Read Online After the Dark by Max Allan Collins - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Max Allan Collins
Ads: Link
you know what it was.”
“Do I?”
“. . . I fell in love with you.”
Now she felt as though he had punched her; but she lashed back, “And you figured that telling me you got my brother killed might put a damper on my feelings?”
“Max, I—”
“Don't ‘Max' me—I'm maxed out. I've heard enough.”
She crossed the room, snatching her jacket off the back of a dining room chair as she went.
Going the opposite way around the couch, he headed her off at the door and put a hand on her arm.
“Want that broken?” she asked, glancing down at the offending hand.
He didn't move.
“Fair warning.” She grabbed his hand in hers, removed it from her arm and was about to crush it.
Logan made no effort to stop her—he just stood there staring into her eyes, the pain in his having nothing to do with the pressure she was applying.
Applying more, she saw the first flash of physical pain in his face and released her grip.
“Hell with it,” she snarled. “I'm outta here.”
She threw the door open and strode out into a night almost as angry as she was, leaving Logan behind with his lies and his guilt, standing in the doorway, the wind chastising him.
He called her name once, but she ignored him and stalked off into the darkness. Tonight, she wouldn't go back to Terminal City, wouldn't worry about the inhabitants. She couldn't be near any of them tonight, not even Joshua and Original Cindy. The only place to be tonight was where she had last seen her brother—where Seth had died.
The Space Needle was pretty much as she remembered it, even though she hadn't been there since the Terminal City siege began. There were a few new graffiti tags, but other than that, the Needle was same-o same-o. Turning on the power, which few but Max knew still allowed the elevators to run, she rode up to the observation deck, then climbed some more until she got out to her usual perch at the very top.
The wind whipped even worse this high, but she was careful, and her jacket was warm, and besides, from up here she could feel close to Seth and maybe gain some perspective.
Over five hundred feet below her the city went about its usual nighttime activities, signaled by fireplay flickerings across the landscape, seeming very small. Up here, so far removed from everything, she felt small, too, and tonight, somewhat insignificant.
So many years, so many failures.
And not just her failures—sometimes, like this time, the failure lay with someone else. Logan could have told me, she thought, should have told me. Hell, he'd had over two years to find a way to break this to her, and yet he had never brought it up until tonight.
The tears were streaming again. You're not so tough, she told herself. That flame of hope she'd kept within herself, that she had never allowed to flicker out—sometimes it seemed those rays of hope were all she really had that belonged to her.
Now, just as he'd gotten Seth killed, Logan had doused that tiny flame. Only despair remained, and an icy, enveloping cold.
Chapter Four
----
VANISHED
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
DECEMBER 21, 2021
By the next morning the wind had subsided some, but the thirty degree temperature lingered, a guest overstaying its welcome. Come dawn, Max had finally abandoned her perch atop the Needle. As morning bled into the sky, she felt an urge to climb on her Ninja and just keep riding; she might have given in to that impulse if the bike hadn't been sitting back in Terminal City.
And right now she just didn't have the heart to go back there and face her friends, and their questions . . .
Wandering into the city as it woke, Max purchased two cups of coffee at a bakery, balancing them atop a box of bagels, and found herself walking on a kind of autopilot up to the entrance of her former place of employment—Jam Pony Express. Except where pockmarks remained from bullets fired at the building during the hostage crisis six months ago, the place hadn't really changed since the night when Max
“Do I?”
“. . . I fell in love with you.”
Now she felt as though he had punched her; but she lashed back, “And you figured that telling me you got my brother killed might put a damper on my feelings?”
“Max, I—”
“Don't ‘Max' me—I'm maxed out. I've heard enough.”
She crossed the room, snatching her jacket off the back of a dining room chair as she went.
Going the opposite way around the couch, he headed her off at the door and put a hand on her arm.
“Want that broken?” she asked, glancing down at the offending hand.
He didn't move.
“Fair warning.” She grabbed his hand in hers, removed it from her arm and was about to crush it.
Logan made no effort to stop her—he just stood there staring into her eyes, the pain in his having nothing to do with the pressure she was applying.
Applying more, she saw the first flash of physical pain in his face and released her grip.
“Hell with it,” she snarled. “I'm outta here.”
She threw the door open and strode out into a night almost as angry as she was, leaving Logan behind with his lies and his guilt, standing in the doorway, the wind chastising him.
He called her name once, but she ignored him and stalked off into the darkness. Tonight, she wouldn't go back to Terminal City, wouldn't worry about the inhabitants. She couldn't be near any of them tonight, not even Joshua and Original Cindy. The only place to be tonight was where she had last seen her brother—where Seth had died.
The Space Needle was pretty much as she remembered it, even though she hadn't been there since the Terminal City siege began. There were a few new graffiti tags, but other than that, the Needle was same-o same-o. Turning on the power, which few but Max knew still allowed the elevators to run, she rode up to the observation deck, then climbed some more until she got out to her usual perch at the very top.
The wind whipped even worse this high, but she was careful, and her jacket was warm, and besides, from up here she could feel close to Seth and maybe gain some perspective.
Over five hundred feet below her the city went about its usual nighttime activities, signaled by fireplay flickerings across the landscape, seeming very small. Up here, so far removed from everything, she felt small, too, and tonight, somewhat insignificant.
So many years, so many failures.
And not just her failures—sometimes, like this time, the failure lay with someone else. Logan could have told me, she thought, should have told me. Hell, he'd had over two years to find a way to break this to her, and yet he had never brought it up until tonight.
The tears were streaming again. You're not so tough, she told herself. That flame of hope she'd kept within herself, that she had never allowed to flicker out—sometimes it seemed those rays of hope were all she really had that belonged to her.
Now, just as he'd gotten Seth killed, Logan had doused that tiny flame. Only despair remained, and an icy, enveloping cold.
Chapter Four
----
VANISHED
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
DECEMBER 21, 2021
By the next morning the wind had subsided some, but the thirty degree temperature lingered, a guest overstaying its welcome. Come dawn, Max had finally abandoned her perch atop the Needle. As morning bled into the sky, she felt an urge to climb on her Ninja and just keep riding; she might have given in to that impulse if the bike hadn't been sitting back in Terminal City.
And right now she just didn't have the heart to go back there and face her friends, and their questions . . .
Wandering into the city as it woke, Max purchased two cups of coffee at a bakery, balancing them atop a box of bagels, and found herself walking on a kind of autopilot up to the entrance of her former place of employment—Jam Pony Express. Except where pockmarks remained from bullets fired at the building during the hostage crisis six months ago, the place hadn't really changed since the night when Max
Similar Books
