For a brief moment, Max believed it all to be a dream. All the thick, black smoke that rose from the top of debris and rubble; all the flames that were strewn across the snow covered lawn, eating away at the perfected crystals; all of the retched stench that poured forth from the ruins. It was all a dream.

Then, as the stark and horrid realization exploded through her muggy mind that not only Logan, but Zack was in that inferno, Max knew that this was no nightmare. She couldn't think of something so hellish.

She screamed, her voice barely heard over the flames, trying to rise, trying to get to the building to save Logan and Zack. Her foot, no longer bandaged with the cloth from Boo, oozed of blood and pus as she applied weight onto it, splitting at the scars. A single bloody footprint followed her as a shadow as she tripped and fell down the hill.

Tears ran down her freezing face, clasping her hair together in icicles, while she cried hysterically. Max was normally not one for the type of behavior she was displaying at that moment as she stumbled, sobbing and screaming. She usually could accept the truth as it came at her, cry a couple tears, then push herself back up and continue on.

But this was not usually.

She stopped at the perimeter fence, slamming her weakened body against it. Although she was not strong enough to jump over the boundary, she was determined to climb it. Latching her numbed fingers through the chain linked fence, she began to pull herself upwards.

"Logan!" she moaned, using his name as an impetus to get over and to him. "Zack!"

At that moment, in the middle of her climb in which her foot bled even more, she felt strong arms wrapping themselves around her waist. Max kicked and thrashed against the hold, which resulted in loosing her grip and slipping down the fence.

"Let me go!" she screamed as the tears wet her clothing. Her voice was raspy from the cold, but her misery was even icier. "Let me go! I have to get them! They're in there!"

Slowly, she sank to the ground, with assistance from the person next to her. Collapsing to her knees, she buried her face in her hands as sobs racked her frail body. "They're in there…I have to get them…"

Next to her, Boo, with blood smeared up and down her side like a prisoner of war, wrapped a supporting arm around Max. The anomaly had little understanding of true human emotions other than hatred or pain, but she could comprehend that something was wrong with Max. Boo pulled Max closer, letting her friend lean against her for not only physical, but emotional support as well.

"No, Max. You no go."

"But, Logan," she replied, her face buried in Boo's tattered clothing. "And Zack…"

"No, Max."

Boo ran her fingers through Max's long, beautiful hair since the anomaly had no hair of her own to comb. Approximately fifty yards away, the fire burned, dashing its light up the snow and illuminating Boo's face with not only light, but also heat. It was the first time she had been warm in a long time, for the basement that had been her home for over a decade was never heated.

As Max's rapid breathing slowed, she was able to lift her aching head up and face the flames, knowing full well what had happened. "They're gone-aren't they?" she whispered, more to herself than to Boo.

"Yes," she replied, nodding her beaten head. "I sorry, Max."

"No, I'm the one who's sorry."

"For what?"

"For…everything, I guess."

"You no need be sorry, Max," Boo said to her.

"I still am."

Max wrapped her arm around Boo and laid her head against the creature that she had been deathly afraid of for all her life. Irony at its best, she thought wickedly to herself. The monster I had feared turns out to be the thing that saves me, while the person I love is the one that brings my psychological destruction.

The two of them sat, side by side, both bleeding and bruised, but not really caring until the last of the stars began to die out, giving way to the dimly lit sun that struggled to rise over the crest. Although the fire still raged, Max had formed a tight shell around herself, knowing and accepting that the two men who meant the most to her were infinitely gone. She needed to carry on with her life. Besides, it was what both Logan and Zack would've wanted for her anyway.

In the distance, she heard a voice calling to her. At first, she dismissed as delusional smoke inhalation and ignored it. But, when the voice began getting louder as it approached, she turned around. Even Boo was watching the direction from where the outcry came.

Moving swiftly down the snowy crest, the person ran. Their hair streamed out from behind them in a loose braid, while they cried Max's name joyfully and feet crunched through the thick snow.

Slowly and stiffly Max rose to her feet, hearing her knees crack and feeling the sores reopen on her foot. She squinted her eyes, straining to see the person and nearly fainted when she saw who was approaching.

"Tinga?" she yelled. "Tinga is that really you?"

"Yes, yes it is," Tinga replied as they met in a full force hug. She nearly swung Max around in a circle as they laughed in happiness so hard that tears fell from their eyes. Finally, they stopped spinning and looked at each other eye to eye for the first time since Tinga's mysterious capture by Renfro.

"It's really you," Max whispered. "And you know who you are."

"Baby sister," Tinga cooed, caressing the side of Max's hurt face, "I know everything."

Max would have been completely happy and carefree, but there was another problem agitating her at the moment. "How did you escape from the building before the bombs went off?"

"I wasn't in the building."

Max paused, her eyes widening as more fatal truth came tumbling down on her. "Then that means…?"

Tinga finished for her, "That Lydecker and Renfro are out there right now looking for us? Yes, that's what it means."