A Final Farewell
Chapter 9
A/N: Sorry for the long wait, I had to put off writing for a while I've been pretty swamped with home work and the like, but hopefully the long wait hasn't deterred you from reading this. Thanks for all the wonderful reviews I hope that they keep coming. I hope that you enjoy this chapter and review.
Logan flew backward as the bullet hit him full force. It had hit the exoskeleton that helped him walk, she couldn't even see it, and she had known it was there. "What the hell?" Logan said exasperatedly. He looked up from the hole in his jeans to see her staring at him sardonically.
"Told you I would shoot you, now where would you like it, in the head for quick and not painful, no that would be to good for you, I'd say in the stomach, so I can watch you bleed to death. But first I need to find something out where do you keep the information for your transmissions my superiors would like to make sure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands."
He answered, "They are in the bottom desk drawer, in the office over there," he said indicating with his hand.
"Thank you," getting up she headed towards the office and came back a few minutes later with a manila folder. Flipping it open her eyes went wide with shock, inside there were pictures of her and Logan holding hands and on top was a letter. "What is this?" She said dangerously.
"That would be all the good times that you and me shared together, on the top is a letter that you wrote to me before you were ki… disappeared three months ago. You proclaimed your love for me in it. You went to destroy Manticore along with your brothers Zack and Krit and your sister Syl, so that they could never hurt anymore children like they hurt you-" he stopped when he saw the look on Carmen's face a cross between shock and disbelief.
"You don't remember that do you, you laid in my arms and died or not apparently-"
"Stop it," Carmen said quietly her mind was plagued with images, "Stop it," she had had enough, she raised the gun and her hand wavered on the trigger.
Logan used the counter for support and struggled to stand with the one good side of the exoskeleton. Snapping her head up Carmen looked at him suspiciously, "What are you doing? Stay down on the floor." Motioning with the gun for him to stay down. Logan dragged himself slowly down the counter and made it three feet from where Carmen was standing.
"You have to remember something anything." Her reached out a hand to touch her face she stared at it as though it were a snake coming in for the strike. She reacted by taking a step backward, he moved forward again and this time when he reached out his arm she didn't move away. He closed the distance between them and smoothed her wind blown hair down behind her ears. She stared intently at him, the gun still poised in her hand but pointing downward. He was doing exactly what he had wanted to, to get her guard down, to prove to her that she wasn't who she was led to believe she was.
All he wanted was for her to remember some shred of what they had shared, to remember what love felt like, the kind of love that he felt for her. He touched his lips gently to hers, she stood stunned by his action and pulled away. Her sudden movement caused Logan to lose his balance, without thinking Carmen reached forward to keep him from falling, to do that she had to drop the gun. It dropped to the floor with a loud clank.
Her eyes were wide and frightened like a deer caught in headlights. Before he could say anything she bolted, lightning quick he heard her shatter one of the plate glass windows that lined the far right wall of the apartment. She had done it before the first night that they had met, he had called her Rocky the Flying Squirrel. She had dove out a window a hundred feet in the air and had gotten out without a scratch. It was enough to make anyone believe that she was something special, and she was and always would be to him.
He sat on the floor of the apartment and breathed a sigh of relief, he had avoided injury thankfully, and he doubted that he would be as lucky the next time that they met. She hadn't been kidding when she had said that she would shoot him, but he had been lucky that she had hit the exoskeleton instead of his actual leg. Not that he would have felt the pain, but he would have been very angry if he had bled all over the floor of the apartment.
He dragged himself to where his wheelchair stood not 4 feet away. Pulling himself up into it he struggled to get the skeleton off. Looking at the damage that she had done he was thankful that she had only hit the knee joint, all that needed to be replaced was the screw that connected the top to the bottom. Rummaging through his office he found a screw that would be able to hold them together until he could find something a little bit more permanent.
Removing the broken screw he replaced it with the new one, putting the skeleton back on he tested the new screw. The resistance he felt in the knee was more than it had been before the run in with the newly brainwashed Max, but he was at least able to walk with it. Which he needed if he had any hope of finding Max.
Going down the elevator to the parking garage he got into his beat up SUV. It had been through the war and the paint was peeling off of it but it was a good quality car and it was his most trusted asset. Driving through the streets of Seattle he tried to think of where this new and improved Max would go. He looked up into the clear night sky, unusual for Seattle and asked for some help. Looking around he got his answer the Space Needle it was his best bet.
Arriving at the bottom he pulled open the badly rusted door, the sound of the scraping hinges echoed through the empty interior of the needle. He took the stairs slowly contemplating what he was going to say if in fact she was there. He hadn't seen a car or a motorcycle outside but that didn't mean anything, she could have stashed it somewhere.
