AHEAD OF TIME, WE DO NOT KNOW FRENCH! ALL TRANSLATIONS WE USE IS FROM GOOGLE!

We're going to say this one time, WE DO NOT OWN MAXIMUM RIDE, some stupid bastard who doesn't know how to write does.

Fang POV: Aly and Kevin

"Where are we going?" I whispered to her as I brushed dust off my pant legs from jumping out of my window.

"A place I found when Miss. Nudge was baking." She gripped my hand and pulled me after her. The moonlight was our only light as my bare feet hit the military base's soft grass.

"We shouldn't be out at night Max." I said warily as she ran into the thin forest that separated the base from a shallow river.

"Whatever." She chuckled, not bothering to speak French. Since her family moved her a year ago from Britain, we have been teaching each other our language. She hasn't caught on as much as I have so I always try to talk to her in English so she can understand me. "We're 12, nearly adults."

"Nearly." I empathized. She rolled her eyes and pushed forward, steering between tall trees. The forest seemed to get thicker and thicker to the point of having to squeeze between them to keep up with her. "Max! Max, slow down!"

"Keep your voice down." She hissed, pulling me through a slim crack. "We're almost there. You can't tell anybody where it is. It's our secret."

I nodded, following her down a strip of grass. She stopped by a tree that split in two trucks.

"It's really awesome." She smiled widely, rubbing my hand and dropped it and jumped between the trunks. I followed a bit more hesitant.

It was an opening, surrounded by the dense trees. It was perfect.

"We can make a fort!" she ranted, going off on where it would be and that her father had some lumber and a tarp. All I could do was smile at her enthusiasm. "No one has to know."

"No one but us." I assured her. I didn't know why she told me if she wanted it a secret. I wouldn't tell anyone, but why share it with me?

"Maximum!" I heard people yelling from the base.

"We need to go." I told her, slipping between the trunks of the tree, following our path back. Max stopped me before I came into view of the house.

"Stay here and go back in a bit, so you don't get in trouble." She whispered, leaving me behind her. She looked back one more time before running back to the calling voices.

Six Years Later- 2013

"Again! Faster!" my father yelled as I finished the course. For the sixth time. I didn't stop. I just ran right past him and started again.

Ever since the wars started, he's been pushing me harder. I run more and more every day, my meals are even more bland and healthy.

"How do you want to be in the Army when you can't do something as simple as a mile!" I rolled my eyes, trying to catch my breath, I don't even want to be in the army. "5 minutes and 55 seconds. That's a joke!"

"Water?" I asked.

"Another mile?" he asked, getting in my face. I rolled my eyes, so he hit me upside my head. "Now."

I took off running again through the course but once out of his sight, I ducked off the path and into the housing area. I jogged to Max's house and tapped on her window. After a few seconds, she opened the curtain looking like she was up to something. Her dark blonde hair up in a messy ponytail and a headband on, making her bangs indent.

"What Nick?she asked, opening the window.

"Let's get out of here." I said.

"Prison break?" she asked, smirking a bit.

"Yeah."

"Hold on." she dug in her closet and pulled out her combat boots. She laced them down and shoved her feet in them. "Father again?"

"Yeah, he keeps pressuring me about how I'm 18 and need to enlist." I laid my arms on her window pane, watching her swift moves with the laces. "Sometimes I wonder why I haven't already."

"Why would you want to?" she suddenly got really rigid, stopping mid bow.

"Serve my country. It's what I've been trained to do." I've been homeschooled and done military training since I was five and other than that, I don't really know anything else. I would die in the outside world.

"They have enough men." She pressed. She jumped out the window and dirt puffed up around our legs. "You have to stay with me."

Max patted my cheek and went to dust her jean shorts off.

"Okay."

Usually I wouldn't like that comment, like when my mother left my father. She asked me to come with her, that she didn't want my life in their hands. Something about those words always made me mad, like I wasn't good enough to be something other than an ant in colony.

But when Max said it, I loved it. I loved her possessiveness.

Truth is I've been in love with her for as long as I could remember knowing her. When she moved here, I finally had a friend. I never really met another kid before her. I went to the market occasionally but I was the only kid on base and that's where I spent 98 percent of my time. The problem is… Max is complicated. She's never shown any interest in me other than just as a friend. If that's how she feels comfortable, I'm fine with the position. If I enlisted, I could help keep France safe, for her.

With the Indian bombings getting closer to France, it needed to stop. Things are going to take a bad turn and I can't let her get hurt.

Max laced her hand with mine and pulled me around the house to avoid my father.

"My mother's car is in the shop, but we can take my Father's." she grinned evily, holding up her key ring, tossing it to me. "Hold up."

She ran back into the house yelling that she was taking the car to town. Then came and jumped into the passenger's seat.

"I'm driving?" she nodded. So I got into the driver's seat and started the car. "Where to?" I whispered in French.

"Raviolis." She smiled, so I pulled out and went down the dirt road to Paris.

LINEBREAK! LINEBREAK! LINEBREAK!

Max POV: Aly

The food was really good, then we went to a park and I swung on swings while he took a little nap in the grass. We talked about anything but our parents and the war.

I told him that I needed to get home to do my chores. So he got up and brushed himself off. I hated having to wake him up but I really need to get home.

Music poured out the stereo softly. There was a comfortable silence in the car as we drove back to the base.

"What's going on?" he muttered in French. There was a black SUV in the main parkway, I didn't know we were getting a visit from the higher up. Something's not right.

Nick parked back at my house, Miss Nudge wasn't in the garden like she usually was this time of day.

"Something's going on." he got out of the car, running to his house.

"Nick, wait!" I called, chasing after him. I finally caught up when he was at his porch. His father opened the door.

"Nicolas, where have you been?" he scolded Nick. "Get in here. You," he pointed at me. "go home."

I cowered down from his posture. Nick put a hand on my arm, telling me to go. I left their yard, eyes not leaving his. When I was out of view, all I could do was sit and wait for him.

Fang Point of View: Kevin

I saluted to Captain Despereaux. He marched out of the house, his attendant after him. My father patted my back, smiling brightly. I was just as impassive as I always am around him. He was just so happy for me. All I could think about was Max, how I had said I would stay.

I took the letter and folded it back into its envelope. My father said something about calling my grandfather. I sighed, going outside to Max's house.

She was sitting on her porch, arms wrapped around her legs. I sat next to her on the steps. Her eyes met mine. I didn't say anything, she knew. Max lowered her head onto her legs, sniffling. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"He offered me a position in a covert assignment. My father recommended me, he… had been planning it for a while." I told her. She shook her head. "I couldn't say no Max."

"I know." She mumbled. She turned her head to look at my legs. "I just know I won't see you again for a long time."

"Yeah." I couldn't lie to her. I wanted to lie and say that we would see each other really soon, that the wars would end and we could be back to normal. I just don't see that happening soon. "I leave tomorrow, 0800 for training. I should be back in Paris in a few months."

She nodded, blinking back tears. I laid my forehead on the back of her shoulder, just resting there. This is going to get complicated.

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