Guys, I'm going to be writing like MAD today because I am so happy with the number of favorites, alerts, and reviews for various stories I had waiting in my inbox this morning! I'll at least do this and Sick Days, and because of several requests, I'm considering extending Messing with Max 2, but that might take a few days.
Thanks for everything, keep up the reviewing!!
Boy, it was quite an ordeal, getting my hands on a copy of this book. But I did it. And then it took me forever to write down the page numbers, because Fang is even sappier in this book than I thought! Anyway… here we go:
Disclaimer: Same as the last two chapters! This is a compilation of excerpts, all of which belong to James Patterson and not me.
Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports
Sappy Fang
Then my throat felt tight, and I rubbed my fists against my eyes. I dropped my face onto my arms, crossed over my knees. This sucked! I wanted to be back with the oth--
Fang's hand gently smoothed my hair off my neck. My breath froze in my chest, and every sense seemed hyper-alert. His hand stroked my hair again, so softly, and then trailed across my neck and shoulder and down my back, making me shiver.
I looked up. "What the heck are you doing?"
"Helping you change your mind," he whispered, and then he leaned over, tilted my chin up, and kissed me….
It seemed like an hour before we broke apart. We were both breathing raggedly, and I stared into his eyes as if I would find answers there.
Which of course I didn't. All I saw was the dancing flames of our small fire.
Fang cleared his throat, looking as surprised as I felt. "Forget the mission," he said, his voice barely audible. "Let's just all be safe somewhere together."
00
He didn't want to check his blog-- he'd had almost eight hundred thousand hits earlier-- didn't want to do anything except lie still and think.
Max.
God, but she was stubborn. And tough. And closed in. Closed off. Except when she was holding Angel, or ruffling the Gasman's hair, or pushing something closer to Iggy's hand so he could find it easily without knowing anyone had helped him. Or when she was trying to untangle Nudge's mane of hair. Or-- sometimes-- when she was looking at Fang.
He shifted on the hard ground, a half-dozen flashes of memory cycling through his brain. Max looking at him and laughing. Max leaping off a cliff, snapped out her wings, flying off, so incredibly powerful and graceful that it took his breath away.
Max punching someone's lights out, her face like stone.
Max kissing that weiner Sam on Anne's front porch.
Gritting his teeth, Fang rolled onto his side.
Max kissing him on the beach, after Ari had kicked Fang's butt.
Just now, her mouth soft under his.
He wished she were here, if not next to him, then somewhere in the cave, so he could hear her breathing.
It was going to be hard to sleep without that tonight.
00
"Max." He waited till I looked at him again. "The one we have is each other. The one thing we can depend on, no matter what. We have to… talk about stuff."
00
"I think I would like a La-Z-Boy," I mused, letting my eyes drift shut again. "Fang, don't go anywhere."
"I won't. I'm here."
"Okay. I need you here. Don't leave me."
"I won't."
00
"What I said yesterday didn't mean anything!" I hissed. "I love everyone in the flock! Plus, it was the Valium talking!"
An unbearable smug look came over his usually impassive face. "Uh-huh. You just keep telling yourself that. You looove me."
I look a swing at him, but he jumped back nimbly, and all I did was jar my left arm, making it hurt.
He laughed at me, then pointed at the woods outside the window. "Pick a tree. I'll go carve our initials in it."
00
Flying west without Max was like flying with one wing missing, Fang thought. He kept seeing her face, furious, confused, and even though she would never admit it, scared. He'd seen that face just about every day of his entire life. He'd seen it filthy with caked-on dirt, bruised and bloodied, snarling, laughing, sleeping, telling complicated lies with total sincerity… looking down at him with that light in her eyes, that communication between them…
00
Fang would have followed Max to the end of the world, wherever and whenever that was. If she'd dropped into the cone of an active volcano, he would have backed her up, no matter what.
00
He ignored the way his heart thumped when he thought about seeing her-- them-- again. If she still had the cretin with her, he was going to be pissed. But cretin or no, splitting up the flock was wrong. If the world was coming to an end, they needed to be together.
00
"You will die today," several Flyboys promised in their weird metallic voices. "We are here to kill you and the others. Max and the rest of your flock are already dead. Now it is your turn."
Fang felt a cold jolt, then dismissed it. Max wasn't dead. He would know, somehow. He would have felt it. The world still felt the same to him; therefore, Max was still in it.
00
"You're late."
Fang stepped out of the shadows, eating an apple. He was dressed in black, as usual, and his face looked like a lumpy plum pie. But his eyes shone as he came toward me, and then I was running to him over the sand, my wings out in back of me.
We smashed together awkwardly, with Fang standing stiffly for a moment, but then his arms slowly came around me, and he hugged me back. I held him tight, trying to swallow the lump of cotton in my throat, my head on his shoulder, my eyes squeezed shut.
"Don't ever leave me again," I said in a tiny voice.
"I won't," he promised into my hair, sounding most un-Fang-like. "I won't. Not ever."
