Second chapter. Woohoo. Max is OOC. Oops. Enjoy anyway.
MAX
School was better than I ever thought it could possibly be. Despite my best efforts people managed to befriend me. I sat at a table of athletic kids. It was lunch a week into school and my nerves were twisted so tightly that I thought they would break at any second. I kept looking around, half expecting someone to morph into an Eraser, one of the School's more ferocious creatures. The other girls and boys, though, were chatting away happily and ignorantly.
From across the cafeteria I spotted Fang looking at me. He was surrounded by his friends—not idiotic jocks like the one he had beaten up; just guys kind of like him. He smiled and returned the smile. I waved my hand toward the table, indicating that he should join me. One of the girls next to be, Eve, looked at him and then back at me.
"Oh, Max! Looks like you've caught Fang's attention. He's, like, the most good-looking, badass guy in the school! OMG," she squealed, "you two should so hook up!" I rolled my eyes.
"Come on, Eve. I don't like him that way and he definitely doesn't like me that way either." Fang said something to his friends that he was sitting with, stood, and walked to our table. All of the people at our table were sneaking glances at him. Eve and her friends were giggling quietly. Fang looked a little uneasy, but he put on his best nonchalant face and walked up to my friends and me. Eve was trying not to explode from excitement and the other boys at our table were holding their girlfriends defensively.
"Hey, Max," Fang said. I bit my lip to keep from smiling.
"Hi, Fang. Come and sit down." Fang's shoulders relaxed and he smiled genuinely. I made room next to Eve by sliding the other way a bit and he sat down. Eve looked at me behind Fang and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. I stuck my tongue out at her and then turned to Fang as if nothing had happened.
"So, how goes you?" Fang chuckled lightly and said,
"Not so bad. What's up with you?"
"Honestly, nothing. What classes do you have today?" Maybe I should explain—our school ran on a seven-day cycle. I didn't have my majors every day, and there was a slightly different schedule each day. I already knew that Fang was in a few of my classes.
"Let's see...I have, um, German, gym, and then calculus. You?" I smiled at his answer.
"Exact same as you. I didn't know that we had gym together."
"Huh, that's cool. By the way, I've been meaning to ask: where did you move from?" This topic made me uncomfortable because even though I answered this question by saying Arizona, I had really come from the School when I had escaped with a bunch of other test subjects. When I had escaped, I was pretty sure that there had been other Mutant Bird Kids (as I called myself), but I didn't remember them distinctly. When I'd found Valencia Martinez through a stroke of luck, she decided to move my half-sister, Ella, and me away from Arizona to avoid the White Coats and Erasers that were out for me.
"Oh, just from Arizona. My mom got a sweet job offer—she's a veterinarian—and hauled my sister and me to this place. So there you have it."
"Go figure. I also moved from Arizona, but at the beginning of the school year." I laughed nervously. This was just slightly creepy. It was probably just a happenstance, just chance. The problem was that I didn't and still don't believe in coincidences. 'Coincidences' happen to me too often.
We talked for the rest of lunch, learning how similar we were. I found out that we both had the same 'birthday' (my birthday was just when I was old enough for the School to start experimenting on me), we both hated rap music, both were athletic, and both could kick anyone's ass in a real hurry. Go figure.
The bell rang thirty minutes later and we got up to leave. Fang smiled, waved, and walked over to join his other friends. They were all yelling childishly and giving him slaps on the shoulder; my friends were laughing hysterically and waggling their eyebrows at me like crazy. Looked like our friends approved of us as a couple. The only problem was this: I didn't.
FANG
What was wrong with me? Maybe I was going insane. I couldn't stop looking at Max for the rest of the day. There was something about her, something I just couldn't put my finger on, that made her intriguing. In gym we got paired up for double tennis, and let me tell you: she was good—even by my standards. She never missed one ball and kept on hitting it so hard that the other team was afraid to get near it let alone hit it back. Needless to say, we dominated the court. She didn't talk to me much more, but she did look at me a lot.
My friends kept on telling me to ask her out, but come on, I'd only know her for what, a week? I would never do something as ludicrous as that. In addition, Max looked like the kind of girl who would happily slug anyone in the face who asked her out. I liked my nose. So I didn't ask her out.
"Hello?" A voice said. I snapped out of my daze and looked at the face staring at me from not three inches away. It was—yep, you guessed it—Max.
"Oh! Hey, Max. Sorry—I was just spacing for a minute. Max punched my arm playfully. I heard laughing behind us but ignored it. Instead I turned to Max, who was giving the girls behind us the evil eye. Man, was she good.