Reaching the top he didn't see any signs of anyone being there, except for the broken window that for a fact Logan knew Max used to be able to get on the outside of the Needle. Piling boxes on top of each other he was able to reach the window. Climbing out onto the roof, he saw a lone figure standing near the edge. He stood watching her for a few minutes before he heard her voice drift slowly back to him.
"I know you're there," she said mockingly. "You didn't think I couldn't hear you, did you." Logan still stood stunned. He knew that Max was good, but that proved exactly how good.
"We were friends," for some reason he felt that he had to explain, "The best kind, and I know some part of you hasn't forgotten that." he said walking towards her. She hadn't turned toward him while she was talking she still stood with the city spread out at her feet. He grabbed her arm and made her face him, she didn't struggle when he did. He stood searching her face looking for any trace of the women that he had loved. "Tell me that I haven't lost her."
He caught her eyes and held them. She was the first to look away. He touched her chin and her eyes briefly flicked over hers. She turned away again and stood at the edge looking down. "How did you find me here?" she said glancing back at him her voice cracking.
"It wasn't hard, this was the first place that Max would go when she felt confused, I figured that if there was still a small part of her in you, that this would be the place that you would turn."
"Good deduction, can you tell me anything about her."
"I can, do you want to hear it."
"That would be why I asked, can you start from the beginning? I want to hear everything."
She sat down in a heap, Logan warily taking a place next to her, he wasn't necessarily worried that she would take out a gun and try to shot him, he was worried that she would try and push him over the edge and make it look like an accident had occurred. He started to speak and he could see that she was becoming more and more interested in him by the minute.
They sat like that, two lone figures looking out on a broken world for more than an hour. He told her ever detail that he could remember, from what she was wearing to what she said to him, down to the very last strand of hair.
"I want to help bring them down."
"No." Logan said flatly.
Carmen looked at him suddenly, "What do you mean no? I thought you wanted to help."
"I'm going to do this on my own, anyway that I can."
"It is my fight not yours."
"I can't lose you… again. I'm not ready to let you go, I just found you I won't lose you."
"You won't but I have to do this, they took my life from me, the one I can't remember, I won't let them get away with that. I need to help… please," she said desperately.
Logan sat quietly for a minute thinking on her words, he didn't want to lose her, and he still wasn't sure that he hadn't but he was willing to let her try and help him. "All right, but at the first sign of danger I'm pulling you out of there."
"You won't have to." The audible click of a gun was present when Carmen pulled a gun out from behind her back.
"What are you doing?" Logan asked.
"Doing what I have to, to stay alive… I'm sorry." she said sincerely.
Without thinking Logan leaped forward. She was so surprised that she didn't even have a chance to get a shot off. He pinned her against the roof, his hand over her throat cutting off her air supply. As much as it pained him to see her struggle for air, it was what he had to do to keep her from killing him. Her leg shot up behind him and hit him in the head hard enough for him to let go. She sat up and threw him against the roof, it was her turn now to pin him.
His head was hanging over the edge of the needle dangerously so. There was a murderous look in her eyes. "Why couldn't you have just left well enough alone? Why did you have to make this difficult. I was going to leave you alone when I left but you had to come and seek me out and explain to me about your girlfriend."
"She wasn't my girlfriend, we were just friends."
"Right… and that's why when you talked about her you had more passion in your voice then I thought that one person could possess." then all of a sudden she backed off. "Go, leave Seattle, disappear and don't come back." She motioned with the gun for him to leave. He did so reluctantly, glancing back once to see her staring back at him.
Going to his apartment he contemplated leaving, he could stay and risk being shot by another assassin or he could leave. The latter of the two he decided was a better choice. He went to his computer and put all the information that he had stored on it, onto a disk and then deleted everything from the hard drive of the computer.
He then took the gun that he kept in the desk drawer and shot the computer 3 times just for good measure. He wasn't sure if there were any computer specialists employed by Manticore who could retrieve the data that he had erased. They couldn't do anything if the files had been shot through. He felt guilty because the equipment had been expensive and hard to find but it was better to escape with his life and not put any of him informants or anyone else in danger, then worry about money.
Taking files from the cabinets and putting them into a suitcase that he could take with him, he put some clothes from his drawers on top of them and packed the few pictures that littered the apartment in also. Looking around the apartment one last time to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything he turned off the light and walked to the elevator taking it down to the parking garage.
He wanted to move as fast as he could out of the apartment, just in case she decided that letting him go was a big mistake, and ended up coming after him. There was no point in waiting around Seattle anymore, there was nothing left for him there. The only thing keeping him tied down was gone and he had a pretty good idea that she was never coming back.
A/N: Yeah, another chapter down I hope you enjoyed it please tell me what you thought in reviews, I would very much appreciate them. Thanks again for reading and reviewing.