A/N: Well, the end is almost upon us. I'll be posting the final three chapters of Towards the Sunset tomorrow evening. For now, here is part thirteen. Originally this had been a fifteen part piece... but I ended up adding a chapter as I went along, so instead of dragging this out until Monday, I'll just finish it tomorrow like I had originally planned.
There are very mild spoilers for second season in this, but only up to Some Assembly Required, and most of them are only vague allusions to past events.
I welcome all reviews, both here and by email, so please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you're thinking. I can't improve my writing if I don't know what people want to see. :P
They're not mine, I just borrow them sometimes and mutate their inner voices. What can I say? It's fun. But Cameron will always own the good stuff. :P
Towards the Sunset
Part Thirteen: Setting the Trap
By: Danae Bowen
Email: logansfox@rogers.com
The drive home was far too irritatingly quiet for Max's liking. Original Cindy had opted to stay at the cottage under the condition that when Max and Logan take care of whoever was on their case, they'd return to finish out the vacation they'd all started together. They'd listened to her conditions and nodded, knowing that with the difficulty of this mission, by the time everything was said and done, they'd need the last few weeks to wind down.
Before they'd left, Logan had emailed the pictures of Asha to Matt, giving him Asha's address and explaining about Max's plan to return to the city. Matt would try to back them up as best as possible, but for the most part, Max and Logan would be completely reliant on themselves and Logan's men.
Now, they'd been on the road for over thirty hours and only the barest of conversations had passed their lips. They'd stopped only quickly for gasoline and fast foods they could eat along the way, switching seats sometime every six to eight hours to make sure they made it back to Seattle as fast as humanly possible. Finally, Max shifted in the passenger seat, her muscles stiffened from hours of little movement, and she groaned.
"Logan, we need to stop soon or my body's never gonna be able to bend that way you liked so much again." She tried to lighten their moods, slipping a sparkle into her eyes to let him know she was teasing.
He afforded her a quick grin, but it didn't reach his eyes. "We should be coming up on a truck stop fairly soon. We'll stop there and you can stretch out. Spend an hour, get food."
She sighed. The hours were passing too slowly for Max; she wasn't used to long periods of rest and the energy she'd felt building up on the way to the cottage was nothing compared to the tense energy that now flowed through her body. She needed out, and she needed out now.
"Get there. Fast. I'm gonna go crazy."
Logan glanced at her and worried at the edge in her eyes. He knew how special Max's body was and he supposed that two days of little to no motion were starting to get to her. The first leg of their journey had been easier; she'd slept most of his eight hours behind the wheel, catching up on what she'd missed the night before. After that, she'd fidgeted for most of the remaining hours, desperate to be in action. He sighed. The hour was getting late and no matter how fast they got back to Seattle, Asha would still be dead. He shook his head. He supposed there was no sense driving through the night again, especially not with Max as wound up as she was at the moment. Odds were good that if she had too much energy to waste, she'd become careless in a battle and make a mistake. He wasn't going to have her death on his conscience as well.
"Listen, we'll stop at a motel. Spend the night. Take the last few hours tomorrow." He glanced at her and was rewarded with a measure of relief spreading over her features.
"Thank you." Her words were filled with honest gratitude, as at last a break from the monotonous journey was visible.
Two hours passed and finally Logan pulled into a motel. Max was out of the car in an instant, stretching out her tightened muscles. While he went inside to get them a room, she pulled their over night bags out of the car and hefted them to her shoulder, glorying in the feeling of blood flowing through her veins.
Logan returned moments later with a key, cocking his head at her to follow him to their room. His silence was deafening, the death of Asha seemingly pulling from him the will to communicate. That was the second issue that was making Max jumpy; at least in the past, aside from his suicide attempt after returning to his chair, Logan had been mostly open with her. Right now, he was behaving much as she had after the death of Ben: quiet, withdrawn, holding themselves accountable for something that only in retrospect could have been avoided. She shook her head sadly as he moved immediately out of her sight and into the bathroom, running himself a shower as she sat back upon the bed.
She was waiting for him when he returned, sitting cross-legged, staring at the bathroom door until he finally stepped through.
