There she was.
After about forty minutes searching near Mrs Martinez' house, I'd found her, Maximum Ride, up a large yet relatively obscured pine tree in the surrounding forests, eyes firmly shut, corners of her mouth pointing down – what would it take to make her smile again?
I was about to go up and irritate the crap out of her, as I usually did, when I realised that she was sleeping. It should have occurred to me before that she was, due to her eyes being shut and all, but she still looked somewhat alert despite clearly being in the middle of, from what I could tell taking into consideration the deepening frown and her hand coiling into fists, a nightmare.
I flew up slowly and carefully, not wanting to wake her just yet, liking the sense of mischief it gave me, and the idea that I could watch her for a while without her barking at me to 'piss off'. She turned slightly towards me, inclining her head, and her face suddenly looked more open, the ghost of a smile playing on her mouth. I felt myself leaning towards her.
I wanted to kiss her.
She looked so small and vulnerable – where was the fierce, capable superhuman I'd seen swiftly punching the lights out of her attackers? Where was the confident leader that captured people's attention, made them obey unquestionably? No one would ever guess that the sad teenage girl softly sleeping in a tree in front of me hid a lightning fast wit beneath the head of soft, gently tangled hair, and wiry muscled arms beneath the sleeves of her over sized hoodie.
No one would guess all this unless they saw her in battle. That was one thing I loved, and hated, about Maximum Ride. You never knew what to expect from her.
Ever.
She certainly wasn't what I'd expected from the start.
I gazed at her eyes. Heavy-lidded and still squeezed tight, shut. I could watch those eyes for a lifetime for there was always something different to search for in those brown orbs.
Her eyes were a stunning colour – a mix of chocolate and chestnut with flecks of hazel, and mossy brown. I wondered if she would still be beautiful if her eyes were different. I figured she would.
I remembered when I'd first met her; how her eyes had glittered as she looked at Fang, how I'd wished her eyes would fill with that amount of emotion when she looked at me
Recently her eyes had been clouded, mistrusting – narrowing whenever I appeared in her view. Of course.
Once upon a time, before Fang left, they'd hinted of her intelligence; darting and quick, and even when she wasn't smiling, her eyes often did – as if she was secretly laughing at you.
And then in battle she looked so terrifying and dangerously beautiful; her eyes were like beautiful brown marbles, precious yet cold and hard. And her mouth a thin, unsmiling slash.
My eyes drifted to her mouth then. Delicate and soft, I'd imagined countless times what it'd be like to kiss her. I was close enough to touch her now and I had the urge to reach out and stroke my thumb over her bottom lip which was slightly pouting. I kept my hands clinging to the branch however and watched as her mouth slowly formed one word.
Fang.
My head suddenly felt heavy and my heart hurt a little, as brief anger flared through me like fire. Just then she began to writhe against the tree, still in the dream, scraping her back against the bark and whacking her shoulder hard against a gnarled bump in the trunk. I grabbed at her leg to catch her but she begun to fall away from me and my nail just scratched her skin. Luckily she caught herself but her eyes flared open, looking red-rimmed and staring straight up ahead at the open sky. The dream had ended and I needed to disappear, not wanting her to see my spying on her like this. I swiftly disappeared, grateful that my wings made not a sound as I swooped onto a lower branch on a tree behind her. She hadn't seen me, yet.
I watched her as she tucked a strand of blonde-brown hair behind an ear, sighing deeply. I got a childish impulse to sneak up on her, smirking to myself.
What can I say? I'm still practically a kid at heart.
Just… you know, a kid with a totally not normal childhood, stuck inside a genetically modified, teenager's body.
I got close up behind her, and wanted to wrap my arms around her waist and carry her away with me somewhere. But instead I leaned close to her left ear, smelling her shampoo and said quietly "Boo." Yep, still totally a kid.
She jumped, her head narrowly missing the branch above her. I thought she was meant to have heightened senses and quick reflexes, and yet I'd managed to (relatively) easily track her down and sneak up on her. What was with her these days?
