~ A far better thing ~

Zack lay on his back, catching his breath, and looked up at the vision who lay above him with his collar in her fists, daring him to subdue her. He could have overpowered Max easily, but now wasn't the right time. He knew that if he kept her there forcibly, against her will, she would never trust him again in the future.

He allowed himself another moment to drink in her flashing eyes and her floating hair, then nodded his surrender. She got up without another word and started walking back towards the city.

He watched her figure recede into the woods as he got up and brushed the soil off his clothes. Max was going back to Seattle because of one man. He tried to wrap his mind around the reason why.

There was something about this guy that drew her to him. Zack knew Max. As emotional as she was, he knew that she wouldn't throw away her life and her freedom for just any man. There had to be more to Logan Cale than meets the eye.

He knew, because he'd felt it, too. Logan didn't seem like much when he'd first met him. The guy was in a frigging wheelchair, for God's sake! Zack had brushed him off, insulted him repeatedly. But, try as he might, he couldn't make himself look down on him.

There was something about the man that commanded respect, something in his eyes that spoke of power. More power than Zack had—at least over Max. And that was a variable in the equation that disturbed him no end.

"You'll look out for her, right?" he'd actually asked Zack once, as if that was something anyone had to ask him to do.

He'd sat there in his penthouse suite, the confident and self-assured frat boy, and Zack had felt a surge of anger as he realized that Logan was the reason that Max had decided to stay in Seattle that night when they'd first found each other. It was his fault that she was in danger in the first place.

"The biggest threat to her safety is you," he'd told Logan bluntly, flinging the words at him like a gauntlet slap to his face.

He'd wondered if the other man would rise to the challenge, if he was man enough to let her go.

He had his answer now.

Zack had seen Logan swallow those painkillers that morning when he'd broken into his apartment, and he'd watched him hide his pain from Max all day. He found himself developing a grudging respect for this man who was his rival.

When he looked into Logan's eyes he saw someone who had his secrets, and he felt a part of himself connect to a part of him. Perhaps it was the part of each of them that loved her. But there was more to it than that. He could see that the other man wore the same kind of responsibility on his shoulders that Zack felt on his own. Logan was a man with a mission.

Zack didn't know what that mission was, but it was enough for Max to be willing to lay down her life for him. Max was sentimental, but she wasn't stupid. As her buddy in combat exercises, he'd had to trust her with his life as many times as she'd had to trust him with hers. Often one of them would have to make a call in the field and the other simply follow, explanations having to wait until the debriefing.

Someday Zack intended to find out what it was about Logan that Max valued so much. For now, he would just have to trust her. If she thought this guy was worth risking everything for, then Zack had no choice but to back her up.

It wasn't Logan fault that she was headed back into the lion's den now, Zack acknowledged. The other man had done his best to protect her. Now it was his turn.

Zack went back into the cabin and made sure to remove all the evidence of Max's and his having been there. He kept the cell phone Max had dropped; he would need it. Locking the door behind him, he hid the key.

He'd actually been a little surprised when Max agreed to leave Seattle with him that day. He had expected her to protest, and he'd been prepared for that. Getting her out of the city had been Plan A, which had worked up till now.

But success depends on having more than one well thought-out plan that's executed with precision.

Zack used Max's stolen cell phone to make a couple of calls as he began his own journey back into Seattle. After that he erased the numbers from the phone's memory and tucked it into his jacket in case he needed to use it again before he got into the city. He would discard it before reaching the first Sector checkpoint.

It was time for plan B.

~End~

"It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done…"

--Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859

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