Troubled but free

by Ravenwing2000

Max and her protective older brother Iggy live on the streets. They barely have enough money to survive, so Max sneaks to street fights to earn some money for them behind his back. In her latest one, she is mortally wounded, and a mysterious dark haired boy who Max happened to dream about appeared at her side, helping her. She then sees the person of her nightmares.

1. Chapter 1: This is our life

Yo. So I know I haven't really updated my main story recently, please don't kill me! I broke up from school yesterday though, so I'll be updating a lot more.

Random Fact: I'm listening to Hear me by Imagine Dragons as I write this authors note.

Onwards!

I walked down the cold street. It was a dark night, rain pouring down, the wind buffeting me, making my hair fly around.

I was hunched over, a hood over my head, my hands shoved deep into my pockets.

I'm Maximum Ride, Max for short. I'll turn 14 years old in… I looked at my watch. It was 11:45 at night, so in 15 minutes I'll be 14, and I live on the streets with my 16 year old brother, Iggy.

We don't live on the streets by choice. When I was 12, our father, Jeb Batchelder, kicked us out. He was abusive and a drunk, and neglected us up until he just threw us out of the house and told us to never come back.

More like, he threw me out. He preferred Iggy to me by quite a bit, I could tell. Iggy knew it too, and tried to shield me, but it didn't work.

Jeb abused me twice as much, and was much harder on me. I think a part of him wanted Iggy to stay, but not me. Never me. I'm the rebellious one, the one who always went against Jeb just to piss him off.

Iggy wasn't exactly obedient, but he didn't have the tendency to piss people off like I do. I partly did it on purpose.

We went to school up until the dark few days before Jeb threw us out. Iggy was the clever one, the one with lots of friends, who everybody loved. I had a couple of close friends, but not like Iggy.

He was the likable one. I was the angry and unapproachable one. He had light blond hair which was naturally red at the tips, and all the girls used to be obsessed with him. I have very dark hair, almost black, but with natural golden blond streaks running through it. I was pretty normal, boring.

But, enough about that.

I opened the door of the abandoned, crumbling apartment block that Iggy and I were staying in.

We lived in a tiny flat right at the top, so I had to spend a few minutes of torture climbing the stairs. It was pretty inconvenient, but I loved being at the top. So did Iggy. We both loved heights, but I loved them more than Iggy, and the view from our flat was worth it.

"God, I hate stairs." I muttered to myself, like I did every time I climbed them, as caught my breath at the top, my legs burning.

I quietly opened the door of our flat, slipping in and pushing the door shut as quietly as I could, locking it and putting the keys on a table. I crept silently over to where my bed was laid out on the floor, but when I was halfway there, the light turned on and somebody coughed.

Crap.

I turned around slowly to see Iggy standing by the light switch, his mouth a disapproving line.

Oh god. He's gonna kill me. Were the thoughts running through my head.

"Max?" He said calmly, his voice like ice, frosty and cold.

"Yeah?" I said slowly, cautiously.

"What the hell were you thinking when you left, as it got dark, when I was asleep, without even waking me up and telling me, and not even taking something to defend yourself with?"

I shrugged.

He strode up to me, walking with long strides.

"Max! You could have been kidnapped, or murdered or-." He broke off, but I knew exactly what he was implying. "Or- worse. Were you even thinking when you left? Are you insane? You didn't take anything to defend yourself with! This is a Dangerous city at night Max. Don't make me lock you in here and hide the key."

If only he knew.

His voice had been rising as he was talking, and he was shouting as he said. "Don't you care? Do you not care about what would happen to me is something happened to you, Max? Do you not realise how much you mean to me?"

He stopped, and pulled me into a hug. I felt guilty for a second, but I squashed the guilt down.

"I'm sorry Ig." I mumbled into his chest, hugging him back tightly. He was my brother and I loved him, and I did feel bad about lying to him on such a huge scale. But I had to, for both of our sakes.