She'd whirled around immediately and when she saw me the annoyance and dislike on her face was obvious. But it was worth it just for the brief flash of surprise as her mouth formed a cute little 'O', and her eyes widened, before they were quickly reduced to narrow, mean slits and her lip curled in a snarl. Ah, there's the old Max, fire in her eyes.
I grinned evilly back at her and only just resisted blowing kisses at her.
"What do you want?" She snapped.
I smirked at her, and, doing my best Fang impression I said: 'What's the matter, don't know who you are without him?'
Recently I'd moved myself away from being the irritatingly positive, easy-to-get-along-with sucker that I used to be and tried a different persona: Fang, number two.
It wasn't like I was actually trying to be him, because I was better than him, clearly, seeing as I hadn't performed a disappearing act and left Max, it was more just adopting certain aspects of his character such as his sense of irony, sarcastic wit and so on and so forth. Somehow the above characteristics, plus an irritating moody silence, emo-edge and a high dose of self-importance had made her fall in love with that bird-kid. So, if I acted in a similar-ish way she'd fall in love with this bird-kid, right?
Maybe.
Maybe not, but still, it was incredibly fun seeing her get all hot and flustered and knowing I was the cause. Don't ask why – it just was.
I was snapped out of my musings by Max practically shouting "I'm so sure", sarcasm dripping from her words.
She struck out one of her long, slim, yet-incredibly-strong-and-capable-of-kicking-butt legs and kicked me hard. I fell of my branch, surprised, but caught myself quickly and soared up towards her and before she knew what was happening I knocked into her and pushed her of her branch.
Which to me seemed perfectly reasonable because I'd only done what she'd done to me, except I, unlike her, tried specifically not to hurt her, because that was the last thing I wanted to do. See? I guess there still is some of Sucker-Dylan left in me after all.
I snorted as she tipped over the edge of the branch her arms making wide circles making her look almost cartoonish, but then she stretched out her gorgeous wings and begun to fly up.
Again faster than she could react to, I swooped down underneath her and grabbed her under her arms. She was so small and light in comparison to me and she felt almost fragile, like a perfect little doll. I knew this was so not the case, as she was struggling and I had to use all my strength just to stop her from escaping.
Jesus she was strong.
"Get your hands off m –
I stopped her words with a kiss. Her mouth was soft and still under mine.
I suddenly, with no warning let go of her, hoping to see her wanting more, like I did.
She looked so horrified and she fell, not even bothering to flap her wings, her expression like oh my god Dylan kissed me, kill me now.
That hurt.
I watched as she speared up through the air, she was in fact faster than me I realised then, and soooo angry.
"Admit it, your heart is pounding." I sneered.
She circled me coldly, breathing heavily "That was the freefall" she told me.
"Look at you, moping in a tree, feeling all sorry for yourself!" I said, enjoying the spark of anger that flared in her eyes.
"Oh, my boyfriend's gone, oh what should I do? Oh I can't live without him! Ohhh!" I taunted in a high pitched voice. Unfortunately, I didn't have Gazzy's perfect imitating skills. Fortunately imitating her in a annoying voice that made her sound girly and stupid (despite her being neither of those two things above) was somehow so much more satisfying.
Bloodlust popped into her eyes and for a second she looked so dangerous and almost scary. Strangely I found myself wanting to kiss her again.
"Shut up!" she yelled at me, "You have no idea what I'm thinking or feeling!"
"Yeah, you're sitting in a tree because you're fine," I retorted, "That's easy to see. I can't believe this is Maximum Ride, destroyer of despots, warrior hottie, leader of the flock! All you need now to make yourself more pathetic is a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream!" Calling her pathetic was perhaps taking things a little too far, but fury would have to be the only emotion I could get out of her 'cause it seemed I clearly couldn't achieve love.
"Me, pathetic?" she snapped back fiercely . "Looked in a mirror lately, loser? I can't stand you, but every time I look up, you're making cow eyes at me!"
Ouch. Okay, I'll admit, her witty brain, stuffed full of jibes and barbed insults was still seemingly intact.
I was still considering the fact that she insinuated I was more pathetic than her, called me a loser, and brought up the fact that I couldn't help loving her, all in one sentence (!), when she suddenly smashed both feet hard into my chest making my breath leave me in a whoosh.
That was going to bruise.