"So, how's life?" She asked nonchalantly.
"Boring," I replied equally indifferently.
"Psh. Your life looks anything but boring, believe me. I've known you for a week and you've gotten into four fights. You've been hauled to the office five times, you've broken a finger, and you've sprained your wrist. If that is normal for you, which I think it is, then your life is not boring. I get into fights, too, but I save it for outside of school. You can't seem to get away from fights no matter where you are." What Max said puzzled me because she just didn't look like someone who would fight a lot. Yeah, I know, she was fierce and strong, a real Amazon warrior, blah blah blah, but she had a sweet disposition. She was pretty funny and could constantly lighten my mood by just being with me. Realizing what I was thinking, I asked myself a question I had been avoiding for a while. Did I really like this girl? The answer was, probably.
We walked to biology in companionable silence, listening to the drift of voices around us. All of a sudden I heard a whispered "...behind them. You get her and I'll get Fang". I whirled around and, to my surprise, Max was already facing the two people behind us. It was (of course) Matt and one of his idiotic goons. He looked fairly surprised that we had heard him. I wasn't sure how Max heard the barely whispered words from twenty feet away; for me, one of the advantages of being a Mutant Bird Kid was my uncanny ability to hear almost anything from a long way away.
Matt curled his fists, but Max walked toward him and said, "Sayonara, bastard."
MAX
"Sayonara, bastard," I growled. Matt curled his hands into fists and swung out at me. I almost laughed at how off balance he was. I blocked the punch and slugged him so hard in the face that he fell backwards onto his onto the ground, landing hard on his ass. I bent my head back as a fist came hurtling toward my head and grabbed the arm of the other boy. Still holding onto his arm, I kicked him behind the knees so that he flipped and landed—hard—on his back.
People around us were whispering and pointing and I realized how much trouble I was going to get in when the teachers arrived at the scene of the crime. It was true that I could argue innocent on the pretense that the two had tried to hurt me first (which was true). I didn't think it was worth it, though.
Fang stared at me blankly for a moment before starting to laugh. He laughed uncontrollably and somewhat maniacally. Onlookers edged away from him—I'll admit even I was a little freaked out. I walked to where Matt was lying, groaning, and holding his nose. He looked at me lividly but I just laughed a little.
"Matt, if you want to try to surprise me then you'll have to use sign language. I could hear you. Oh, and one other thing—I can kick your ass in my sleep, so don't try me again or you'll get another broken nose." I didn't bother saying anything to the second boy; I figured that Matt would spread the message real quick. I stepped away to join Fang and we walked to biology. Without being caught by a teacher and being sent to the office.
We just made the bell and took seats together in the back of the room. Then I realized that I was automatically thinking using "we". When had this started happening? Whatever the answer was, I had to admit that I didn't mind the sound of it. Fang was a pretty cool guy. He—I smacked myself mentally and stopped thinking about him. The least I could do was try not to fail high school. Mr. Evans (a.k.a. Mr. Stupid) was droning on about the nervous systems, how the signals could activate the fast-twitch muscles in an emergency, blah, blah, blah. The monotonous sound of the teachers voice was nearly unbearable. Despite that, I managed to keep myself from nodding off and even took a few notes on the side. I was behind since I'd never really done to school, but I didn't care much about that. I couldn't see myself ever wanting to go to Harvard.
Fang passed me a folded piece of notebook paper twenty minutes into the period. I opened it. It read, This guy is sooo boring. I laughed quietly and wrote, Ya think? I'm having a hard time staying awake. Yuck. I refolded the paper and passed it to Fang, who almost burst into laughter. He put his hand over his mouth and made rather unconvincing coughing sounds.
Mr. Evans glared at him but continued his lecture. I smiled and doodled on my note-taking paper for a minute. Fang wrote something else on his paper and passed it. Want to hang out some time? it read. I almost choked on nothing but managed to keep the surprise to myself. What should I say? Yes? No? What the hell is going on? I'd never liked a guy before and had barely talked to any in my life. One part of me said, "You don't know this guy well enough—it could be a trap". Hello, paranoia. Another part said, "You don't have to know him. Just trust him. You don't have to like him that was to just spend time with him". I was torn. I bit my lip and tuned out the obnoxious buzz of Mr. Evan's voice. The trusting part of me finally one the internal battle. Why not? I could always kick Fang's ass if he tried anything on me. Sure, I wrote back. I passed the note and Fang's face lit up with happiness as he read it. His reaction secretly made me happy.
