Chapter 4

(ten minutes before Chapter 3 occurred)

Max's POV

After the inhumanly gorgeous teenager, Edward I think is what Jacob called him, ran into the forest where Fang, Angel, and I were being held captive by four ferocious, Eraser looking wolves, I called the other Flock members here. Angel sent them a mental message and they were in the trees next to us within a few minutes. Iggy, relying on Nudge as his eyes, led them to our location. The Gasman was none too happy to hear that instead of enrolling us at a school I was off "picking a fight with a bunch of animals."

Seth let out a complimentary whistle as he saw the three of them land, their oversized wings beating in perfect synchronism. Angel giggled from his lap, having disobeyed my orders to "get your skinny butt over here," and chose to endanger her life by getting close to the man twice her age that could turn into a ginormous wolf.

Angel rolled her eyes at someone's thoughts, most likely mine, and commented. "There is nothing wrong with our friendship, Max." Yup definitely my thoughts. "Seth is my very best friend." She said and the disappointed look on Nudge's face was near heartbreaking. Angel continued hesitantly. "Of course, you guys are still my friends," she eyed Nudge and gave her a huge smile, "but I'm Seth's imprint. We were made to make each other completely happy and I don't see why that's considered wrong."

"But Angel sweetie, he's not our kind." I stated, earning myself a low growl from Seth. The two unnamed wolves who had remained in wolf form took that as their cue to leave and ran in the direction of the Quileute Tribal School where Fang and I had just gotten denied access to only minutes before.

"And what is our kind, Max?" Angel yelled angrily. "We're mutant freaks! The pack has more of a claim at 'normal' than we do. Sure they turn into wolves but that is their heritage…what's our heritage? A long line of evil scientists who like to play God."

I gasped, taken aback. My baby had never yelled at me like this before. It terrified me. I saw Seth wrapping his arms around Angel in a hug and before I could stop her, she leaned into it like she used to do to me when she was littler. I was really loosing her wasn't I?

"I'll always be your little girl, Max." Angel said, well, angelically. "But now I'm Seth's girl too. Just like you and Fang, Iggy and Nudge. Eventually that's how we'll be." She said happily, apparently liking the thought of one day being married to that oversized dog. Then again, maybe the Flock does need a guard dog. I thought wryly, catching Edward's bemused expression. Hmm, what was that about?

"Edward is a vampire who can read minds." Angel explained, catching all of us by surprise.

'A vampire? What in the world? And I thought we were messed up. Another mind reader…great.' I thought sarcastically. 'Hopefully, he doesn't have any hungry friends around here.'

"Oh I assure you all that me and my family are vegetarians." Edward stated, giving a dazzling crooked smile that would weaken a lesser woman. I bit the inside of my cheek when I saw Nudge struggling to keep her breathing regulated under Edward's gaze. "We do not hunt humans, only animals. My daughter Renesme is half human so believe me, some of the newer vamps have learned to restrain themselves."

"Half-human?" Iggy asked, clearly not believing him. "What'd you do? Impregnate a lowly human and then kill her once her job was done?" He asked, not bothering to hide his disgust. The Gasman and Nudge mimicked his grossed out expression.

Jacob and Edward both let out threatening growls, one sounding more like an animal's than the other, before Edward said through clenched teeth. "My wife is doing fine. She's at home now with our daughter if you'd like to meet them."

"Deal." Fang agreed before I even had time to think about it. I gave him a 'you are sooo not in charge here' look before shaking my head. I had a feeling this was turning more into a death sentence than a friendly visit with the good neighborhood vampires.

Edward smiled a small amused grin as he gestured for us to go first. "Your mind is quite unique, Max. You have a healthy imagination." He said, giving me an odd compliment.

I let out a huff. "Yeah, tell that to my Voice. He seems to think I need to be more 'real.'" I saw Fang roll his eyes and shot him a 'I am still mad at you' look. His eyes softened and he reached for my hand, interlocking our fingers and calming my mood with the gesture.

And with that, we followed him through the dense forest. Seth at our heels as Jacob ran past us in his wolf form. When we neared the lone, white, mostly glass house, Edward went ahead as well, commenting to us to stay here until the two of them informed their family of our arrival.