Disclaimer: The things that I own are few and far between and unfortunately, Maximum Ride is not one of them. Although I do own new characters! And on that note, I'm sooooooo exhausted! Jobs suck. Well what are you waiting for? Read!

"Gad doof nee, new erk!" Man did I suffer in that translation. We had been fighting the Flyboys for only a few minutes when they started to retreat. Unfortunately the one that was holding me didn't seem to get the picture that we were winning (as per normal).

I drove my elbow into his stomach hard and he (finally) released his hold on my mouth.

"I said get of me you jerk!" I flew up a little a kicked him as hard as I could in the face. He flew back right into Fang, who kicked him in the back. I watched him fall like a ton of bricks with grim satisfaction.

"Jerk" I mumbled. I then turned to the flock. "Report!"

"A-okay!" Angel said smiling: she barely had a scratch on her beside a few bruises on her arms.

"Fine" Fang's nose was bleeding a little, but he looked relatively okay.

"I'm okay, but when we first started fighting them I thought for sure we would lose because there must have been hundreds of them but then we were all like "Wham!" "Pow!" and "Take that!" and I -"

"I'm good" said Iggy who (thankfully) had put his hand over Nudges' mouth. He had a large bruise on his face and a cut on his chin, but nothing too serious.

"I'm fine." Gazzy had a black eye, but was beaming. "Did you see how many of them I beat, Max? It was probably like half of them."

I smiled. "I'm sure you did Gazzy. Good work."

When we were fighting, I managed to take a look over at Aurora and Blaze. There was probably about 8 Flyboys attacking Aurora at once, and every time she beat one (which she was doing constantly), another one took it's place. Blaze had been fighting several at once too. They had gone in front of us and had tried to stop most of them coming in, but, mind you, there must have been at least a few hundred, so even with Aurora (the apparent super mutant), some of them got through to fight us.

"Alright, let's head back down to camp and clean up."

While we were flying back down, I couldn't help but wonder about Aurora. She had conveniently left out of her story how she got the scars. It didn't seem to make sense. It's practically impossible for us to get scars, thanks to our quick healing avain-human freak genes, but Aurora had tons of scars. What did she do, and why didn't she tell us?

By the time we made it back to camp, I was paranoid and suspicious (I'm really getting sick of feeling like that all the time. Why couldn't I just be happy? Man, would that be a change!). Fang started making a fire while everyone else was cleaning up their cuts and scrapes. I headed over to Nudge, who a gash on her cheek, and helped her wash up, keeping Aurora and Blaze in my peripheral vision. Nudge was talking to me about who knows what and everyone seemed to be relaxed and sorta... happy?

Haven't they figured out something's wrong? How could they trust them?

Angel and Gazzy were both talking to Aurora at once, while Iggy, Angel and Total were talking to Blaze. Fang was fixing himself up and getting some food ready.

I can't believe this. How can they be so comfortable with them? We just met them a few hours ago! When did we get so trusting anyway?

Sigh, Too many questions.

After bandaging the cut on my arm, I walked to the very edge of camp, just outside of the trees. I started to zone out like I did at watch. You could never be fully aware of everything like during the day and still manage to stay awake, so it was necessary to zone out. It's kinda like you're only aware of key things, like the sounds around the camp, movement, anything that is suspicious. So there I stood, leaning against a tree, aware and focused, and yet not.

I don't know how long I stood there, but eventually Fang came up to me.

"Max? What are you doing?"

I looked up at his eyes and said nothing. I could see in his eyes his change of moods.

"Max, go get some rest. You need it." He wasn't very happy and apparently not impressed with my behaviour. Whatever. Like I care.

"Fang, it's fine. I don't want to go to sleep."

"Be that as it may, you still need to." Darn. I thought I could get around this one.

I was about to respond, but something caught my eye. It was Aurora, tucking Angel in and saying goodnight.

Oh man did that set me off.

Immediately I ran over and positioned myself in front of Angel, my fists were clenched and I was ready to fight.

"Back off!" I yelled and everyone turned and stared at me in shocked.

