Sup guys…ugh, I haven't updated forever. Sorry. And no, I'm not giving up Happy Days, it's just I've had an idea for a new story for a while and didn't want to start it while Happy Days was still up, but couldn't focus on writing Happy Days. So tell me if you like this one and I should continue on with it or if I should just go back to Happy Days. Oh, one more thing; I'm soooo sorry I haven't been reviewing your stories, I went on vacation and came back three weeks later with seven pages of unread updates in my inbox. It's taking me a while to comb through them all, especially now that tons of people are updating every other day. Anyways, the first couple chapters might not be my best simply because I haven't written anything other than a cloning paper for Language Arts class in the last four months. Whoops.
Fang's POV
Humanity sucks.
I take that back, the world sucks.
These thoughts are the ones that ring through my mind as I sit on watch duty, again. It seems like I'm always on watch duty now, Iggy and I both. I hate waking up Gazzy so he can take a watch, Nudge freaks out and is a pain to fly with the next day if she doesn't get exactly eight hours of deep sleep, and I'm too worried Angel will be distracted by a squirrel or something if we leave her on watch to actually sleep. So that leaves Iggy, me, and Max.
Max.
I don't even know how to explain it anymore. After we returned from Antarctica, Max changed. She's not the strong, confident, leader we have always know anymore. She's just different.
It's almost as she has curled inside herself. She still talks and eats and tries to act normal for the younger kids, but never laughs, or even cries anymore. She has put up this shield, and hardly ever lets anyone in.
As Iggy would say "Look who finally cracked."
I don't think that Max has gone completely crazy; my mind can't even focus on that thought. Because if we lose Max, we lose us. We lose everything we've worked for our whole lives. We lose the fight to show people we are just normal kids with extra muscle, brainpower, and wings.
And they win. All the people who ever doubted us win. All the sick scientists at the School win. All the people who called us freaks win. All the people who thought about calling us freaks win.
So you see, there's no way we can lose Max.
"Dangit…" I heard Iggy whisper across the campfire. I got up, careful not to step on any twigs that would crack loudly as I made my way over to him.
"What'd you do?" I whispered.
"Spark flew up. I'm okay…" He sucked on his wrist.
"Okay. You go to sleep, I'll finish up this watch." I yawned inwardly at the thought of staying up another two hours. That would leave me a total of three hours of sleep, seeing as I had been on watch with Iggy most of the night already.
I sat down on "my" log where I sat during my watch every night. It was positioned just right so I could watch Max without staring flat out at her.
Max.
Max's hair had gone from a blondish color to a lighter brown, and it was obvious she hadn't used Nudge's brush for a while. Leaves and twigs were caught up in her hair, and I resisted the overwhelming urge to get up and pull them out. I couldn't believe how ratted her hair had gotten since we had been forced to run away again.
After we did out thing and saved the world, we (AKA Max) decided to go back to her mom's house. Not the greatest idea ever. When we got there, her mom and Ella were both gone. Nearly all the windows were broken, and blood was smeared up against the front door.
As soon as we landed, Max charged inside. I followed while shouting over my shoulder at the others to stay outside until we gave them the all clear. Max burst through the door and did a quick 360, as was habit. She charged into the kitchen, with me at her heels. All we found there was more blood.
Then we were off to the bedrooms. Max burst through each door, hoping to find Ella or Dr. Martinez or even Jeb. I knew better, I was hoping we wouldn't find them. There was just too much blood. If we found them here, they wouldn't be people anymore.
They would be bodies.
We didn't find them. We did find poor Total though, tied to a dog bed with a piece of cloth in his mouth to keep him from talking. I found him actually, and thought he was dead. I was bracing myself to tell Angel when Max burst in.
"Oh my god. Is he dead? Angel's gonna kill us…" She crouched down next to me and whipped a strand of hair that was falling in her eyes back behind her ear. Just then Total's ear twitched.
"Hey, did you see…" I started off before rubbing my eyes. I really had thought I was going crazy.
"There's no pulse…" Max brought her head back up from listening to Total's heart.
Right then, his ear twitched again.
"Hey, Max, did you see that?"
"What?" I shook my head.
"Never mind."
"Okaaay, then…" Max brought her attention back to Total's heartbeat (or lack thereof)
And the ear twitched again.
"Max!" I jumped away from the "dead" dog.
"What Fang? I'm trying to concentrate here!" She snapped at me.
"That dog's ear just twitched. I swear by any gods I may happen to believe in."
Max turned around to look at me.
And the ear twitched.
"Right there!" I pointed. Of course, as soon as she looked, the ear wasn't twitching anymore.
"Fang, why don't you go get the others." Max said very slowly, as if I was going crazy.
"No, Max! I swear! It twitched!"
Just then Angel ran in, with Iggy close on her heels. I could hear him murmuring to her.
"Angel, if you don't get back outside, so help me God, I will refuse to cook for the next three months and leave you to starve off Max or Fang's cooking." I glared at him. As if he sensed my glare, he gave a shrug in my general direction.
"Sorry man, but those cookies you made sucked."
Angel snickered at me before turning her attention back to whatever caused her to burst into the house in the first place.
"I heard Total!" She laughed. "I really did! He was thinking about how much his ear itched!"
I raised my eyebrows at Max, as if to say, "I told you so", but she just rolled her eyes at me before crouching down next to Angel.
"Angel, Total isn't alive. I checked for a pulse and everything, it's just not there."
But Angel was not so easily convinced.
"Yes, he is! I know it, I know it! And I know you think it was just Fang thinking about Total, but it wasn't! Fang's thoughts are always laced in with something depressing, like a holocaust or something, and this was Total!"
Then Total's back leg twitched.
"There!" I pointed. "His leg just twitched!"
Max glared at me. Of course, right when it happened, she wasn't looking.
Then, out of the blue, Total's eye opened up and blinked. He tried to turn his head to look at us, but he was still tied down.
"Total!" Angel happily squealed.
Max sighed but turned around to look, just in time to see Total blink and try to stand up. Her eyes widened and I couldn't hold in the laugh building up inside me.
Max glared at me before swiping my pocketknife from my left pocket. She sawed upward through the tight ropes holding Total down.
"Dangit Max, that was my sharpest knife…" I glared down at her and thought I heard her snicker under her breath.
As soon as Total was free and checked over, (Angel had to be assured many times he would be fine) we continued searching the house. To my relief, and Max's obvious distress, we didn't find Max's mom or Ella.
I tried to explain to her how it was best that we didn't find them, but she just withdrew from me. She screamed and yelled about me not wanting her to find them because I thought they would take her away from me.
Which may have been partly true. But I wouldn't have wanted them dead!
After that day, she wasn't the same anymore. Which had lead up to now. She blamed herself and us for not finding her "real" family. That's what hurt all of us the most, when she referred to them as her "real family". Angel cried and refused to talk to Max, instead asking me to ask Max where we were going, or when we were going to eat, or where we were going to stay. After a few times of asking Max and in turn receiving a glare and a "If you're so smart, why don't you figure it out yourself?" comments, I gave up on asking Max and started making decisions of my own.
Which is really, really scary.
I gotta go now, but I really wanted to get a chapter up and see the general feeling of it. I know it sounds kinda weird right now, but all of this is leading up to a twist, that I'm pretty sure no one has done in Maximum Ride fics. If you're curious, ask in your review because I want some opinions on it anyway.
