I don't own Maximum Ride
"Fang, where are we going next?"
Fang sighed, sitting down on the bed in one of the rooms the gang had rented to sleep in for the night. It had been two days since the Paris disaster. They hadn't gotten very far. Right now, they were rest stopping in Germany. He knew Max didn't have many good memories in Germany. He wondered for a second how she was coping, but quickly put it out of his mind.
"I don't know Star; we'll figure it out tomorrow." He said tiredly. For once, everyone else in the gang realized just how tired he was. They all wisely decided to stay quiet.
"Ok Fang, we'll talk in the morning." Kate said quietly. "We're going to go to our room, 'kay Fang?" Fang nodded, closing his eyes. He listened as the three girls trudged out, closing the door quietly behind them. He lay back all the way. The other two, Ratchet and Holden, went to their sleeping areas. Holden was on the small couch, Ratchet, the other bed.
"Night guys." Holden piped up. Ratchet grunted in response. Fang crawled all the way onto the bed and fell asleep within seconds.
"Fang, wake up!"
Fang rolled over, groaning, only to be hit in the face with a pillow. He opened his eyes, only to be welcomed with another pillow to face. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. He opened his eyes all the way, but yet another pillow smacked him in the face. He glared at Ratchet.
"Sorry, but it was really tempting." He said, smirking. Fang rolled his eyes and glanced at the clock. He jumped up.
"It's three o'clock?" he glanced at the five people surrounding him. "In the afternoon?" his friends looked at the ground.
"You looked like you needed it." Maya said softly, sitting down at the foot of the bed. Kate nodded in agreement.
"Anyway, we can stay here an extra night. It's fine. We aren't going anywhere in a hurry." Kate told him gently. "You do need sleep. Especially after Paris."
Fang flashed back to Paris. The explosion, the carnage, getting screamed at by Max, and then losing Angel. The pain of it all hit him suddenly, and he sat down hard on the bed.
"You ok, man?" Holden asked cautiously. The whole group looked at him, waiting for an answer.
"Uh, yeah, I'm fine." He said, shaking his head to clear his thoughts.
"Where are we going next?" Star asked impatiently, starting to pace.
"We need more information on the Doomsday Group." Maya stated. "Otherwise we'll just go in circles."
"We could sneak into their base." Ratchet suggested, but everyone shook their heads.
"That would require going back to France and after Angel…" Maya trailed off, seeing Fang's expression.
"Well, what's remotely helpful in Germany?" Holden asked. Fang remembered when the Flock had split.
"Itex's headquarters was in Germany, I don't remember where though." Fang told them. Everyone else looked as doubtful as Fang felt.
"Itex is dead though, right? Or at least so broken beyond repair that they can't do anything, right?" Star asked nervously, still pacing.
"Will you stop pacing? It's not helping!" Ratchet snapped at her. She stopped in front of him.
"Oh, excuse me for actually trying to think." She scowled at him and grabbed the sunglasses off of his head. She snapped them in half and threw the pieces back at him. He stared at her incredulously.
"What the hell was that for?" he shot back, standing up as she started to pace again. "Now I'll need new ones!" Everyone in the group knew that with his enhanced senses, he needed blockers for some of his senses, like the sunglasses, or earphones. He moved forward, about to say something back, but Kate stepped in between them.
"Can you two shut up?" she asked them. They both opened their mouths, but Kate glared at them and they both wisely closed their mouths. "Finally," she muttered. She turned to Fang. "Do we have to stay in Germany? I mean, Europe is small, we could go anywhere. And they probably have headquarters on every continent. We could go back to America, probably."
"That might actually work. The problem would be finding another headquarters, or at least getting information about it. And if we went to America we could get farther away from the Flock." Maya said scornfully. The other five knew how Maya felt about Max and the others, being Max's clone.
"I want to be close enough that, if they get any information on Angel…" Fang looked away from his gang, not wanting them to see his face. Even though he wasn't in the Flock anymore, he still cared about them, especially Angel and Gazzy, being the youngest.
"How about this, we'll spend the next few days here, planning and finding more information on the Doomsday Group. We'll be close enough to hear about Angel, and we can rest. We all need it." Kate looked around at the other five. They all nodded slowly.
"Ok, now what?" Star asked, once everyone had agreed. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving." Everyone rolled their eyes at Star's appetite.
"Let's go out and eat." Holden suggested, stretching. Ratchet shrugged.
"I'm in." Maya nodded too, and everyone turned towards Kate.
"Definitely, I haven't eaten since yesterday." Kate headed towards the door.
"You coming, boss?" Ratchet asked, realizing that Fang was still in the room once everyone else had left. The other three turned to look back at him.
"I'm gonna stay here, maybe go out and fly. You guys go ahead." Maya looked at him worriedly, but followed everyone else out. Fang watched as the door closed, then got up and grabbed his black hoodie. He pulled it on, checking to make sure that his wings fit through the slits in the fabric, then walked out of the room. Walking out of the motel, he looked around and headed into the woods behind it. Looking over his shoulder again, he continued weaving in between the trees. He thought he felt eyes on him, and twisted around quickly, stopping in his tracks. Scanning the area, the tall boy couldn't find anything wrong with the landscape. He shrugged off the feeling, and turned around, the crunch of the leaves under his feet masking the short sigh of relief behind him.
He went farther into the forest until he reached a small clearing, big enough for him to spread his fourteen foot wingspan and take off. Pushing off the ground, he jumped into the air, pushing his pure black wings down to keep from falling. Quickly scanning the area one more time, he flew away, looking like a black bird in the cloudless blue sky.
He missed the girl who stepped out into the clearing, shading her eyes to watch him go.
And he missed the words she whispered as he left.
"Found you."
