Chapter 2: First Impressions
He was there, right there.
Right in front of her.
So why couldn't I move? Why couldn't I lower the gun? I could actually feel my fingers tighten around the trigger. Like he was a danger, the gun a lifeline.
"Max?" Fang said.
Fang said. My Fang said.
But still I couldn't move.
I did manage to lower the gun slightly. He couldn't be here. It couldn't be him. This had to be a trick. Or another dream. How many nights had I waked to an empty house, reaching for him? This was happening. It wasn't real.
Was it?
It doesn't matter. I have to act. I am the leader, my job is to act.
I could feel the flock behind me, holding their breaths. They were expecting me to do something. But what? Run over and throw my arms around him? Cry into his chest and demand he never leave me again?
Maybe the old Max would have done that. But I won't.
I can't.
I manage to lower the gun all the way with a clench of my jaw. Time to toughen up fearless leader.
"Angel? Can you confirm it's him?" I ask, looking Fang directly in the eye with a cool stare. He looks taken aback, but doesn't lower his eyes.
"Yeah, Max. It's him." I heard a soft voice say behind me. She was confused. She had only been six when he left, three years was a long time to a nine year old girl.
I nodded slightly, watching with carefully practiced indifference as Fang searched my face for something, something he wasn't finding.
Without another glace I turned around to face my flock, my back to Fang.
"Iggy, escort him over to Mom's office and have him checked over." I said with my best command voice. I could feel the nails of my free hand curling into the skin. I would draw blood soon, so I best be out of super-smelling range by that time. I walked up the stairs to the house without another word leaving my flock behind me. Not our flock, mine.
"Max!" I heard him shout as the others rushed forward to greet him.
I didn't look back.
You have to understand. Back when he was gone, from the moment I realized he wasn't coming back, I was so lost. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to go on. I didn't have anyone I could trust to turn to when I honestly needed help. Not opinions or advice but help, both as a leader and a person. In the moment I realized I was all alone, my mind was made up for me. He made it up for me when he was gone.
But now he was back.
No. No, I wasn't going to let myself believe that yet. Not until Mom had preformed a full service DNA test and any other scans she could think of. Not till Angel had probed every corner of his mind for falsehood. Not until all evidence proved without a shadow of a doubt that he was back here for real.
I opened the doors to my room and as the door shut behind me I slowly let reality set in.
The look on his face.
The disbelief.
The… the hatred of what he found there.
And then I cried.
I pulled a box out from under my bed. His box. It held everything he had left behind when they had taken him. This was the first time I'd cried in three years. A replaced window pane and a white lie about the neighbor boy's baseball were all that remained of that day. That and the angry scars around my hand and wrist where the stubborn shards of glass had refused to leave my body without a fight.
"Max?"
Mom's voice rang through the house com-link system, now hooked up to her office as well, only a couple buildings down.
"Yes?" I replied, a little too quietly for my liking.
"I'd I appreciate it if you'd come down to the office, honey."
"… I'll be there shortly."
Well that didn't take long.