He pulled away, leaning down so he was at eye level with me. "Please don't do that again, Max." I nodded, looking away from him, thinking about all he gave up for me. He didn't have to come with me. I think Jeb would have happily looked after him. But, for my sake, he chose to protect me, and not even get enough money to feed us properly.

He pulled away from me, pulling something off the kitchen table. Yes, we had furniture. We'd gone to dumps and found suitable furniture, and managed to hastily furnish our little home. We'd manage to salvage a microwave that worked from the dump, which we could use because there was still electricity and running water in this apartment block, even though it was completely abandoned, apart from us.

Funny how miracles happen, isn't it?

He grinned, handing me a little box.

"Guess what I got for you today?"

I raised my eyebrows at him, opening it, and pulling out a beautiful necklace, with gold outstretched wings hanging from it. I gasped and looked at Iggy in awe.

"How did you get this?" I asked.

He grinned mischievously and tapped the side of his nose.

I pulled the necklace on over my head, letting the gold chain and wings hang down. I had to admit, It was beautiful, and I loved the way the light caught the gold.

"Thank you so much, Iggy!" I said, smiling and laughing.

His digital watch beeped and flashed. It was midnight.

"It's not every day you turn 14."

"I didn't think you'd remember." I said, touched.

"Of course I'd remember, Max. I'm your big brother."

He smiled, pulling out two boxes of pizza.

I gasped. "Pizza!" I said, pure excitement in my voice. I loved pizza!My stomach rumbled, and we both laughed.

I was starving, I hadn't eaten anything all day.

Iggy and I went up to the roof of our apartment block to eat, so that we could watch the glowing, beautiful city as people drove here and there, going about their daily lives.

I wolfed down my pizza in about a minute, and ended up having around half of Iggy's. I am a big big eater, and my appetite is huge. I've been eating almost twice as much as Iggy for a few years now. He doesn't understand how I can eat so much, but I just can. I'm pretty much always hungry. It doesn't exactly make living on the streets any easier.

Iggy shook his head. "How the hell do you eat so much?"

I shrugged, yawning.

We looked out over the beautiful lights of the city, and admired the beauty. It had stopped raining before we had come up here, so everything was a bit damp, and the smell of rain was in the air. I love the smell of rain.

-time skip-

I was in one of my fights, and I was losing.

I was floored, and I passed out. I woke a few seconds later to see a boy crouching beside me, looking worried. He had jet black hair, and a long fringe which covered his right eye, like mine. He was all in black, and I had to admit, he was really good looking and he had an all year around tan.

My vision blurred. I was intense pain everywhere, and was struggling to breathe. But the boy, he was my age, looked calm. He smiled casually.

There was a cold detachment in his eyes.

"Help.. me! I'm dying." I croaked out, going into a full panic.

He didn't take any notice.

"Hey." He said. "My name's Fang."

I sat upright, breathing heavily, hand on my heart.

"Max?" Iggy said from the kitchen, already awake.

"Just a dream." I said, still catching my breathe. There was something about the boy in my dream which attracted me to him, but in my dream I had been in horrible pain, everywhere. I had felt panicked, thinking I was going to die.

I shook it out of my head, standing up.

"What do you want to do for your birthday?" Iggy asked. "I managed to get the night shift at my job."

Yeah, Iggy has a job. He has to have one, or we would have probably starved to death quite a while ago. He won't tell me what he does, but he comes home exhausted. He only just scrapes enough for us, but sometimes we can't eat. He reassured me it wasn't like drug dealing or anything like that, or anything that would put his life on the line. He knows that he can't possibly risk his life, because he doesn't know how I would survive.

I yawned and stretched, thinking.

"I dunno." I said after thinking of all the places I knew.

"How about the cinema?" He suggested casually.

"That would be awesome, but we don't have any tickets and I don't know whats on and we don't-"

I was cut off when Iggy pulled two tickets out of his back pocket.

I gasped, going over to him to see what movie it was.

