June 14th

Well, it was official. I know, took us long enough, right? But with a little compromise, some arguing and inner turmoil, not to mention the help of both mom and the Voice, we had finally come to a conclusion. The flock (meaning the youngest three) had decided that we wanted to try and see what "normal" really meant. As of yet, it was a strange and new concept that the younger members especially wanted to try out. Me? I tried to talk them out of it while disguising my pain at all the ways I had failed them, and when I realized they couldn't be persuaded that the flock was six birdkids plus a mutt, I helped the helped arrange the whole thing.

Nudge insisted to me that we were still six parts of a whole and that we were just trying something new, just like they say in those cheesy breakups scenes from ABC Family Original Movies. Even though my heart was being ripped into shreds doing so (hadn't we just decided never to leave each other again?) breaking up was essentially what we were doing. Just as the Voice came along saying that part of our mission was to take a while to see what the rest of the world was really like, get a glimpse of the lives I had to say, Jeb came along with some new info, deciding that we deserved to know the truth. We had tracked down relatives, planned cozy chats between them, Jeb, and mom, and now Nudge was off to Pennsylvania with the siblings and Total, and Fang was prepping for a year in Montana.

Nudge's newfound mother was all too willing to allow Angel and Gaz to come along, giddy with excitement that her daughter wasn't dead. She had shown a rough-and-tough exterior when Jeb visited the first few times, but had reportedly burst into tears when sharing about Nudge and not even caring about the wings. They had already met once and looked so much alike that there was no doubt in my mind that this was the real thing. This made it slightly easier to wave as the group boarded the plane heading to Philadelphia and not burst into tears in full view of the public.

Yeah, I'd been worried about safety, but mom assured me this was all top secret, and though I was still a little unsure, Angel and the Voice clarified this for me. I figured between the four of them, they could stay relatively safe. According to Jeb, Itex and co. were still recovering from the blow that Nudge, Ang, Total, Fang's faithful bloggers, and I had inflicted and were probably too caught up in repairs to worry about us. This did nothing, again, until Angel clarified that he wasn't lying, and then it only abated my anxiety slightly.

On the other hand, our only other successful lead had been Fang. Point blank, he had not wanted to go, insisting to the end that this was a bad idea. But I remembered that night back in New York when he had muttered, "a teenager, jeez" and said that she was probably on drugs. He hadn't let the others see this pain. He must have felt like his life was a screw up from the beginning. But here she was, his biological mother. She lived alone in the Montana mountains, ran a horse barn, and taught people how to play the piano. Jeb said she had always been straight edge, that she was a practical woman. I hadn't met her or even seen a picture, but Angel had went with mom and Jeb to meet her when she flew to Phoenix for an interview. She seemed real, not like Iggy's "mother" or the Director in Germany, and Fang deserved a chance at normal, too.

The most prevalent of my problems with Fang being in Montana was his solidarity. As nice as Angel said his mother was, she was apparently short and scrawny, not exactly capable of kicking an Eraser's chest in. When it cropped up that he would not only be in Montana, where I have heard that there are more bighorn sheep than people, but in a very rural area with sketchy cell coverage, we had all nearly flipped our lids. As we learned in New York, there is often safety in numbers. This was before anything was final and we all realized how alone Fang would be if anything went wrong.

Of course, being him, he had scoffed at this and said (if he decided to go) that he would be fine. Iggy, deciding between staying with either Fang or me thanks to his deadbeat parents, said he would go. Thus ensued an argument that basically went like this:

Fang: He should stay here.

Me: I'm fine, I'm the leader, and you'll be in the middle of freaking nowhere.

Fang: No one will know I'm there.

Me: But if they do-

Fang: They won't-

Me: You would have no one to fall back one-

Fang: Neither would you-

And on, and on. Finally, Iggy flipped a coin. Heads=Arizona, tails=Montana. He had flipped tails, and I had won.

This just made me realize how much I had lost.

It's not that I wasn't looking forward to a bed to sleep in, regular meals, and quality time with my newfound family, but they would never replace the people I had grown up with, faced death with. So before I get too sentimetal on you, we set ground rules:

-We would live with our families for a year.

-We would keep in contact regularly enough so that we would know we weren't kidnapped/murdered in a ditch/stuck in a lab, etc. but not too much, as the goal was to see what the lives of normal people were like. Plus I bet long distance calls are expensive. This was Nudge's idea, and I tried not to let that hurt too much.

