Another brown out. How Logan hated them. It left him feeling helpless every time as he was unable to use his computer. The only up side was being in the candlelight with Max. Only Max hadn't arrived tonight. Logan cursed himself for being so wrapped up in his work that he hadn't even called her. No wonder she got upset with him. What was the saying 'All work and no play, makes Logan a dull boy'. If he wasn't careful, he was going to loose the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Moving over to the window Logan picked up the phone and dialed Max's number, then remembered the brown out had rendered the phone useless as well. He looked out the window onto the streets below. There had been a time when Logan was so afraid of heights that he couldn't bare to go anywhere near the window.
He saw a couple fighting in the street below his window. It looked as though it was getting pretty rough. On reflex, Logan reached for the phone to call the police. As soon as his hand touched the phone, he realized how useless the action was. Fishing his gun out of the desk drawer, Logan loaded it hoping that he wouldn't have to use it. He glanced out the window in time to see the woman being shoved up against the wall of the building next door. Fearing for the woman's life, Logan raced out of the apartment and headed for the stairs.
Logan made it down the stairs in record time and out of the building. He didn't even notice how out of breath he was. He raced out of the building, hoping that he wasn't too late.
Jondy pulled her car into the underground car park of Logan's building. If it wasn't for the fact that Sam Carr had insisted that she come in for a check up, she would be at work in San Francisco. She had picked Alec and Joshua up on the way into Seattle so that she could catch up with everyone at once. She had planned to stay just one night. "Ok. Here we are. Everybody out."
Jondy and Joshua grabbed one of Jondy's twins each out of the car while Alec got Jondy's bags from the boot. When they got to Logan's apartment they found the door open. Alec gestured for the other two to stay put while he checked the apartment.
He shrugged his shoulders after he had searched the apartment. "No signs of a break in or anything being stolen." He put Jondy's bags in the guest room and shut the front door.
"Where's Logan?" Joshua inquired and handed Jondy her other child so that she could put them to bed for the night. He was surprised when Jondy came running out the guestroom seconds later. "What's wrong?"
"Max is being attacked downstairs." Jondy went straight for the window. She climbed out onto the fire escape with Alec and Joshua right behind her.
"Max gets attacked all the time." Alec couldn't believe that Jondy was climbing down the side of a building in stilettos and a long skirt. "Why are we racing to help her? She can take care of herself." Then he looked down into the street and saw what Jondy must have seen. "Move it stilts."
Glaring up at Alec, Jondy leapt off the fire escape just as Logan fired a shot at Max's attacker. Alec landed beside Jondy and Joshua wasn't far behind them. Logan's shot had been spot on but it didn't appear to slow Max's attacker down.
It wasn't until he turned to face them, that Logan saw that it was Max being attacked. His face turned pale when he saw that her shirt had been ripped and there were scratches across Max's chest. The rage of somebody daring to touch Max boiled up inside him. Raising his arm he fired again.
When that attacker just kept walking towards Logan, Joshua swiped the attacker's face and knocked him flying. It gave Jondy the lead way to get over to Max. She was in pretty bad shape. From what Jondy could tell after doing a quick check, Max had a sprained ankle, a couple of cracked ribs, scratches on her chest and face and a pretty deep cut on her head, where she had been slammed up against the wall.
Alec couldn't believe how strong this guy was. He had already thrown Logan aside as though he were light as a feather. Alec couldn't get this guy to release the grip he had on his throat. " A little help here guys." He managed to squeak out.
"Legs up." Jondy yelled. Alec brought his knees up, as Jondy kicked the attacker in the groin. Alec fell to the ground with a thud as he was dropped.
Joshua growled as the attacker headed for Jondy and Max. He grabbed the attacker and slammed his face against the wall. Bracing a hand either side of the attacker's face, Joshua gave it a sharp twist. There was a sickening crack before the attacker fell to the ground, revealing an eye cam.
Jondy removed one of her shoes and smashed it. "White." She went back to Max, who was trembling so much, that to the untrained eye it looked as though she were having a seizure.
Logan quickly removed his jacket to cover Max's torn clothing. When he tried to put it around her shoulders, she shrank away from him. Trying not to look hurt, Logan handed the jacket to Jondy. "We'd better get Max inside before somebody decides to investigate the gun shots."
Jondy nodded as she put the jacket around Max's shoulders. "Alec, you and Joshua get back upstairs and check on my children. Logan and I will bring Max up in a moment." She would have to try and calm Max down enough for Logan to get her inside.
Alec looked down at Max, who was huddled in Jondy's arms. "You sure you don't want some help?" When Jondy gestured with her eyes to Joshua, he realized what she had been thinking. Max's condition, they could explain if anyone came and started asking questions. No amount of excuses could explain Joshua. "Joshua, I'll race you upstairs."