I gasped with shock and delight. "Anchorman 2!" Iggy and I had seen the first one when we lived with Jeb. I think I was about 11 or 12, Iggy 13 or 14. We both loved it, but we hadn't watched it in ages.

And why did we watch it when we were clearly underage?

Well, we didn't really care. It didn't affect us anyway, so it was fine.

"How did you get these?" I said, delight in my voice.

He smiled. "Magic."

Btw I've seen Anchorman 2, it's so funny.

"Wait, Ig, it's rated 15. I look 13 still. What if they don't let us in? It's against the law to see a film underage in the cinema." I said, suspicious about how he would get me in.

"Max. When have we ever cared about the law?" He said, amused.

I smirked. "Forever, of course."

We got into the film with no problem. We walked out, still laughing at how when people were clapping in the film I automatically clapped, and didn't realise what I was doing until Iggy pointed it out. I did that, because we'd just broken up from school and we'd had final assembly earlier that day, and I wasn't listening, I just clapped when other people clapped. So in the film when everybody started clapping I automatically clapped and didn't notice and my friend turned to me and was like "Why did you clap?" and I realised what I'd done and we couldn't stop laughing.

"Doby!" I said, quoting the film, and we both receded into fits of laughter again.

"I bottle fed and raised a shark! I was blind!" Iggy said, also quoting the film, but in a perfect voice, which just made me laugh harder. Iggy was amazing at imitating people's voices.

We were back home, and Iggy hugged me as he got ready to leave for work hours later. We'd had loads of fun in the cinema and out in town, but it was 9pm now and he had to go.

"I might not be that long, I might be able to get some time off because it's your birthday."

I nodded.

He pulled away from me, and grabbed my chin in his hands, making me look him in the eye.

"Please don't go out and scare me again. Please, Max. Stay here. Don't make me force you."

I nodded vaguely, and he kissed me on the forehead.

"Bye!" He said, closing the door behind him as he left.

I loved Iggy so much, and it really hurt me to lie to him like this.

The truth was that I snuck out every time Iggy had a night shift at work, which was often, and went to street fighting to try and earn some money. I was one of the best there, and they loved me. I didn't earn to much, but far more then enough for Iggy to be suspicious if I just presented him with it, so I had to hide it in places that he would fine it, and not realise that I'd earned it, thinking it was just a stroke of luck. I presented him with a small portion, saying that maybe some old lady felt sorry for me and gave me money, and he'd believed me. I'd been doing this for ages.

You may be wondering how I cover up my cuts, bruises and black eyes.

When I started, I stole some makeup from a store, and hid it in a nearby apartment in our block, and I went there and used some concealer to cover up my cuts and bruises. I hadn't known how to use it at first, but I'd had to learn quickly. I only used the necessary make-up to cover up my injuries. I hated hated hated make-up, but I had to admit, it could be pretty damn useful.

But there were some things I couldn't cover up, like when I'd had a long cut all the way down the side of my arm. I'd told Iggy that I'd been messing around and I'd tripped, and just cut it on something on the pavement or something. He was pretty suspicious, but he bought it in the end, because what else could have caused it.

I headed out of the door, going to a fight. I needed to do this.

I'd arrived at the crumbling, derelict building that was only used for fights.

The people who worked for the person running all this, grabbed me when they spotted me and dragged me into the ring quickly.

One of them laughed, rubbing his hands together. "You are screwed!" He said, backing away into the crowd. There was a big audience of people attracted to these fights, and pretty every fighter was 20 and under.

One of the people had a microphone.

"Who challenges, the Maximum Ride?" He belted out, the audience screaming when they heard my name. I was well known around here.

Somebody jumped up into the ring. He looked to be about 16, 17, with light brown hair and a dangerous face.

The microphone was thrust into his face. "What's your name?"

My challenger smiled maliciously, looking right at me. "Knife."

"Ok, Knife!" The announcer turned away from us, everybody placing bets.

"Begin!" He yelled, and Knife lunged at me.

He was slow.