Before I could think what I was doing I zoomed up next to her as well, it seemed for a millisecond that she was enjoying the fight as much as I was. I didn't want to outrightedly hit her, because that would make me an utter jerk (as oppose to just, like, a partial-jerk). So I whapped her on her back with my wing. I put quite a lot of force behind it so it was disappointing when she didn't even flinch.
She just righted herself and regarded me meanly.
"Oh, you can stand me, you're just afraid to!" I said. Hmmm, possibly not my best come back but she took offence from my implying that she was afraid of anything so that was a plus.
"You're a delusional freak!" she shrieked and at that point I was impressed, she sounded pretty much like the imitation I'd done of her earlier! In the next second I grabbed her ankle after her failed attempt at kicking me again, and yanked her down, wanting so badly to kiss her again. Forgive me for being so repetitive.
"Why can't you just get out of here and leave me alone?" she screamed at me.
"I can't!" I shouted back, totally unguarded. Why did she make me act this way?
"You can," she said clenching and unclenching her fists. "Just point your wings that way and flap!"
"No, I mean, I really can't! I actually can't," I said, as all the energy and adrenaline and anger suddenly disappeared. I looked down and felt so much younger than her suddenly, powerless, "And you know why, Max. Don't make me say it."
"I know why, Dylan. It's because I'm the only available teenage winged female you've ever met. You might want to wait until they start mass-producing them. Better selection. They've still gotta work all the bugs out." She said bitterly.
"Never, Max," I insisted. "I'm programmed to imprint on you. You know it. I can't fight the urge to be with you, no matter what."
She raised her eyebrows, "That's why you've been stuck to me like glue? Because you have to?"
"Yeah, I think." I said quietly.
"You think?"
I paused for a moment. Max was strong, fierce, skilled, and intelligent. And beneath all that, the touch exterior, the hard outer shell, she was kind-hearted, loving, a good person (even if not towards me). She was also irresistibly stunning. No one I'd ever met or seen had been quite like her. Not even back at the lab I'd been created in, where some of the scientists had been specifically trying to genetically enhance beauty of their experiments. Their actually goal was to create better looking people, but they'd never been able to find the right balance, all they had managed to create was an army of eerily perfect, porcelain skinned zombies, with all the same features. The similarities and regularity of their faces had been what had made them ugly.
Even with the other avian-human hybrids they immediately after Max: Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Angel and Gazzy, hadn't quite matched up to Max. I'd been told that with the five of them, experiments had been carried out to make them generally better looking. Of course, they were all good-looking, a whole family of beautiful people, but Max stood out because she'd been the one they'd hadn't tried to enhance. It was all there before, so her beauty was effortless, breathtaking, but not in a ghostly and artificial way.
I realised that her beautiful face was watching me then, waiting for an answer.
"I think I'd want to be with you even if I were programmed to do the exact opposite." The truth.
Her harsh gaze softened slightly, such a small difference that I almost missed it, but she didn't say anything then. She just folded her wings like one of those pretty, little origami cranes and delicately fell through the sky.
I watched her all the way to the ground, where she gracefully landed and then walked silently to her Mom's house. No matter how many times I willed her to, she didn't turn back once.
I thought about what I'd done. My mind immediately rushed back to when I'd kissed her.
I'd actually gone ahead and kissed Maximum Ride, the 'warrior hottie'. I wondered if she'd noticed that I'd called her that. I didn't care either way, I was too mind blown about the kiss.
It had been like fireworks, good fireworks; explosive, exciting. The moment I'd touched my lips to hers it felt like I'd come alive, my heart had kicked into high gear and hot energy had spiked through my veins. Desire.
I'd spent what seemed like ages, wondering what it would truly be like to kiss Max. I'd imagined it.
Max was like a puzzle, a riddle never to be solved. I think that's what was so intriguing about her and made her so easy to love – you never knew what to expect.
So I wasn't too surprised to find that actually kissing her in real life, holding her against me, feeling her heartbeat, was so much better that I'd expected it to be. Really touching her and kissing was unbelievable so much far better than it had been in my mind.
Only, of course, in my daydreams I'd been imagining for her to actually kiss me back.