Jondy waited for Alec and Joshua to head back in the building before she spoke to Max. She spoke as though talking to a child, keeping her voice as soothing as possible. "Max, you're safe now. It's going to be alright. You're going to have to let Logan pick you up." When Max looked up at her, her eyes wide with fright, Jondy stroked her hair out of her sister's face. "I'll be right beside you. I can't carry you in myself, too many questions will be asked." She breathed a sigh of relief when Max reluctantly nodded her consent.
Logan moved slowly forward and carefully scooped Max into his arms. He tried not to take it personally when he felt Max's body go rigid at his touch. It was hard work climbing the stairs as Max refused to let go of Jondy's hand. Finally they got to the apartment, where they found Alec and Joshua walking around with the crying babies. He carried Max into his room and lay her down on the bed, then left to get the first aid kit for Jondy.
Alec and Joshua stood in the doorway. Alec gave the screaming baby girl in his arms a quick glance. "I know you're busy Jondy, but I think they're hungry. If you tell me where their bottles are, Joshua and I can feed them."
Jondy tucked Max under several blankets. "I am the bottle. Actually they need changing. The nappies are in the multi colored bag you put in the guest room." She could see by Joshua's face that he had no idea what she meant. "Alec go and explain to Joshua the whole milk thing in the living room. I'll be out in a minute."
Logan walked back in with the first aid kit, a bowl of water and a wash cloth. "Why don't you go and feed your children Jondy. I'll sit with Max." He realized how frightened Max was, but he didn't want her to be afraid of being alone in a room with him. As long as Max held on to Jondy as a security blanket, that was exactly what would happen.
"Thanks. I won't be long." Jondy left the room before Max could protest. She hadn't missed the look on Logan's face when Max had flinched at his touch. To his credit, Logan was covering how hurt he was, pretty well.
Logan sat on the floor beside his bed, knowing that Max would probably try and run if he actually sat on the bed. "Tell me what Jondy and the others were like as children. The others that I've met, I mean." He had to find some way for her to relax around him.
Max had moved as far as she could to the edge of the bed furtherest away from Logan. It hurt to move, it hurt to breathe and she couldn't control the unbelievable terror she felt being alone in the room with Logan. "Um, Jondy hasn't really changed much. She didn't use the English accent as a child. She's always been quiet and overly cautious with people she doesn't know. It takes a lot to get her trust, but she's loyal to fault if you can get that trust. She's actually quite deceiving. She looks so sweet and innocent one minute, but she can look fierce and dangerous in the next."
Logan smiled thoughtfully. "I'm beginning to notice that." Her shaking voice made him long to put his arms around her and tell her that everything would be alright, but he stayed put. "What about Krit?"
Max thought back to Manticore for a moment. It seemed so long ago. "Krit always looked up to Zack. He wanted to be just like him. He tried to act tough, but he was really just a scared little boy. He was always the first to stand up for us girls if we were being bullied."
Logan noticed her voice was shaking a little less. "Tinga seemed to be sort of the mothering influence, where Zack was the father type.
Max felt a stab of pain go through her head when she nodded. "Zack would have made a great father if he could have just let go of Manticore's rules and regulations. He couldn't stop being the perfect solider. I don't know, maybe he has a chance now with his memory loss."
"Doesn't stop you from missing him though." Logan understood that Max's feelings for Zack were only that of a sister's love for her brother. "What about Zane? What was he like as a kid?"
Max chewed on her bottom lip. "He was protective of Jondy from day one. He killed a guard for her one day and ended up in solitary confinement for a month. It's amazing he didn't end up like Ben."
Logan frowned in amazement. Having met Zane, he couldn't begin to imagine what would drive him to kill a guard. "Was he trying to help Jondy escape?"
"No." Jondy's voice startled both of them. "Zane caught the guard raping me, that's why he killed him." She sat on the bed and started tending to Max's wounds. She was relieved that they had all gotten to Max before he had finished the job.
Max was shocked by Jondy's revelation. "Why didn't you ever tell me?" She didn't know what she could have done as an eleven year old child to help her sister.
Jondy shrugged her shoulders. "There was nothing you could do. Zane risked his own life killing that guard. To this day, I'll never know why Lydecker didn't have Zane killed."
"Maybe you can ask him when we find him." Logan reach out and put his hand on the redhead's shoulder. Jondy patted his hand. "So what's the damage?"
Jondy took a deep breath and pushed the nightmare of her childhood to the back of her mind. "Well Max, you're going have to keep off that foot for a few days. There's a few cracked ribs so no watching comedy's and although you probably have a wicked headache and I've dressed that cut on your forehead, you don't have a concussion. You're going to be black and blue, but nothing that won't heal eventually." It was the emotional wounds that Jondy was more worried about.