I dodged under his punch and kicked his stomach quickly, receding out of is reach. His face transformed to a perfect picture of rage, and he ran to me, punching me in the face before I moved. It was a brutal punch, he was extremely strong, but I was faster. And I wasn't exactly weak.

I kicked him in his no-go zone and punched his face quickly. Red was clouding my vision, and pure rage flowed through my veins. How dare he challenge me? I was going to destroy him.

He snarled at me and pulled out a knife.

A knife.

Knife's were banned in these fights, but I didn't expect to be saved. Everyone was loving it too much, and nobody would care too much if I was killed.

He ran at me, aiming his knife for my neck, but I ducked and was given a long, deep, cut on my head, making blood drip into my eyes, clouding my vision even more. I punched him in the stomach and tried to scramble out of his way, but he grabbed my arm and held it in a strong grip, and I struggled and kicked, yelling. He only smiled and drove the knife into my arm, dragging it all the way down.

I screamed, my vision cutting out for a second, my hearing going all echoey.

He dragged the knife from deep inside my wrist all the way to my shoulder.

I got the strength to kick him in his no go zone again, and he flinched, his grip releasing only slightly. But that was all I needed. I bit his hand as hard as I could, and he yelled, trying to shake me off, but I only bit harder, thinking pit bull thoughts until he let go and punched me in the head.

I scrambled backwards away from him, my blood everywhere.

Iggy's gonna kill me. There's no hiding this.

Was all I could think as I stood up slowly, dizzily, ready to attack again.

I ran at him, discontedley trying to punch him with my good arm, which was the arm I was worse at punching with. He kicked me and floored me, my back slamming into the ground, hard. He grabbed my foot and twisted until there was a huge crack and I screamed and pain coursed through me. He grinned, his eyes dangerous, a horrible look of enjoyment in them.

This is it. I thought. After all my time being the champion, I was brought down. I hope Iggy will be alright on his own.

I stood up dizzily and fell down again.

"I beat THE Maximum Ride." He yelled, plunging his knife deep into my shoulder.

I screamed. I was seriously going to die. This was it.

My vision blurred, and I was seeing double. I saw him being dragged away, and heard him being announced as the winner from a distance.

I sank slowly into a dark abyss of blackness, hoping it would end quickly.

I woke up slowly, dizzily opening my eyes. I think I'd only been out for a short time, because there were still people here.

There was a boy crouching next to me. I tried to focus my vision, and realised it was the boy from my dream. It was him! WTF!

I gasped, and he looked worried. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I'm not gonna hurt you, I just wanna help."

His voice was deep and intoxicating, instantly calming me down a bit.

"Where do you… live?" He asked.

I coughed. "With…. With my big brother."

He looked surprised, probably wondering how any brother could let their younger sister come to a place like this.

"Where? I can get you to him."

I shook my head. "He's gonna kill me. He doesn't know I come here."

"You'll die if you stay here. Tell me where he is, I'll help you."

I coughed out what street our apartment block was on, and the boy lifted me up, helping me stand on one leg.

My head swam and I would've collapsed if he hadn't grabbed me.

He put my good arm around his shoulder and lifted me up, bridal style.

My vision blurred for a second, then I realised that I was being carried by a stranger. His touch was electrifying.

"I can walk." I choked out.

The boy shook his head.

"What's your name? If you insist on holding me, you can at least tell me who you are.

He looked down at me, and we made eye contact.

"I'm Fang." He said.

Then I had this weird sensation that I was falling, and I sank slowly into nothingness.

Memories of my time with Iggy on the streets flashed through my head, and I relived each and every one of them. Us laughing, having fun. Iggy protecting me from some guys who tried to mug me once. Us finding our little flat, fixing it up. Our whole life together.

We were troubled, but free.

Whew, that was long.

So please please PLEASE review! It only takes a few seconds, and you'll make my day. Tell me what you thought, and IF I GET ENOUGH REVEIWS ILL UPDATE AGAIN TODAY!

Fly on.

-Raven.