"You gonna talk to me, or you gonna get all martyr on me and forget we're in this together?" Max was through with subtlety.
"There's nothing to talk about." His eyes shifted away from hers and he turned, finding something incredibly interesting in his suitcase to keep his attention.
"Obviously, since you haven't said more than ten words to me in the last thirty something hours. Don't you know me better than that, Logan? For God's sake, what haven't we been through for you to treat me like I'm nobody again?" Her words were sharp, her eyes burning into his back as she waited for his reaction.
"I don't know how many ways I can say this, Max, but there is nothing to talk about. I'm angry. That's all. I'll get over it."
Her teeth ground at the sound of his short and clipped sentences, her eyes narrowing in frustration. Sentences came to Max's lips without forethought, and each word cut off, her tone matching his in coldness and anger. "That's great then, Logan. You sit on your ass and pity yourself all you want 'cause God forbid the great and powerful Eyes Only misses somethin' and someone dies. Well, you know what? You're not fuckin' perfect. You can't see the future just 'cause you want to. You think I don't feel bad that I didn't think of Asha? I was too busy makin' sure my peeps asses were covered to remember the blonde, so I'm just as much at fault here as you. So, what, you hate me now, 'cause I ain't psychic? 'Cause there's no sense hatin' yourself if you're not willin' to hate me too. Partners, remember? We're fuckin' equal, babe, so you better snap outta this funk, fast, unless you want my foot and your ass to have a party. 'N believe me, if that happens, my foot'd have a better time then your ass."
She was on her feet in a second, paused to grab the room key off the dresser, and had the door half open before he found his voice. "Max, wait." She turned back, still holding the door open, her body stiff with antagonism but she waited for him to speak instead of storming out. "I'm sorry. I just don't know how else to deal with this. I promised Asha I'd help her; she trusted me and I let her get killed. It's just hard to accept."
Max sighed and closed the door, coming back to wrap her arms around Logan, holding him gently. "You just gotta deal."
She led him to the bed, sitting him down, and began to talk. The only way she knew to let him know she understood was to tell him everything about Ben, from the death of the unnamed man when they were kids, to breaking Ben's neck deep in the woods, leaving his body for Lydecker to find and take away for whatever testing Manticore wanted to do. She'd kept the feelings she'd had about Ben buried deep within her, not sharing them with anyone because of the guilt that stained her soul. Everything that had happened to Ben represented a side of her she didn't want exposed, even to Logan, but to help him deal with his own guilt, she'd cut open her soul. Her own feelings meant very little when it came down to Logan's well being, they were too close for her to hold anything back.
They talked long into the night, Logan listening to her closely as she revealed everything he'd wondered about that time only just over a year ago. His mind had put together the pieces of what had happened just by her reactions, and the addition of Lydecker's gift of photographs from Max's youth, but to hear it from her own lips was something different. Before the night had passed, Logan actually found himself telling Max about meeting Asha for the first time years before, the state of mind he'd been in when she'd arrived in Seattle a year previous, and even the conversations he'd had with Asha regarding his relationship with Max. Both Max and Logan had realized early that Asha had been hoping for a deeper relationship with Logan, but Max's existence had made that impossible. They discussed everything from his feelings towards Asha to his feelings towards her death, and even Max's feelings about both. For once, their conversation wasn't interrupted by arguments or accusations, there were no raised voices and no sharp tones, instead it came down to being hours of sharing the emotions they held deep inside and somehow it made the situation better.
When the sun was just beginning to lighten the sky, they found themselves in each other's arms, making slow love until they reached their mutual completion. There was no frenzy of release, no desperate need to make life real, no anger they were trying to chase out of their minds; there were only soft touches, gentle movements, and the sweetest end to an emotionally straining day, that seemed to bring them closer together, emotionally and physically, then they'd ever been before.
When the moment had passed, and Logan's eyes began to flutter shut, Max pressed a soft kiss to his temple, smoothing away his dampened hair. She found a gentle place inside her that she never knew existed when she was at Logan's side, and she knew that any sacrifice she made would be worth it to keep that feeling alive.