-NO PUBLICITY STUNTS. This was my idea.

-At the end of the year, 365 days after Ig and Fang left and 366 after the kids' flight departed Phoenix, we would meet at an old haunt from when we lived in the Colorado Mountains. It was miles from our old house and therefore deemed safe, and we all knew the secret cave like the back of our hands. I instructed the younger set to call either Fang or I before setting out on this long haul. They were furthest, which was another fly in my ointment, but we didn't know anywhere permanent closer to Philly.

They had been gone four hours already, I realized as I glanced at the microwave clock in mom's kitchen. Ella would be home from her lacrosse game soon-the last of the season, starting after school that afternoon-and mom had already served up dinner. It was lasagna and homemade garlic bread, and the kitchen was warm with the work of the oven and the sun's dying rays. I had never seen a more delicious lasagne, the cheese, noodles, and red sauce all combined into an edible masterpiece, but I could only nibble at the crust of a bread slice. Mom had left to pick Ella up, telling us to start without them, but we remaining three were silent as the grave. I wasn't even sure where Magnolia was, the absence of her snuffling and sniffing making the house seem empty.

"Damn." Iggy muttered, pushing his empty plate aside. "It's so quiet. I feel like I need to break something just so I know I'm not going crazy. If you act this way all year, Max, the Voice will just have us do it again because you'll be too busy worrying to learn what it wants us to."

I kicked him under the table more out of habit than need. No innocent minds to be influenced today!

"Yeah well," I attempted to brush off the even heavier silence that followed his comment. "Please don't. No need to tick off the Martinez's before you even leave."

Iggy rolled his sightless eyes. "Dr. M would be angry at me, she likes you. You'd be in no extra danger if I blew up the microwave in the back yard."

"As far as you know. For all we do, she could be planning my murder as soon as you two are specks in the distance."

I had been kidding, of course. I think I already loved my mom and half sister, and if my flock wasn't separating, I would have been looking forward to spending a year with the pair. I wasn't planning on going to school, and the free time would be nice (if I didn't spend the whole freaking time tearing my hair out with a range of emotions I preferred not to feel) but at my comment, Fang dropped the fork he had been twirling around in his hand to clatter against the plate and practically bolted from the room. Iggy and I both looked down at our own empty plates, and I didn't need Ig's next comment to know that Fang had not found the humor in my sarcasm. We put our clean dishes away in silence.

XXXXX

Fang and Iggy had refused to take a plane to Montana and had taken off from mom's yard early that morning. As they extended their wings and readjusted their packs, it took all my strength not to rush out and hug the pair of them. Instead I raised a hand and waved, calling "bye" to Ig. They both looked in my direction, but Fang seemed to understand with that one glance. I hate it how he can read my mind like that.

"We'll call you when we get there." He assured me quietly. "See ya."

I gulped, not trusting my voice as my two best friends, the two people I had known my entire life, took to the air without me and soon became two faceless dots on the horizon. Because of my raptor sight, I had the agony of watching them for a good hour, and I stayed lying in the sparse grass for a long time after that. This was a good thing. So why did I feel like my heart had been torn to shreds?

Mom's house is small, but the builders did what they could with the allotted space. The main entrance is at the center of the porch and enters into a hallway with a set of stairs and doors to the side. Mom says multilevel houses are unusual for Arizona, but the people who had built this one had moved from the east and wanted to maintain some sense of their original home. Downstairs was a small kitchen, smaller bathroom, and a comfortable living room with cushy seats and a very large TV. Go up the creaking wooden staircase and you would find a bathroom, a study, mom and Ella's bedrooms, and a guest room. It had a bed backed against the far wall under a window, a closet, and a small bookshelf with a cute little lamp on top. This was, for a year, my room. Ella had helped unload all of my things, which only taken about five minutes because she had insisted on hanging everything and I'd never done so in my life. The closet now boasted two pairs of jeans, two t-shirts, and a sweatshirt that I was sure I wouldn't be using in this heat. My sneakers were at the foot of my bed, and my socks and similar clothing in a shoebox at the bottom of the closet.

Though I had spent the last few nights camping in the living room with my guys, I had looked through the bookshelf for something to read in my (gasp!) spare time. As of yet, I was about halfway through Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I had asked Ella for something easy to start with, not being a particularly avid reader, and she had come back five minutes later with a stack and brief synopsis on her tongue.

