Why oh why do I string the men along? Tell me exactly how I happen to have accumulated not just one, but two heartbroken lovers? Hell I can't even call them lovers. That would have entailed actually engaging in fun physical activities with one or more of them. All I've ever done is taste. Looks bad, tastes good. Wicked Little Witch. Here kitty kitty. You can sip, but don't get drunk.
That's all about to change. Can't have two, and when it comes down to it, it isn't really any choice at all. A tigress needs a tiger, the animal needs her mate. I want his fire, his heat, and, hell, even his stupidity. Lethal weapons don't hold hands over wine. Now it falls to me to fix my mistakes. Tell the other boy to run away while he's still playing with a full set of internal organs. You know you couldn't have handled me anyway.
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I smell him in the air and freeze. It isn't the scent of a heady lover or heart-palpatating danger, it's just the familiarity of his sweat and nervous energy. Now is the time to act, time to spill my guts, time to clear the air. Wonder what's cooking in the mess-hall? No, have to focus, the future is at stake here. My nose follows his trail back up to the command center, and my feet carry me up the stairs.
Logan is waiting for my in my little office at the back of command, hands folded prim as a school mistress in his lap. Somehow he manages to be dwarfed by his surroundings, while at the same time filling up the small space with his emotions. His lower lip quivers as he looks up at me. Then as quickly as though someone had flipped a switch on him he smiled largely, baring his teeth, and started in on what was obviously a pre-prepared speech.
"Hi Max, you're looking well." Reply doesn't seem necessary and I wait to see where he's going before committing myself to a particular mood. "I wanted to see you, see how you were doing. Sorry that I missed out on the fun the other day, but I didn't hear about it until it was too late. Hope that everyone is okay. Thought I'd see if there was anything that I could do." A cool sneer curls my lips at his assumption, and offer; and I speak without thinking.
"We have all the help we need burying Our dead, thank you." The uncalculated cruelty in my voice caused me too flinch, I shouldn't be acting so harsh when I'm about to bury a hatchet in his back. Besides, the battle wasn't his fault, it didn't even really involve him. While my brain is frantically scrambling for a kind, safe thing to say, Logan masters his pained expression and makes another brave stab at conversation.
"Anyway, I heard on the informant net that you've been contacted by Senator Burnhart, and set up a meeting for tomorrow." Didn't take him long to get to the point. Annoyance flares my nostrils like a prize-fighting bull, no doubt where he's going with this one. So he tended to overlook the fact that there was a highly superior, genetically engineered brain behind my deceptively pretty, genetically engineered face. He's assuming that I'll be desperate for his help and counsel for my big meeting, that I need a big, wise, super, cyber-journalist to hold my hand and whisper words in my ear. No doubt he doesn't even think that I'm fit to lead myself let alone an entire people. I breathe easier, this poignant lack of respect of him will make what I'm about to do much easier.
I plaster a smile so uncharacteristically wide and saccharine sweet over my face, that a wiser person would have been worried. "And you thought that I might like to take you with me?" A pathetic expression mixing gratitude and false humility glows on lips and eyes.
"Of course you know all you have to do is ask Max." The cold murderous intent of a tiger on the prowl overtakes me, begging me to let it toy with him before ripping out his jugular. My voice lowers dangerously while still saying sugary sweet.
"That's really too kind of you Logan." His chest puffs out. Now, my primal side screams, now is the time to lay into him. "It's really a good thing that I have you here Logan." Could his smile possibly grow any wider? Silly question, it doubled in dimensions and threatened to swallow his face. "If you weren't here I who would tie my shoes in the morning and give me permission to use the restroom." His head, with its ridiculous expression, is still nodding in agreement not yet having caught up with the train of my words. "Any day now we'll have to make you leader of the freedom movement." A small shudder runs through his body and his head stops mid nod as realization overtakes his slower brain.
"What? No, I mean I would never presume to thinkā¦"
"That I can't handle things? That a bunch of highly trained, genetically engineered super-humans can't survive on their own without a big wise normal too hold their hands?" His mouth gapes like a fish, but I cut off his speech, with an angry wave of the hand. "Get this and get it good. We don't need your help. Alec and I are going to meet with the senator. We are going to fix things for our people. I don't need your help for this. I will always value as a friend, but there is no chance of you controlling me. Not as leader, and not as a lover. We can't work together by compromise, so we just won't work. I'm sorry, but I'll never fit your mould. I like the danger and the dirt. I don't have it in me to be clean, and neat, and calmly rational." Thank god, his mouth finally shuts as realization sinks in to his head.
"What are you talking about, what is this." He glances around as if trying to spot a hidden camera or teleprompter. Still ironically, he isn't ready to credit any of my thoughts to me. "Is this from the others? Can't have a leader with a normal? Face it Max, you need me. You don't have experience with leadership, or living." The pity I was feeling is pushed to the back of my conscience.
"Living isn't something you can teach. It's something that a person has to learn on their own. Don't you dare to presume, to tell me how to live."
"You need me. This isn't ever over between us Max, so let's just spare ourselves all of this denial again, and work out whatever little problems your having." His eyes blaze into mine, and I feel nothing. There is no love, no deep truths, not even any remorse running through me."
"I don't want you." After all of the heartache, all of the waiting and tears, and months of fear that I'd been forced to give up this great thing, it all came down to one simple fact. We might be friends, he was a really nice guy with a great deal to offer, and we'd been through a hell of a lot together; but I didn't want him. Deep down I never really had, not seriously. "I don't want you, and I'm sorry. You're a great friend, but that's all."
He doesn't speak again. Just backs numbly out of my office door, staring blankly into my face.
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Otto was such a clingy little thing. His small hands tugging at my arm, desperate for my attention, needing my advice for every little maneuver. Such a shame that I'd had to dispose of Ames, at least he'd been a man to be proud of.
The man I trailed had more of Otto in him, than White; a pathetic, shriveled and sniveling thing. I placed him in my head. There had been intel pictures of him getting intimate with the transgenic's leader. Apparently, he hadn't been man enough to satisfy her. The beast she kept as a watchdog though, now what a lover he would make. It had come as quite a shock to see him walking around in the land of the living, I couldn't mistake that delicious figure walking across the green in the transgenic's pathetic little city. No doubt that he couldn't be left that way. This leader, this Max, and especially her watchdog couldn't be left alive. Not if the familiars were to have their day in the sun.
To the familiars I was an outcast, but I'd found a way to survive and I would have my revenge. I would see that they had their genocide, with my little Otto at their head. I would make him brilliant and strong for them. With my help he would be a leader such as my Ames had been. Then I would rule them all from my position at Otto's back.
The future spreads gloriously before me, the power of a queen, the power of a god; and the pathetic, discarded lover walking away ahead of me is the key.