Joshua came racing into the room. "There's soldiers outside. Alec thinks they're White's men." He held a jacket up for Jondy. "Gotta go now."
Jondy eased into the jacket and walked over to the window. Sure enough, soldiers were crowding around their fallen team member. "Logan, can you carry Max down to your car?"
Logan was already wrapping Max up in the blankets. "No problem. Where are we going?" He swung Max into his arms and followed Jondy and Joshua out of the room.
Alec was waiting for them with Jondy's children and bags. "Looks like they're surrounding the building." He raised an eyebrow at Jondy. "Feel like being distracting?"
Jondy rolled her eyes. "Not really." She tossed her car keys to Joshua. "Get into my car with the children, wait for my signal then move out. I'll meet you in the next street." She turned to Logan. "Where's your gun?"
Logan couldn't hide his shocked look. "In my pocket. I thought you hated using guns." He turned slightly so that Jondy could retrieve the weapon.
"I don't have much of a choice at the moment." Jondy looked at the weapon she now held in her hand. "Get Max back to her apartment. I'll meet you there later." She headed for the window pausing briefly by Alec. "Take care of my kids."
Alec nodded. "We'll see you in a few minutes." He caught hold of Jondy's arm. "Be careful. No way am I Daddy material." Letting go of Jondy, he handed one car seat with a baby in it to Joshua and grabbed Jondy's bags and the other car seat with a twin in it. "Let's get this show on the road."
Logan followed Alec and Joshua out the door with Max in his arms. "What the hell is Jondy's signal?" The fact that Jondy was climbing down the outside of the building in an outfit that would looked perfect on a model, would be a distraction enough for any hot blooded male.
"You'll know it when you see it." Max mumbled into his chest. If it weren't for her being attacked, they wouldn't be running for their lives. Her sister wouldn't be putting herself right in the line of enemy fire. Self loathing thoughts raced through her mind.
Logan looked down at Max as he walked into the car park. "Don't go there." When she looked up at him with a puzzled expression on her face he felt the same rage he had, had on the street when he discovered who was being attacked. "Don't start blaming yourself. None of this is your fault."
Alec fished Logan's car keys out of his jacket pocket for him and unlocked Logan's car so that Logan didn't have to put Max down. "Pull your car in behind Jondy's. I'll keep an eye out for her signal." He helped Joshua put the babies in the back seat of the car and then reached for the keys off of Joshua. It was amusing watching Joshua cramming himself in the back seat between the two babies so that Jondy could jump in the front passenger seat.
"Will Max be alright?" Joshua asked as they waited near the car park exit for Jondy's signal. Max had looked so tiny and fragile in Logan's arms.
"I don't know." Alec admitted. "Logan's a good guy though, he'll stand by her no matter what." Alec didn't know if he were in the same situation, that he would be as noble. "Come on Jondy, get us out of here."
White stood observing the scene before him. The soldier had orders to kill the girl, not rape her. He had wasted precious time and because of it, she was still alive and free. He looked down at the body with no emotion. This was just another inconvenience. White felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Turning slowly he found himself staring across the street at Jondy. You couldn't have missed her if you tried.
Her long red hair fell in soft waves down her slim shoulders. She wore a long floral print black skirt with a black singlet top which was covered with a brown leather jacket. Black stilettos made her appear taller. She was a splash of color in the bleak dark night.
"His orders were to kill her, not attempt to rape her." Her blue eyes demanded an explanation from him, even though she didn't voice it. White had been watching the footage from the eye cam via a computer hooked up to a generator. It was no use lying to Jondy, she knew he was pulling the soldiers strings.
"Oh well, that makes it alright then doesn't it?" The English accent Jondy used, made her sarcasium come across even stronger. "What's the matter White? Your puppet cut his own strings?" She raised her arm and fired the gun at White. "Boom."
White hit the ground. He had actually felt the bullet whiz past him. He looked up for a second before something behind him exploded. Of course Jondy had disappeared. Glancing over his shoulder, White saw his car was now a burning heap. "Damn it. She causing a distraction. They're somewhere near. Find them!" White got to his feet and started bellowing orders. He knew that Jondy, Max and whomever was helping them was probably long gone.
Alec floored the gas pedal as soon as he heard the explosion. The sight of White and his men staring at the burning car was too amusing. Alec was still laughing when he stopped the car so that Jondy could climb in. "What is it with you trying to set White alight?"
Jondy chuckled. "Let's just say I have a burning need to get him out of our lives." She glanced over he shoulder to check on her children as Alec started driving towards Joshua's home.
Original Cindy lit another candle while cursing the frequent brown outs. This was the third one this week. Her jaw dropped when Logan walked into the apartment carrying a incredibly pale and bruised Max. "What happened? You get hit by a tree again Boo?" Then she saw the expression on Logan's face. "God, what happened?"
