siblings rolled their eyes.  Covering the mouthpiece, she turned to give them an evil stare.

            "Get out." She ordered and reluctantly they complied.  Being injured had its advantages; somehow though she knew Zack could never get away with what she did, maybe it was because she was the youngest.

            "I'm sure.  They taking good care of you?" he asked.  Max sensed there was something he was holding back.  He seemed distant and aloof, in fact she wondered if he even cared at all that she was calling him.

            "Not as well as you did.  Can you believe I can't even get a decent backrub in this place?  You'd think that after all I'd been through they'd at least be willing to give me that but no." Max tried to joke but Logan's mood wasn't lifting any.

            "I can't believe it." He tried back.

            "Yeah, well, anyway, I've gotta go get some rest." She knew, that he knew, it was a lie.

            "Yeah, well, talk to you later then."

            Max hung up the phone without returning his comments.  Staring at her leg, she willed it to heal quickly.  She needed to make a trip to Seattle.

            Logan hung up the phone dejected.  He missed her more then anything in the world but he couldn't let her know that.  Just hearing her voice had sent him into a place of joy that he did not belong.

            If she wasn't so perfect.  If she didn't need so much.  If she…  Well it didn't matter how many "what if's" he came up with, it all led down the same path.  He couldn't be with her.  They couldn't ever go back to that day in his apartment, before the bullet that had torn their worlds apart.

            Pieces of it were still lodged in his spine a constant reminder of what was never meant to be.  A constant reminder that he never could be enough for her.  A reminder that she deserved more.

            She was safe now. That was all that mattered.  Manticore couldn't hurt her anymore.  Her siblings were free to start new lives. Maybe it would be best if she joined them.  Far away from him, maybe then he could get on with his life and stop thinking about how wonderful her lips tasted and how soft her skin was.  Maybe then he could stop thinking about how she fit perfectly in his arms, or the tension that would build between the two of them with a simple glance.

            Maybe then she could be free of him and he of her.

            He didn't find it likely for him but it was different with her.  She didn't love him like he loved her.  Max didn't even know what love was.  So she couldn't return his feelings even if he would let her.

            Besides this business with Manticore wasn't quite settled yet.  She was still in danger and so was he.  Anything more then friends would only lead to trouble.

            Wheeling himself to the window he sat and stared across the street not really seeing anything.