There are moments when,
When I know it and
The world revolves around us,
And we're keeping it,
Keep it all going,
This delicate balance,
Vulnerable, all knowing
-- Straylight Run

Chapter Eight - Escape & Evade the Pain

Max kneeled in front of the fire. She crumpled up some newspaper and threw it onto the fire. The fire was burning strongly, so there was no need for the extra paper, but she needed a distraction. She stared into the flames, afraid to turn around. She and Logan hadn't spoken at all on the ride to the cabin and they hadn't broken the pattern yet. She knew that Logan had seen her kill Thomas. He hadn't said it, but she knew. It was her fear realized - finally he saw her for what she was. A soldier. A murderer. When she could work up the courage, she would tell him that she wouldn't bother him any longer. She'd leave and he wouldn't have to deal with avoiding looking her in the eye.

She slowly turned to face him.

He was staring down into a glass of water. His brow was furrowed and he looked exhausted.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, then rested her chin on her knee. She couldn't help but stare at him. It was like a dream. She had thought him dead, but here he was, safe and almost sound. Her life had made little to no sense only hours before, but now her world sat in front of her and she knew she'd have to deal with losing it all over again.

Logan set his water glass down on the table in front of him. He was quiet for a moment then turned to look at Max.

"Hey, you," he said quietly.

"Hey yourself," she replied, her voice cracked. She was on the verge of tears.

"We're in a spot here," he said. She only nodded. He continued, "I guess there's only two options here. One, you could go lay low in Canada and I can call Bling to come get me, or, two… we could get a good night's sleep and go back to the city in the morning. Your choice."

"You would want to go back into the city… with me?" she asked. She sounded tired and sad. "After what I did? After what you saw me do?"

He was quiet for a moment. "Max, I'll admit I'll never be able to forget seeing you do what you did, but… I can understand it. If the roles were reversed… I can't know if I would have done exactly the same, but… you did it for me."

She looked away from him. She muttered, "I deserve Manticore."

"You don't," he said. He reached out to touch her face. She looked at him. "What you did and Manticore do not belong together. They're separate. It's… Max, this does not define who you are."

"It's not the first time I've killed someone," she admitted quietly. She went back to staring into the fire. "At Manticore, we all… Lydecker let him run, but we found him and he had this tattoo and we… we made Lydecker proud."

"You can't count what happened in Manticore as what you are now," Logan said. "You had no choice. It controlled you then. It doesn't control you now."

"I don't believe in temporary insanity," she bit. Her words were harsher than she would have liked. She rested her head on her knees and knew that Logan must have thought she was mad at him, but she was only hating herself.

She stood up and looked at Logan. She wanted to say something, to explain how she felt, or tell him that when she thought he was dead, she wanted to be dead too, but instead she just mumbled, "I need some fresh air."

She ignored his protest and left the cabin. She stood on the front porch, suddenly very aware of how bare her feet were. She wrapped her arms around herself and looked out into the dark forest. She could hear animals and insects rustling about and she focused on the noise, eager to forget the screaming voices in her own head.

Nothing made sense to her. She knew the only way to get closer to the truth was to go back inside and swap facts with Logan, but she could barely look at him. No matter what he said, she branded herself a killer and that's all she could feel like. No matter how many times he insisted it wasn't really her, she knew it was. She was inside her head, listening to the bile and hatred that ran through her mind as she killed Thomas. She knew who she was. She was a killer.

She was Lydecker's dream.

She wanted to choke at the thought, but couldn't shake it. Hadn't she done exactly what he had wanted all along? For that instant, she was the killing machine he had spent years trying to perfect. She was everything she hated.

She grew tired of the deserted forest and went back inside. The only sound was the crackling of the fire and she was glad for it - there was already too much going on inside her own head.

She carefully crept over to the couch and looked down at Logan. He was now stretched out on the couch with his eyes closed. She watched his chest move rhythmically up and down for a few minutes then went to the chair in the corner of the room and sat on the back, allowing her bare feet to rest on the cushion and absorb the heat from the fire. She watched him sleep and wanted to cry. This was exactly what she had wanted all along, but it was tainted. She had blood on her hands - granted, it wasn't innocent blood, but it was still blood all the same. Whenever someone wound up dead because of her work with Logan in the past, she was always able to write it off. When those guys shot each other up on that boat, she reasoned that she hadn't pulled the trigger. This time she couldn't write it off. She had killed Thomas with her own two hands.

She knew she shouldn't care. After all, Thomas Maconick was a card-carrying bastard. He cheated thousands of people and probably gave some bad guys the means to kill a whole bunch of people, but he was the sort of man she helped Logan toss in jail. What bothered her most was the fact that she truly was the child of Manticore, dealing out her own brand of avant-garde vigilante justice without concern. If she were still at Manticore, she'd receive a medal. On the outside world, all she received was her own self-hate.

Her brow furrowed as she watched Logan sleep. She hadn't asked what he had been through, but she could guess it was horrific. He was exhausted and deserved his sleep, so she wouldn't disturb him. She would simply watch him and be envious that he could escape the pain of the real world, even if it was just for a few hours.

For now she was restless and alone.