Logan carried Max through to her room. "Max got attacked by one of White's men." He gently put Max down on her bed. "Jondy says that she has to keep off her ankle." He saw a flash of panic cross Max's face at the mention of her sister. "I'm sure Jondy's fine. She'll probably walk through the door any minute."
Max relaxed a little. "She probably dropped Joshua and Alec off first." She felt better now that she was home in her own bed away from where she had been attacked. She had never felt this exhausted before.
"We'll leave you to get some sleep." Logan realized as he spoke that Max had already nodded off. He bent down and kissed her forehead before leaving the room. He sat down on the sofa and put his head in his hands.
"So what aren't you telling me?" Original Cindy stood in front of him, arms crossed. "Sister girl is seriously freaked out in there. There's more to this attack than you're telling me. Spill."
Logan raised his head to look at her. "He tried to rape her. Jondy turned up with Alec and Joshua just after I got to her. It took all of us to bring this guy down. A few more minutes and we would have been too late." He shuddered at the thought. "I didn't even know it was Max until after I had fired a shot at her attacker. Jondy created some sort of distraction that involved my gun and blowing up White's car to get us all out of my apartment building."
Original Cindy sat down beside him. "What does this White guy have against Max being happy?" She started to wonder what was keeping Jondy away so long as well. "You saw Jondy get away right?"
Logan shook his head. "She told Alec to take Joshua and the children and she'd meet them in the next street down. We have no way of contacting Alec to make sure he got to her."
All fears for Jondy's safety were pushed aside when she strolled inside juggling her children and her bags. "Sorry I took so long." She put the two car seats with the twins in them on the coffee table and dropped her bags on the floor. "The brown out's made it harder to drive on the streets with no damn traffic lights." She hugged Original Cindy before crouching down in front of Logan. "How's Max doing?"
"She's sleeping." Logan replied. Max rarely slept, this wasn't a good sign. "She flinches every time I touch her. We're right back to square one. What the hell was going through White's warped mind?" Logan had never felt so uncontrollably angry before in his life.
Jondy swept her hair over her shoulder with one hand. "He wanted Max dead. The soldier disobeyed an order. White actually had the nerve to try and explain everything." She couldn't have been more disgusted if she had tried. The man made her skin crawl.
"I don't mean to be insensitive." Logan had to ask though. There was no one else he could turn to. "What's Max going through? I don't expect you to relive your own attack, but I can't help her if I don't know what's going on." He pleaded.
"You really don't want to hear this." Jondy could see by Logan's face that he needed to know. "Fine." She took a deep breath. "You can't stand people touching you, especially men. You feel dirty and it's not something that you can just wash away no matter how hard you scrub your skin. Sleeping is near impossible cause the attack just keeps playing over and over, every time you close your eyes. No matter where you are or whether it's day or night, you see him everywhere, haunting you." Jondy shook her head to push the still vivid memory away.
"How the hell did you get through it?" Logan could see how shocked Original Cindy was by Jondy's speech. "I don't see Manticore arranging for you to see a therapist."
Jondy shrugged. "Some people live their lives in fear. I had a supportive family, most of whom had no idea what had happened. Zane refused to let me hide. We couldn't let Manticore win. Zane managed to convince me not to live in fear. To this day, I'll never know how he did it."
Max started screaming in her sleep from the next room. When they raced into the room, they found her wrestling with an invisible attacker. Suddenly she sat up. The movement sent a stabbing pain through her cracked ribs. She screamed out again, this time in pain.
Logan went to her without a second thought. "You're safe. Everything's going to be alright." He didn't believe a word that he was saying, but he needed for her to believe it.
For a moment she fought him when he held her. Logan kept his arms around her until she stopped struggling. He was scared to hold her too tight incase he hurt her. He realized that Max was now clinging to him as though he were her life line.
Original Cindy turned when she felt Jondy tug at her arm. She followed her friend out of the room. "This must be pretty hellish for you." She kept herself busy trying to find something cold to drink, while Jondy checked on her children. "How old were you when it happened to you?"
"Ten, almost eleven." Jondy swayed back and forth, rocking her son to sleep. "Max needs time." She glanced towards Max's room. "They need time. You've seen them together more than I have. Are they going to make it?"
Original Cindy shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know, Boo. They've had a lot of hurdles thrown in their way. I'm just not sure that this hurdle isn't too high for them to jump."
Logan rocked Max like a child. If it was the last thing he did, he would get White back for what had been done to Max. That promise he made for both of them.
White replayed the last minute of the eye cam footage now that the brown out was over. In disobeying his orders, that soldier had unleashed a whole new set of problems. He paused the film. A set of bright blue eyes glared at him from the screen.
From his hiding place, Alec watched White with great interest. So that was what White's weak spot was. Quietly creeping back out into the night, Alec headed home. There had to be another way.
THE END
