The moment I woke up that morning, I could tell it was going to be a terrible day.

Trying not to think about it – heck, trying not to think much about anything, because it all circled back to that – I shuffled to the bathroom, and took perverse pleasure in obsessing over the minute details of washing up. Going wild and crazy, I even went out of the way to comb my hair in an obsessive-compulsive way, over and over until I was forced to admit that there wasn't anything more I could do about it. I set down the comb precisely on the counter and headed downstairs, dragging my feet all the way. Yep, that's me, Max Ride – Saviour-to-be of the world, kick-ass fighter, and champion avoider. It's awesome to be me, all right.

Only Iggy, Nudge and Dylan were there; Iggy stood at the stove while the other two sat and drooled at the scents already wafting from the pan. I took a half-hearted sniff and detected the unmistakable smell of pancakes. Regrettably, even pancakes wouldn't make my day any better. Nothing short of knocking myself unconscious for the next twelve hours would, actually, so I just resigned myself to a crappy time.

For once, I didn't immediately go to where my flock (most of it, at least) was. Feeling guilty, I started to step stealthily around the kitchen doorway, and out of the house, but Dylan seemed to sense me and turned. "Max!" he said, smiling. There was a time when my heart would have gone pitty-pat at the beauty of a smile on his undeniably pretty face, but that heart had been still and silent for a long while. "Why aren't you coming in?"

Now that I was caught, I hesitated. It didn't feel right not to join them like I usually did – but then again, it was my house too, damn it, and I could very well go where I wanted to. Nudge and Iggy both turned their faces towards me, too (though Iggy, of course, couldn't see me). "Oh," Nudge said knowingly, but it was a sad kind of knowing, the mischievousness missing in her tone.

"FIAA Day, huh?" Iggy sighed, and despite his obvious blindness, slid the pancakes expertly off the pan and onto a waiting plate on the table. "I'll save some for you, Max."

"Thanks," I said, retreating. To my horror, my eyes suddenly filled. I hadn't realized just how much my flock had grown up, become more mature and sensible, right under my nose. That was really an indicator of how attentive I'd been to them lately, and then I felt guilty all over again for indirectly abandoning them, which led to thoughts of…

Stop it, Max, I ordered myself as I strode out the house and found a nice secluded corner on a lonely rock ledge where I could sit and start my little pity party.

I had, two years ago on this very same day, declared it FIAA Day – short for Fang Is An Asshole Day. That idiot, I seethed, had the gall to leave, and say it was for my own good – a lot he knew! You wait, when I get my hands on you… I thought grimly.

But of course, when I did get my hands on him, I'd be too busy hugging him to kill him just yet. God, I missed him so much – how could he just tear us apart so cruelly, so callously? He was supposed to be here, lurking around the corners of the house somewhere, a silent, steady shadow. He was supposed to have been here, every single time the flock had fought for our lives after his disappearance.

Things were pretty much under control these days – no one was trying to kill or kidnap us every few minutes, which was a huge step up from earlier years. Still, I would have given everything I had just to go back to the time when all we could manage was just to survive each day, if it meant that I'd have Fang. Every fight I was in now, seemed so much easier because I had begun to fight more recklessly as I half-wished some stray bullet would finish me off, yet so much more difficult when we eventually won because Fang wasn't there to share our victory. The relative peace we had nowadays was probably why the flock had allowed me to keep my status as leader; to be sure, I hadn't been doing much leaderly stuff anymore. Ironic, considering that it had been the growing relationship between me and Fang that had sparked off the flock's disapproval of my less-than-stellar leadership performance in the first place.

"Where are you?" I asked softly, and of course there was no reply.

And then I started to get mad. I was angry at Fang, at the flock; the world; the stupid scientists who created us – but there was no one I was more furious at than myself. What was I doing? I was Max, Max Ride. Max was strong, tough, optimistic – everything that I currently wasn't. No way, I thought firmly, holding almost desperately onto that small fire that was starting to awaken my frozen heart. No way was I allowing any guy to control my life this way – not even Fang. Especially not Fang. If I ever saw him again – and I knew it might not happen – I could never let him see me like this. If we did meet, I was going to do my darnedest to make sure I was doing a damn good job of living my life, of getting on without him, and if he was expecting me to mope around like I was doing right now, he was going to be sorely disappointed. I was not going to waste my life on some loser of a guy who didn't even want to tell me he was leaving face-to-face.

As I scrambled up, standing on the ledge with the wind rushing around me, it struck me idly that I had finally come to my senses. I'd always wait for Fang, but… "In eighteen years' time," I said out loud, liking the idea of the wind carrying my words to wherever that idiot was, "you'd better have a damn good reason to explain yourself, you hear?"

I didn't expect a reply, but as I stretched out my wings and prepared to fly back to my flock, something floated gently to the ground next to me, and I picked it up.

It was a single black feather.