*****
They entered Seattle the next day before dark, driving straight to Logan's apartment where they could gather their thoughts and begin to put their plan into motion. The first thing Logan had to do was to call Matt for the list of suspects the police had managed to put together. In an instant, Logan had cross-referenced the list against the postings of recent parolees, and then crossed that against a list displaying their financial status. Before they'd even announced their presence to Seattle, they had the list narrowed down to three people.
Karl Tracovitch: Months before Logan and Max had brought down his empire when he was found to be distributing experimental mind control drugs to several government officials. He had been fined a sum of money that made the hair rise on Max's neck, but only given six months time in prison. He'd been released only two weeks previous and had the cash flow to make anything happen he wanted, putting him right at the top of their list. At the time, he'd captured Logan and had been preparing to torture him for Eyes Only contact information when Max had once again arrived in the nick of time, saving the day. They'd been unsure as to whether Tracovitch had uncovered Logan's identity as Eyes Only, but the possibility couldn't be denied: then or now.
Pointer Dietz: A computer hacker, embezzling millions of dollars from companies across America. Logan had stumbled upon him when it came to be known he was financing several overseas terrorist organizations with the cash he'd stolen away from several major organizations. He'd been able to hack into Logan's Eyes Only broadcasts, effectively silencing Logan for long weeks before Max had managed to track him down. Dietz still had a ready cash flow, and as he was involved in what amounted to mostly white collar crime, having buried any information trail leading back to his terrorist contacts, he'd been released from prison inside of a year. Having once hacked into Eyes Only, Logan had no doubt that Dietz would be able to uncover his identity if he had gained more than just external access to Logan's computer files.
Viktoria Graines: A state senator who'd been using her contacts as a politician to bury information that could effectively boost the smothering American economy. She'd been paid by almost every country that had a poor history with America to keep the economy in a slump so that America would have no chance at recovering their status as a superpower. Max and Logan had little doubt that there were others in the government involved in the same activities, but Graines had managed to keep herself in a single cell, avoiding all paper trails and evidence connecting her with any others in her grand scheme. She had been a close family friend of the Cale's, and had the funds to seek out and destroy Eyes Only for the broadcast made regarding her status as an American.
It chilled Logan to realize exactly how easy it would be to track down Eyes Only if people had the money and the will to make it happen. It honestly made him wonder if Lydecker hadn't known earlier than he displayed of Logan's status, Manticore having everything necessary to seek him out, but pushed the thought out of his mind. He'd tighten his Eyes Only security codes at a later date, today they had a killer to seek out and he needed as much information as possible to see that Max made it through the next hours alive.
Going through his files, Logan picked up a recent case that he'd not yet made a broadcast regarding. He glanced over at Max, waiting for her confirmation that she was, indeed, prepared to go through with her plan, before booting up the computers and recording the cable hack. It took only minutes after the hack was recorded for it to hit the airwaves, and together they watched the televisions knowing that as soon as their suspect saw the broadcast, it would be time for Max to act.
"You realize we're doing exactly what he wants?" Logan's voice was low, his tone holding a defeated note that made Max take a step closer to him, resting her hands on his shoulders.
"Letting Asha's death bring us back to town?" She nodded. "Yeah, I know. But he's not expecting to have two X-5's and Joshua waiting for him when he gets here."
"Did you get in contact with them?"
She nodded again, holding her hand open so he could see the cell phone she was holding. "Alec's gone to Joshua's. They'll be here as soon as it gets dark enough for Joshua to not be noticed." She glanced down at the blue prints of his building that they'd laid out over his desk, and began pointing out the weak spots in their perimeter. "Joshua's gonna take the roof." She smiled. "And lay low till I say so." Logan managed a weak grin at Max's use of one of Joshua's favorite sayings. "He's to stay and watch you."
"What are you doing?"
She shrugged. "Alec and I are gonna make ourselves more visible. Head back to my place, check out the damage type thing, stand in the windows. Anywhere our friend expects to find me, he's gonna find me." She smiled sarcastically. "And then I'm gonna beat the shit outta his goons until they tell me where I'm gonna find him."
"I know I don't have to tell you this, Max, but, please, be careful." His blue eyes shone with concern, and Max smiled at him reassuringly, moving to sit in his lap for a moment, resting her head against his chest.
