Chapter 14

A Lack of Answers


Max Voiceover-

I wish I could say we got answers after our weekend in Toren, but all it seems that we got were more questions.

He'd been at the cabin recently, despite no one in the town having seen him in years. It was probably the first place he went after we scrapped the mission. It was a homey type cabin, not the rustic place I'd been expecting from him. Then again it had been decorated when he'd had a wife. I could tell that nothing had been changed, but everything was still in good condition even after 25 years, so it probably hadn't been used much.

Pictures lined the walls, covered every inch of available space on the mantle. Pictures telling of a totally normal and happy family. Lydecker's prom and wedding, countless baby photos, followed by a visual diary of Matthew's life, even the shockingly tragic pictures from his final days, but his smile was the same all throughout, bright and unwavering. It was just like the love so present in his parents' eyes, from start to end they were a happy family, a happy normal family that was just one big lie and not real at all. Logan had looked at me like I was insane when I said that…

"How is it not real?"

"If she is, who you say she is, then everything their marriage was built on is a lie."

"So Charlie and Tinga? Their marriage wasn't real?"

"She was lying to protect him," Max quickly defended her sister.

"My guess is that's what she was doing."

"Tinga didn't hurt anyone."

He shook his head at Max, looked annoyed and then suddenly sympathetic, "Why do you want to hate her Max?"

She slumped back into the car's seat, "If she's part of the reason behind Manticore, if she was developing that technology to create us…"

"Then you owe being alive to her Max. Because no matter what, as much as you hate them, you wouldn't exist without them."

Max shook her head, "Just let me hate her without a reason. Let me see him as the villain. That man has made my life hell for two decades; I can't think of him like that Logan. I can't see him as the husband and the father. I can't feel sorry for him Logan."

"No one's asking you too. See him as human Max, same as everyone else. No one is entirely evil, not even Lydecker."

I hated Logan for saying that, just like hated him for calling me Lydecker's favorite, hating him for reminding me of the power Lydecker still has over me after 11 years of being free.

I hated this trip, I hated finding out nothing more than what a good guy Lydecker once was. That he couldn't have been responsible for his wife's death because he had been fishing with some friends at the time. I hated seeing the graves that were the cause for what Lydecker became. I hated being reminded of loss.

I hate being reminded of loss.