"Max, I was just-"

"Just shut it okay? We don't need you!" I gave her the deadliest stare I could, and believe me, if looks could kill, she'd be six feet under.

How dare she try and take my place! I thought, suddenly realizing something. Is that what was really bothering me? Okay, she was strong, fast, smart, an amazing fighter, a good protector (Blaze didn't have a scratch on him) and seemed to be a good leader.

Well, I guess that the answer to that question is an obvious and blaring "Yes!".

I was still in fighting stance over Angel and glaring at Aurora, when Fang came and grabbed my arm. We (well, I ) started stumbling through the woods, over roots and through branches until coming to the river we had been at a few hours ago.

"What the heck was that about?"

"She doesn't have a right to do things like that; she's not part of the flock!" I was furious, and I was pretty sure Fang was too. Although the big difference was he was most likely angry at me.

"Max, she was trying to help. We were talking and Iggy was saying good night to Gazzy and Nudge. She thought-"

"So what, you guys are like best friends now?!" I interrupted, "Well, I don't want her near any of the flock, she's dangerous Fang. D-A-N-G-E-R-O-U-S." Once we both stopped yelling, the silence seemed deafening.

Oh crap. She probably has enhanced hearing too. Not that she would need it to hear us. The whole flock probably heard too. Darn it.

I turned away from Fang, towards the river, and sat down a little ways from him on a piece of drift wood. The silence continued until I heard Fang's light footsteps coming towards me. He sat down beside me and looked out towards the river as well.

"Max," He began quietly, "She isn't going to replace you."

How come he can read me like a book, God it's annoying.

"That's not what I meant," I lied, matching his hushed volume, "I just think that-"

"Max, you're lying. She doesn't even want to be apart of the flock. Haven't you been paying attention the past few hours?"

What? Not want to be apart of the flock? This is news to me.

"What do you mean?"

"Nudge and Angel have been asking her non-stop since we made it back to camp, and Gazzy and Iggy have been trying to persuade Blaze. They have both declined."

I guess I wasn't paying as much attention as I thought I was.

"But, then why are they here? Why didn't they leave right after the fight?" And more importantly, did you ask them to stay? I added in my mind.

"Umm, if you haven't noticed, it's the middle of the night, and they do need to sleep."

"Oh...right." Wow, I didn't even notice how dark it was. Maybe I just shouldn't be on watch anymore. Not even I trust myself to do it now. Stupid stupid, stupid.

After a moment, Fang slowly stared to speak. "I think maybe you should talk to her."

"What?!" I turned to him and half-yelled.

"Max, would you think about it for a minute? You are the leader of our flock right? Well, she the leader for theirs. It makes sense to talk about what's going to happen now."

Sigh, why does he have to be right all the time?

After trying to think of a way of getting out of it, and coming up with squat, I gave in.

"Fine." I mumbled, not happy at all. For all I knew she could be furious at me for exploding, which was probably true. Darn me and my big mouth.

I sighed, and got up, slowly making my way back to camp with Fang at my side. Once we came to the clearing, I saw everyone in the flock in bed. I tried not to roll my eyes.

Like they are actually sleeping. They probably made a mad dash to get in bed when they heard us coming.

Aurora and Blaze were sitting on a log near the fire. She looked over at me but Blaze put a hand on her shoulder and spoke quietly to her, the expression on his face unreadable.

Which probably means something's up. That's just wonderful. He probably hates me now too.

Aurora spoke firmly to him and got up, walking towards me. Blaze looked at her ruefully, then got out his sleeping bag.

Holy crow, this little conversation isn't going to be awkward. Note the heavy amounts of sarcasm.

Instead of stopping and waiting for me, she walked past me: right back into the woods. I almost stepped back away from her when she came so close. Her expression seemed different although I couldn't quite place it.

Not awkward in the least.

A/N: I know I said I would update before the weekend, but I had some kinda major things to deal with. Next chapter will be M & A's convo (trust me it will answer some questions). I'm trying to make my writing readable, but like previously stated, I'm exhausted! So PLEASE REVIEW and tell me what's bad/good/horrible-no-good-dirty-rotten, okay?

WhateverFloatsYourFancy