A/N: Once again, sorry for the long period of inactiveness. Writer's block is cancerous. I wish I could churn stories out like some people can. I'm totally jealous. Sorry it's so short. "Ask Me How I Am"—Snow Patrol. REVIEW PLEASE. It's not some crazy impossible feat.

DISCLAIMER: any of the original characters & other things from Maximum Ride don't belong to me. Not a one. Tragic, really.


Sell Your Soul -3- Syndrome

MAX.

"You should apologize."

"Very likely," I said, rolling my eyes for the millionth time that night. I was sitting curled up in a comfortable armchair. "She should be the one apologizing to me—to all of us. Why are you just taking this all in stride?"

Fang sighed and ran his hand through his hair before perching on the arm of my chair. "She's sixteen, Max. She just wants to have fun."

"And that's okay. What's not okay is her skipping school and staying out past dark for 'fun.' This is exactly how kids get on that bad path with drugs. How do we know she's not already doing anything like that?" God forbid. I'd scalp her.

"You sound like an after-school special."

I glared at him.

"Angel would know," he assured me. "She's our radar."

"That I am." Angel came back in from the kitchen, sitting down and holding a big bowl of Captain Crunch. "She's good for now—just angry. Really angry."

"For once, we're on the same page," I said.

"No, we're not," Angel disagreed. "You, you, and you." She pointed at Fang, Nudge, and the Gasman in quick succession. "Why are you not treating this like it's a big deal?"

"Because it's not," Nudge muttered. "She's just a kid. We did worse when we were her age—when we were younger than her, in fact. But we turned out all right."

"We did that kind of stuff because we had to," Iggy said. "Not because we thought it would be fun."

"Arianna is spiraling out of control," I said simply. "Her stunts are getting worse, and I feel like we're giving this quarter-assed effort to keep her from going past the point of no return. Angel, Iggy, and I are the only ones who seem to care."

Everyone started to argue with me at that statement, but I conveniently pressed my imaginary mute button and waited until the feeling of conflict left the air and everyone's lips stopped moving.

"Someone needs to talk to her," I said.

"So you go," Nudge told me.

"You may have noticed, Nudge, that Arianna isn't my biggest fan right now. She's had enough of me for one night."

Angel raised her hand and twiddled her fingers. "I'll talk to her."

"You'll influence her is what you're saying," I corrected. I looked at Fang. "You. Talk to her. If you must, smack some sense into her. We haven't tried that tactic yet." I raised my eyebrows suggestively.

"You're so violent," Nudge said, shaking her head disapprovingly.

"It's in my nature. I can't help it."

"I don't do speeches," Fang said, lifting his hands defensively. "Especially to my kid. That's your thing. And I'm not going to hit her, either," he said quickly, right when I opened my mouth to suggest it.

"Any takers?" I asked hopefully, looking around at the rest of the flock.

"I'd be forced to call social services," Angel said, shaking her head. "I have to draw the line somewhere."

I sighed, then turned back to Fang. "Please. Just talk to her. She listens to you."

He tried to stare me down, but I wasn't budging.

He sighed, then got up to go talk to Arianna.

I grinned to myself. Max, one. Fang, zero.


ARIANNA.

I was lying on my bed, staring up at my revolving fan as I idly sang along with the Green Day song playing from my stereo. I was pretending, once again, not to see the massive piles of homework sitting on the floor by my bed, spilling out of my schoolbag.

I remembered when I used to be a decent student with a B-average. These days, I just didn't care anymore, and I was lucky if I received a D on an assignment.

The teachers all asked the same things, if there was something going on in my home life, what happened to make me so apathetic.

The answers were always the same: a shrug and a simple, "I don't know."

I was half asleep when I heard my door open, and the soft click roused me back into consciousness.

I bolted upright, expecting to see Mom, here to start another argument, but instead it was my dad.

"You picked my lock?" I asked, trying to sound angry. I only sounded relieved.

"Old tricks. They're still useful." He slid a slender piece of metal back into his pocket, then came over and sat on the edge of my bed.

"Am I still grounded?"

He nodded.

My upper lip curled in scorn. "For how long?"

He shrugged.

"Are you mad at me, too?"

"Not 'mad,' per se. More like…annoyed."

I wasn't sure if I should be confused or even more pissed off. "Annoyed?" I repeated.

"You keep doing stupid things without thinking, Arianna. You ditch school in the middle of the day, you go anywhere and everywhere without saying anything to anyone, you stay out until midnight—"

"You're all such hypocrites!" I exclaimed. "Why was it okay for you all to do those sort of things when you were kids, but it's not okay for me?" I was so furious I could have burst into tears. "I didn't even break my curfew tonight."

Dad sighed, then stretched out on my bed, watching the ceiling like I had been doing moments before.

"We were homeless," he told me. "We didn't have parents or a constant home—we didn't have any of this. We only had each other." He tipped his head to look at me. "You're different. You're the lucky one. You have this great house and you get to have a normal life."

"I'm not lucky," I mumbled, picking up my stereo remote and stopping the music, which had gone from calming to annoying.

"What makes you say that?"

I glanced over my shoulder, looking down at my wings. "These, for starters."

"Ar—"

"Please don't give me the same crap Mom gives me," I interrupted. "They don't make me special—they don't make any of us special."

He just kept on looking at me without saying anything.

I waited for him to say something, to give a stupid speech like Mom always did, but they were nothing alike.

"I don't mean to cause so much trouble," I said quietly, picking at a loose thread on my duvet. "I know this is one of those 'grass is always greener' things, but I just keep wishing that I'd lived like you did."

"In poverty? I really doubt that."

"But that was for how long? Like a year?" I switched the picking from my duvet to a hangnail on my thumb. "I mean, you guys don't know what it's like—this 'normal' life. It's not as good as you all seem to think it is. It's mundane and repetitive, and I feel like if I stop fighting it, then one day I'm going to end up slitting my wrists."

I glanced up to see his reaction to that. Dad had never been big on emotional displays, but I could see the shock in his eyes.

I waited for him to say something, but the minutes passed in silence. I fidgeted and realized I'd made the mistake of using a bad comparison.

"It's that bad?" he asked finally.

I shrugged, trying to think of a better way to phrase it. "I'm going insane, pretending to be someone I'm not. I'm not human. I can't keep acting like I am. I can't keep doing this every day of my life, lying to everybody about what I am. I'm not this girl who can keep acting like she's ordinary—I'm so much more than that." I sighed. "I know I disappoint you all, and I'm sorry for that. I'll try harder," I said, hoping I really would try and not be a liar again.