I flopped onto the hand-quilted blanket thrown across the bed, an array of soft blues and yellows that my mom's mom (my grandmother?) had made. Ella had one on her bed, as well. The window brought in a soft night breeze, making me grateful for the comforting warmth of the quilt as I flipped open to my bookmark. However, rather than a scrap of newspaper holding my place in the abused volume, I found a folded square of notebook paper. My name was labeled in a very familiar scrawl and I found myself having trouble breathing in my anticipation. What was Fang up to?

I didn't waste time guessing and unfolded it.

Max-

I'm not a fan of this separation thing-we just tried it, and I thought we weren't going to do it again-but what's done is done and I'll give it a try for the kids. I have a feeling you're thinking along the same lines.

Anyway, keep in touch. You know the address and number, or send a message on the blog. Hold on the pen names like QT_PI_fang_luvr though, or I may have to come back down there and kill you. Not that I need to tell you-anyway.

I was laughing now, holding the paper in one hand with the other over my mouth. I could nearly imagine him stammering through the short letter and even though it had only been about twelve hours since I had last seen him, even though I had grown very good at hiding my emotions from everyone including myself, it made the absence of my best friend even sharper. God, I missed him. Truth is-the truth I would never ever ever admit to him-is that sometimes I want to throw him in front of oncoming traffic, but the I'd kill myself trying to get him out.

It's only a few states away. And call if you need to, understand? Don't pull the invincible crap because it doesn't work on anyone you've known longer than you've known Iggy-ahem-

Later,

Fang

Oh, and watch out for yourself. Don't give Dr. M any excuse to murder you, like setting fire to the kitchen. Not that Dr. M would kill you-I don't think, anyway-just try to enjoy the time off. Don't spend the whole time worrying.

I rolled over, clicking off the reading light and slipping under the covers.

"Watch out for yourself, Fang." I whispered, rolling my eyes but keeping the letter tight in my hands as I fell asleep.

Day 2

Scratchy bark pricked at my skin through my cutoffs. I was up near the top of a tree in the backyard. It was short, nothing to those in Colorado, but it was a shady refuge to the midday heat. In one hand I had a sparkly pink pen, nabbed from Ella's school things, and the other a little postcard picked up from town. Yesterday was my sister's last day of school, and her room was now littered with all that had collected in her locker. I had looked through some of her textbooks and folders and for the most part, found it unbearable. Mom had asked the pair of us to put it all in neat and piles and find homes for all the junk-which I'm so good at, as you know-but we had fallen into a pattern that went very similar to this.

Me: What's this?

Ella: My French textbook.

Me: You know French?

Ella: shrugging. Yeah, it's nothing big. Lots of schools offer second languages. In my school, Spanish is most popular. Most kids think its easiest, and Latin is hardest. There's only about fifteen kids in my grade who take Latin.

Now, call me naïve, but the concept of taking another language in school seems kind of crazy. I guess it's sensible, but I've hardly had the time to learn to read English, let alone something I didn't speak everyday. Granted, I suppose that's the reason the Voice wanted us to take this break, figure out what people did when they weren't busting heads with Erasers. Frankly, I think I preferred Erasers once I saw Ella's pre-algebra book. Even though by law you have to attend school in the US, and how much I hated my experience there, it seemed like a luxury. I felt more comfortable beating up Erasers because I was used to it-but wouldn't it be nice if my failing meant a retake, rather than losing my life?

That would never cause me to willingly try school, mind you. One thing I did know, however, was biology. Ella's eyebrows skyrocketed when I was able to list the kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species for all the organisms she was supposed to look up as summer homework. Once she had scribbled these down and pinned them to her wall for next fall, she turned back at me.

"Mr. Jefferson would love you." She had said, but then laughed. "Whether you would like Mr. Jefferson is a different matter. He's very… eccentric."

After lunch we had headed into town so mom and Ells could show me around. They bought me another pair of shorts and some more shirts, but I refused any more.

"Max, I'd give you my hand me downs if that would make you feel better," Ella told me, looking up. "But you're a little big."

I made a derisive noise and herded them out of the store. Shopping finished, we went out for ice cream. Highlight of the day. This was where I found that you can tell a lot about a person by their ice cream flavors. Mom had chosen Purple Cow in a dish, she was minimalistic and liked sweet things. Ella had Electric Dinosaur, a psychedelic mix of colors, candy, nuts, and coconut shavings. Ella was outgoing, bubbly, and always had a funny story to share. I had Deathly Double Chocolate-chocolate ice cream with chocolate swirls, chocolate chips, and chocolate sprinkles. I think that's self explanatory about my personality. Whitecoats had never tried bribing me with chocolate-I bet it would have worked.