"We'll get this done." She grinned. "Be back 'fore you know I'm gone."
He sighed and shook his head, softly stroking her back as they waited for the tell tale signs of Joshua and Alec's arrival. Thirty minutes passed before there came a sound at the skylight, and the upside down head of Joshua peeked into the penthouse.
"Max?"
Max laughed softly, she and Logan moving into the hallway to glance up at Joshua. "Hey, big fella." Her eyes were warm and full of pleasure to see her transgenic friend.
"Hey, little fella." His eyebrow rose as he caught sight of Logan's arm around Max's shoulder. "Virus bitch kicked?"
She nodded, leaning closer to Logan and smiling up at Joshua. "In a big way."
He smiled, his sharp teeth glinting in the low light of the penthouse. "Max 'n Logan gettin' it on! That's the plan! Joshua told Max you'd see."
Original Cindy's words at the cottage the day before came back to Logan's mind, and suddenly he understood. Between Joshua and Original Cindy, Max hadn't been allowed to forget what she and Logan were fighting to achieve; he chuckled and shook his head as a low flush crept up Max's neck.
"Yeah, big fella, you certainly did." Max's smile was honest as she glanced between her friends, but soon business took over and she was laying out the new plan for Joshua. "Joshua, you got Logan's back tonight, okay?"
He nodded. "Joshua protect Logan, okay. Got it."
Max scanned the backdrop of the skylight, noticing that Joshua was alone. "Where's Alec?"
Joshua shrugged, cocking his head in the dim light as if searching for a particular sound. "Almost to ground now. Meet Max downstairs. Joshua stay on roof, get Logan's back."
Max nodded. "You got it. Keep it real, big fella."
"Stayin' cool."
Joshua disappeared back onto the roof, and if they listened carefully they could hear him moving around, checking the perimeter. Max nodded in satisfaction, turning back to Logan one more time. "You'll be safe. If there's any trouble, page me."
He nodded. "Remember what I said?"
She laughed softly, bending to press a soft kiss against his lips. "Before you know I'm gone."
Within moments, Max had disappeared through the front door and was on her way down to meet Alec below. Logan sighed and moved to the window, listening for the sound of her bike, knowing when he heard it that there was a good chance he may never see Max again.
End Part Thirteen: Setting the Trap
There are very mild spoilers for second season in this, but only up to Some Assembly Required, and most of them are only vague allusions to past events.
I welcome all reviews, both here and by email, so please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you're thinking. I can't improve my writing if I don't know what people want to see. :P
They're not mine, I just borrow them sometimes and mutate their inner voices. What can I say? It's fun. But Cameron will always own the good stuff. :P
Towards the Sunset
Part Thirteen: Setting the Trap
By: Danae Bowen
Email: logansfox@rogers.com
The drive home was far too irritatingly quiet for Max's liking. Original Cindy had opted to stay at the cottage under the condition that when Max and Logan take care of whoever was on their case, they'd return to finish out the vacation they'd all started together. They'd listened to her conditions and nodded, knowing that with the difficulty of this mission, by the time everything was said and done, they'd need the last few weeks to wind down.
Before they'd left, Logan had emailed the pictures of Asha to Matt, giving him Asha's address and explaining about Max's plan to return to the city. Matt would try to back them up as best as possible, but for the most part, Max and Logan would be completely reliant on themselves and Logan's men.
Now, they'd been on the road for over thirty hours and only the barest of conversations had passed their lips. They'd stopped only quickly for gasoline and fast foods they could eat along the way, switching seats sometime every six to eight hours to make sure they made it back to Seattle as fast as humanly possible. Finally, Max shifted in the passenger seat, her muscles stiffened from hours of little movement, and she groaned.
"Logan, we need to stop soon or my body's never gonna be able to bend that way you liked so much again." She tried to lighten their moods, slipping a sparkle into her eyes to let him know she was teasing.
He afforded her a quick grin, but it didn't reach his eyes. "We should be coming up on a truck stop fairly soon. We'll stop there and you can stretch out. Spend an hour, get food."
She sighed. The hours were passing too slowly for Max; she wasn't used to long periods of rest and the energy she'd felt building up on the way to the cottage was nothing compared to the tense energy that now flowed through her body. She needed out, and she needed out now.
"Get there. Fast. I'm gonna go crazy."
Logan glanced at her and worried at the edge in her eyes. He knew how special Max's body was and he supposed that two days of little to no motion were starting to get to her. The first leg of their journey had been easier; she'd slept most of his eight hours behind the wheel, catching up on what she'd missed the night before. After that, she'd fidgeted for most of the remaining hours, desperate to be in action. He sighed. The hour was getting late and no matter how fast they got back to Seattle, Asha would still be dead. He shook his head. He supposed there was no sense driving through the night again, especially not with Max as wound up as she was at the moment. Odds were good that if she had too much energy to waste, she'd become careless in a battle and make a mistake. He wasn't going to have her death on his conscience as well.
"Listen, we'll stop at a motel. Spend the night. Take the last few hours tomorrow." He glanced at her and was rewarded with a measure of relief spreading over her features.
"Thank you." Her words were filled with honest gratitude, as at last a break from the monotonous journey was visible.
Two hours passed and finally Logan pulled into a motel. Max was out of the car in an instant, stretching out her tightened muscles. While he went inside to get them a room, she pulled their over night bags out of the car and hefted them to her shoulder, glorying in the feeling of blood flowing through her veins.
Logan returned moments later with a key, cocking his head at her to follow him to their room. His silence was deafening, the death of Asha seemingly pulling from him the will to communicate. That was the second issue that was making Max jumpy; at least in the past, aside from his suicide attempt after returning to his chair, Logan had been mostly open with her. Right now, he was behaving much as she had after the death of Ben: quiet, withdrawn, holding themselves accountable for something that only in retrospect could have been avoided. She shook her head sadly as he moved immediately out of her sight and into the bathroom, running himself a shower as she sat back upon the bed.
She was waiting for him when he returned, sitting cross-legged, staring at the bathroom door until he finally stepped through.
"You gonna talk to me, or you gonna get all martyr on me and forget we're in this together?" Max was through with subtlety.
"There's nothing to talk about." His eyes shifted away from hers and he turned, finding something incredibly interesting in his suitcase to keep his attention.
"Obviously, since you haven't said more than ten words to me in the last thirty something hours. Don't you know me better than that, Logan? For God's sake, what haven't we been through for you to treat me like I'm nobody again?" Her words were sharp, her eyes burning into his back as she waited for his reaction.
"I don't know how many ways I can say this, Max, but there is nothing to talk about. I'm angry. That's all. I'll get over it."
Her teeth ground at the sound of his short and clipped sentences, her eyes narrowing in frustration. Sentences came to Max's lips without forethought, and each word cut off, her tone matching his in coldness and anger. "That's great then, Logan. You sit on your ass and pity yourself all you want 'cause God forbid the great and powerful Eyes Only misses somethin' and someone dies. Well, you know what? You're not fuckin' perfect. You can't see the future just 'cause you want to. You think I don't feel bad that I didn't think of Asha? I was too busy makin' sure my peeps asses were covered to remember the blonde, so I'm just as much at fault here as you. So, what, you hate me now, 'cause I ain't psychic? 'Cause there's no sense hatin' yourself if you're not willin' to hate me too. Partners, remember? We're fuckin' equal, babe, so you better snap outta this funk, fast, unless you want my foot and your ass to have a party. 'N believe me, if that happens, my foot'd have a better time then your ass."
She was on her feet in a second, paused to grab the room key off the dresser, and had the door half open before he found his voice. "Max, wait." She turned back, still holding the door open, her body stiff with antagonism but she waited for him to speak instead of storming out. "I'm sorry. I just don't know how else to deal with this. I promised Asha I'd help her; she trusted me and I let her get killed. It's just hard to accept."
Max sighed and closed the door, coming back to wrap her arms around Logan, holding him gently. "You just gotta deal."
She led him to the bed, sitting him down, and began to talk. The only way she knew to let him know she understood was to tell him everything about Ben, from the death of the unnamed man when they were kids, to breaking Ben's neck deep in the woods, leaving his body for Lydecker to find and take away for whatever testing Manticore wanted to do. She'd kept the feelings she'd had about Ben buried deep within her, not sharing them with anyone because of the guilt that stained her soul. Everything that had happened to Ben represented a side of her she didn't want exposed, even to Logan, but to help him deal with his own guilt, she'd cut open her soul. Her own feelings meant very little when it came down to Logan's well being, they were too close for her to hold anything back.