In the store, they had some Arizona postcards that I picked through while we waited for our ice cream, and mom said I could pick one out if I wanted. I had been about to refuse, but then remembered something, and snatched one for before we checked out. In the tree, I was now trying to figure out what to write. Dear Fang, miss you and everyone. Arizona's hot. Ella and I had a water balloon fight would definitely not work. I couldn't sound like a complete sap while writing and wouldn't want him to think I wasn't enjoying myself, because I was. Hanging with mom and my sister was a lot of fun, but they never replace my six favorite people in the whole world.

I glanced at the front of the card again; a little cactus wren perched among the thorns of a saguaro.

Keep in touch. Replayed my head. If Fang could interrupt Harry's first Quidditch match with that, I could reply.

Day Six

"Fang! You've got a letter!"

Fang glanced up toward his biological mother, calling from the porch. When he had arrived, he had almost laughed. The place looked like it had been summoned out a tourism ad. The small house, dominated by the hills and mountains in the distance with the picturesque barn, was about five miles from town. Idyllic. Quiet. Isolated. Fang no longer doubted the pamphlet he had read that said that there was reason to believe that there were more Bighorn Sheep in Montana than people. When she overheard him mention this to Iggy, the woman had also told the pair to not make any hick jokes during their stay.

"Why, will they come after us with pitchforks?" Iggy chuckled. Brook Hufftalen raised an eyebrow, then turned on her heel and left. Because it's rude was the nonvocal reply. Iggy hadn't made any hick jokes. But the place certainly seemed wild enough. Both he and Iggy had agreed that they liked the isolation, though they still had to be careful. She earned her wages through riding and piano lessons, but the boys avoided the people.

When She called, he and Iggy had just landed in the nearby woods. Dinner was promptly at 6:30 every night, and they weren't going to complain about the time when it was practically free food. It was really the only thing the woman strictly enforced. Plus, more often than not, Iggy was cooking it.

"Wonder who it's from." Iggy glanced in his general direction, taking up a jog as they crested the hill toward the house. "I'd guess Max or Nudge, unless one of your creepy Fangirls has found you."

"What?"

"Well, they're obviously not sane like normal fan girls," Ig said conversationally, laughing as he imagined Fang's retort. "Fangirls are a different breed. No one knows where they originated, but they've found you now."

Fang just shook his head, using Her as an excuse to ignore Ig, who was laughing hysterically and not even out of breath as they met her at the top of the hill. She handed an envelope to him, addressed simply as "Please give to Fang."

"It was inside a letter addressed here." She answered his unspoken question, and it took Fang a minute to get over how much she sounded like Max when she did that. He nodded thanks and followed her into the dining room, but wasn't until after dinner, which she and Iggy had chatted through, mostly about the surrounding woods, fields, and the wildlife living there, that he finally got to read it. She had warned them about the mountain lions and grizzlies, but Fang wasn't completely lacking in survival skills and tuned it out, puzzling and infuriated that his life had come to this. Iggy loved casual talk and finding new ways to cook things, especially but other people. But for Fang, dinner was a painful process of choking food down as fast as possible and wondering about the letter burning a hole in his pocket.

"Just call me if there are any hiding in your room!" Iggy called, putting the finishing touches on some cupcakes once it was finally over.

"Shut up!" Fang hissed, darting up the stairs before he was wrangled into anything else.

"Any what?" He heard her ask.

"Fangirls." Iggy replied jovially. "They post comments on his blog and virtually stalk him to find his whereabouts. They can get awfully violent-I wouldn't suggest being a female within a one mile radius."

Fang checked himself so he wouldn't slam the door and fuel Iggy's fire. Instead, he sat down with his back to it and ripped open the letter.

It was a postcard.

Inside an envelope?

And in pink ink?

Fang-

First of all, I got a postcard, but then realized I shouldn't/couldn't send it to you directly and I'd have to put in an envelope anyway, so there's really no point in this scrap of paper unless you are particularly fond of cactus wrens. If so, you'll have to let me know so I can get some more pictures for you. Mom is planning on taking Ella and I to some desert preserve to check out night life. I suppose your reply would be a little late if you do happen to harbor some love of wrens I was previously unaware of, but I'll get some pictures anyway. I tried to write small but this card is even smaller. Write back! –Max. Tell Iggy hi.