They talked long into the night, Logan listening to her closely as she revealed everything he'd wondered about that time only just over a year ago. His mind had put together the pieces of what had happened just by her reactions, and the addition of Lydecker's gift of photographs from Max's youth, but to hear it from her own lips was something different. Before the night had passed, Logan actually found himself telling Max about meeting Asha for the first time years before, the state of mind he'd been in when she'd arrived in Seattle a year previous, and even the conversations he'd had with Asha regarding his relationship with Max. Both Max and Logan had realized early that Asha had been hoping for a deeper relationship with Logan, but Max's existence had made that impossible. They discussed everything from his feelings towards Asha to his feelings towards her death, and even Max's feelings about both. For once, their conversation wasn't interrupted by arguments or accusations, there were no raised voices and no sharp tones, instead it came down to being hours of sharing the emotions they held deep inside and somehow it made the situation better.
When the sun was just beginning to lighten the sky, they found themselves in each other's arms, making slow love until they reached their mutual completion. There was no frenzy of release, no desperate need to make life real, no anger they were trying to chase out of their minds; there were only soft touches, gentle movements, and the sweetest end to an emotionally straining day, that seemed to bring them closer together, emotionally and physically, then they'd ever been before.
When the moment had passed, and Logan's eyes began to flutter shut, Max pressed a soft kiss to his temple, smoothing away his dampened hair. She found a gentle place inside her that she never knew existed when she was at Logan's side, and she knew that any sacrifice she made would be worth it to keep that feeling alive.
*****
They entered Seattle the next day before dark, driving straight to Logan's apartment where they could gather their thoughts and begin to put their plan into motion. The first thing Logan had to do was to call Matt for the list of suspects the police had managed to put together. In an instant, Logan had cross-referenced the list against the postings of recent parolees, and then crossed that against a list displaying their financial status. Before they'd even announced their presence to Seattle, they had the list narrowed down to three people.
Karl Tracovitch: Months before Logan and Max had brought down his empire when he was found to be distributing experimental mind control drugs to several government officials. He had been fined a sum of money that made the hair rise on Max's neck, but only given six months time in prison. He'd been released only two weeks previous and had the cash flow to make anything happen he wanted, putting him right at the top of their list. At the time, he'd captured Logan and had been preparing to torture him for Eyes Only contact information when Max had once again arrived in the nick of time, saving the day. They'd been unsure as to whether Tracovitch had uncovered Logan's identity as Eyes Only, but the possibility couldn't be denied: then or now.
Pointer Dietz: A computer hacker, embezzling millions of dollars from companies across America. Logan had stumbled upon him when it came to be known he was financing several overseas terrorist organizations with the cash he'd stolen away from several major organizations. He'd been able to hack into Logan's Eyes Only broadcasts, effectively silencing Logan for long weeks before Max had managed to track him down. Dietz still had a ready cash flow, and as he was involved in what amounted to mostly white collar crime, having buried any information trail leading back to his terrorist contacts, he'd been released from prison inside of a year. Having once hacked into Eyes Only, Logan had no doubt that Dietz would be able to uncover his identity if he had gained more than just external access to Logan's computer files.
Viktoria Graines: A state senator who'd been using her contacts as a politician to bury information that could effectively boost the smothering American economy. She'd been paid by almost every country that had a poor history with America to keep the economy in a slump so that America would have no chance at recovering their status as a superpower. Max and Logan had little doubt that there were others in the government involved in the same activities, but Graines had managed to keep herself in a single cell, avoiding all paper trails and evidence connecting her with any others in her grand scheme. She had been a close family friend of the Cale's, and had the funds to seek out and destroy Eyes Only for the broadcast made regarding her status as an American.
It chilled Logan to realize exactly how easy it would be to track down Eyes Only if people had the money and the will to make it happen. It honestly made him wonder if Lydecker hadn't known earlier than he displayed of Logan's status, Manticore having everything necessary to seek him out, but pushed the thought out of his mind. He'd tighten his Eyes Only security codes at a later date, today they had a killer to seek out and he needed as much information as possible to see that Max made it through the next hours alive.
Going through his files, Logan picked up a recent case that he'd not yet made a broadcast regarding. He glanced over at Max, waiting for her confirmation that she was, indeed, prepared to go through with her plan, before booting up the computers and recording the cable hack. It took only minutes after the hack was recorded for it to hit the airwaves, and together they watched the televisions knowing that as soon as their suspect saw the broadcast, it would be time for Max to act.
"You realize we're doing exactly what he wants?" Logan's voice was low, his tone holding a defeated note that made Max take a step closer to him, resting her hands on his shoulders.
"Letting Asha's death bring us back to town?" She nodded. "Yeah, I know. But he's not expecting to have two X-5's and Joshua waiting for him when he gets here."
"Did you get in contact with them?"
She nodded again, holding her hand open so he could see the cell phone she was holding. "Alec's gone to Joshua's. They'll be here as soon as it gets dark enough for Joshua to not be noticed." She glanced down at the blue prints of his building that they'd laid out over his desk, and began pointing out the weak spots in their perimeter. "Joshua's gonna take the roof." She smiled. "And lay low till I say so." Logan managed a weak grin at Max's use of one of Joshua's favorite sayings. "He's to stay and watch you."
"What are you doing?"
She shrugged. "Alec and I are gonna make ourselves more visible. Head back to my place, check out the damage type thing, stand in the windows. Anywhere our friend expects to find me, he's gonna find me." She smiled sarcastically. "And then I'm gonna beat the shit outta his goons until they tell me where I'm gonna find him."
"I know I don't have to tell you this, Max, but, please, be careful." His blue eyes shone with concern, and Max smiled at him reassuringly, moving to sit in his lap for a moment, resting her head against his chest.
"We'll get this done." She grinned. "Be back 'fore you know I'm gone."
He sighed and shook his head, softly stroking her back as they waited for the tell tale signs of Joshua and Alec's arrival. Thirty minutes passed before there came a sound at the skylight, and the upside down head of Joshua peeked into the penthouse.
"Max?"
Max laughed softly, she and Logan moving into the hallway to glance up at Joshua. "Hey, big fella." Her eyes were warm and full of pleasure to see her transgenic friend.
"Hey, little fella." His eyebrow rose as he caught sight of Logan's arm around Max's shoulder. "Virus bitch kicked?"
She nodded, leaning closer to Logan and smiling up at Joshua. "In a big way."
He smiled, his sharp teeth glinting in the low light of the penthouse. "Max 'n Logan gettin' it on! That's the plan! Joshua told Max you'd see."
Original Cindy's words at the cottage the day before came back to Logan's mind, and suddenly he understood. Between Joshua and Original Cindy, Max hadn't been allowed to forget what she and Logan were fighting to achieve; he chuckled and shook his head as a low flush crept up Max's neck.
"Yeah, big fella, you certainly did." Max's smile was honest as she glanced between her friends, but soon business took over and she was laying out the new plan for Joshua. "Joshua, you got Logan's back tonight, okay?"
He nodded. "Joshua protect Logan, okay. Got it."
Max scanned the backdrop of the skylight, noticing that Joshua was alone. "Where's Alec?"
Joshua shrugged, cocking his head in the dim light as if searching for a particular sound. "Almost to ground now. Meet Max downstairs. Joshua stay on roof, get Logan's back."
Max nodded. "You got it. Keep it real, big fella."
"Stayin' cool."
Joshua disappeared back onto the roof, and if they listened carefully they could hear him moving around, checking the perimeter. Max nodded in satisfaction, turning back to Logan one more time. "You'll be safe. If there's any trouble, page me."
He nodded. "Remember what I said?"
She laughed softly, bending to press a soft kiss against his lips. "Before you know I'm gone."
Within moments, Max had disappeared through the front door and was on her way down to meet Alec below. Logan sighed and moved to the window, listening for the sound of her bike, knowing when he heard it that there was a good chance he may never see Max again.
End Part Thirteen: Setting the Trap