First, Fang grabbed a pen and paper, and then decided that, as a whole, postcards were useless.

Day Eight

How did you know? I simply adore wrens, particularly those of the cactus variety. I appreciate your foresight in thinking of me in this way.

Now, in the reality where I don't use words like "adore" and "foresight," I said "hi" to Ig for you. He was convinced that your letter was from stalkers on the blog and spent the amount of time it took him to ice fifty cupcakes to describe to Miss Hufftalen the woman the maternal figure Brook Miss H my mom (these were all crossed out. He evidentally didn't know what to call her.) Her about Fangirls vs. fan girls (you've heard the rant, and hopefully Iggy's screams after I'm through with him) and how they have a tendency to stalk me, stake out my whereabouts, threaten anyone within a mile of me, and that he couldn't believe she hadn't been warned before letting us stay with her. She came upstairs laughing, so I'm hoping she understood that he's psycho and that no way in hell would I allow anyone matching Iggy's description of these girls anywhere near me.

So I'm assuming that after you read "fifty cupcakes," you didn't pay any attention to my rant on Iggy. Go back and read it. It's hilarious. Anyway. The story for the cupcakes is that the riding season starts tomorrow, since summer vacation for the locals began today and she starts the season with cupcakes. I asked if there were enough kids in the village to eat fifty cupcakes, but she rolled her eyes and said that there were twelve campers (for her riding day camp) and if each had two that's twenty-four and she assumed Iggy and I would both have some (thirty-four) and that left sixteen for her, the parents, and her two counselors. Who said math was dead? Once she explained, it was pretty sensible, but Ig and I are heading for the hills tomorrow (with our cupcakes) to avoid the crowds. Plus, I guess it is cool out here. We're in a typical "Wild West" scenario. Mountains and forest but also sort of prairie-like hills. Best of both worlds, I guess. We're about five miles from town, which is pretty small even then, but momBrook she said not to discriminate because plenty of people don't know how to ride horses, do not herd buffalo, or follow any such biases. I said that I had wings and didn't judge people by hometown or personal appearance. She just raised her eyebrows and went back to repairing the pillow on the piano bench (she also give piano lessons. If she's not holed up in her study or down at the barn or reading with her dog, Mr. Darcy, she's playing piano.)

Iggy also says hi, and I quote, "stay away from drugs, alcohol, foul language, and things people censor for public viewing." He also had some questions to confirm whether you were actually a Fangirl. He's lucky if I don't bait a mountain lion with him tomorrow.

So since I decided that postcards are lame (uh, no space. Nice pen by the way. The sparkles were a real nice touch. Are your nails the same color?) but I like pictures, I put a few in the envelope as well. The first is from Ig's disposable camera. He wanted to take some, but do I even need to explain? Anyway, that's the barn where she keeps the horses and chickens. You can't really see it, but behind the barn is a ring where she teaches lessons if they don't go on trail rides. That's her dog, Mr. Darcy, by the barn door. He doesn't really like either of us, but she says he warms up eventually, he's just protective. We were standing in front of the house when we took this one, but it's a bit bigger than Dr. M's and smaller than Anne's. We're facing toward town and the road, but the mountains are behind us. I think you'd like them, they're huge and it's gonna be awesome exploring them. Reminds me of the ones back by the E-House.

Write back-you owe me, my wrist hurts after writing all this-and send a picture. Cactus wrens are cool. Iggy says he wants more acknowledgement. Watch out for rattlesnakes.

Later,

Fang

Postcards were lame. Though I wouldn't need that much space to justify killing Iggy, as I'd had the thought plenty of times myself. But there was something about Fang's familiar writing, imagining his hand ghosting across the pages, which made me smile.

"Max?" Mom asked over the newspaper, her coffee eyes concerned. "You okay? You don't have to help me in the garden if you don't want to."

"I'm good." I said, getting to my feet. "I'll be right back."

I sat on the bed, rereading his letter and staring at the photo. The sky was so big, you could see for miles. Brook Hufftalen's house could have been a palace. I could see Fang and Iggy there-exploring the woods and camping out on warm nights in the fields. I could imagine people working in that barn, and the dog was wagging his shaggy tail. It didn't seem a bad place to be.

And he'd told me to write back.