I AM SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY! I was so lost on how to start this, but here it is finally! I would like to thank my wonderful cousin Erin for giving me the jump start I needed for this chapter. So THANK YOU, ERIN! :D (By the way celeryrules that wasn't Jack it was her doctor brother)

Chapter 6:

Here we go…

Alex stared at the desolate highway in front of him, focused on steering away from irregularities and blemishes in the black tar. There wasn't much else to put his eyes on anyway. The road was absolutely deserted this early in the morning, it was actually rather calming. Not exactly a good thing when you're half asleep already. The calmness reminded him of all the times he wished his life was just a bit less exciting. His head drooped and his eyes closed for half a second, the car swerved and he quickly corrected sitting a bit straighter so as not to encourage is body to shut down on him like that again. It had been a long night and he had only slept three hours before Fang had shown up at the Pleasures insisting that they leave right away. Okay so that wasn't exactly true and Max had tried to make him stay…

He lost his train of thought when a sign announcing his arrival to Monterrey passed by. Finally, his entire body felt ten times heavier than usual and his eyes could barely stay focused on the road ahead. He hated being sleep deprived, it always left him feeling as if the entire world were moving too slow and his mind even slower.

He wished Fang or Max had driven for a little while longer, but when he glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled at the sight that met his eyes. Fang and Max were asleep in the back and Fangs arms were wrapped around her protectively, almost as if even in his sleep he wanted nothing more than to kill anyone who would even think of hurting her. With the morning light streaming in through the windows Max's blondish hair shone giving off a halo that surrounded the couple in an almost angelic light. But Alex could tell that they were both tense and ready to jump into action at any moment, he could empathize and felt sorry for them. He knew what it was like to be so young and yet have so many worries, and yet he also knew that they had way more than him. They had to worry about six other family members all at the same time.

He glanced back one last time, to see Fang looking right back at him. Only a little creepy. Then again he had looked first.

"'Morning," Alex greeted with a slight nod.

"Hey," Fang replied sounding a little distracted. Alex looked back again and immediately looked back at the road a little embarrassed. Fang had been staring at Max in such an intimate way that Alex felt as if he were intruding on something much worse.

"How much longer until we get some food, I'm starving?" Fang asked rubbing his stomach that suddenly decided now was a good time to start talking.

"Soon," Alex said wondering how Max was still asleep, what with all his swerving and Fang's digestive tract bellowing. "We just entered the Monterey city limits I was just looking for any signs."

"Keep going straight and you'll get to one soon," Fang said cryptically.

"Okay," Alex said his brain a little on the obscure side. He tried to stay relatively quiet, not wanting to wake Max.

About half an hour later he pulled into a breakfast diner on the side of the road in Monterey.

"So how'd you know this was here?" Alex inquired.

"Bird of prey eyesight," he explained briefly.

Alex nodded and opened his door he stepped out with a groan stretching his stiff legs. Sitting still for hours was amazingly painful considering you weren't really doing anything.

Max woke up after Fang nudged her a couple times. Despite her tenseness she seemed to take an amazingly long time waking up. He guessed it probably had something to do with the fact that she was still healing from the huge gash in her side. It had been pretty grotesque.

The unlikely trio walked into the diner and sat at a table. While the bird kids ordered the heart attack special, Alex made sure to order coffee and something with lots of sugar to get his energy back up. He ended up with a huge stack of pancakes and some sausage. Alex watched, simply amazed at how they packed away their own pancakes, burgers, sausage, bacon, toast, eggs and each had at least four glasses of soda, and five of milk. And the whole time neither one of them relaxed their gazed off of the doors and windows.

Alex took the time to size up each customer and employee in the building, from the small family with a little girl that had brown hair and dimples, to the big trucker guy who sat at the bar with a mug of coffee in his hand. He took in the blue and white checkered floor tiles, the greasy counter tops and the hideous waitress uniforms. All in all just your average run of the mill roadside diner.

When everyone finished he counted the wad of bills that Jack had given him, after the meal and money for gas they were running out fast. They sat back and waited for their monstrous feast to digest at bit before they went anywhere, when everything went wrong.

Alex knew something was about to happen when his skin began to prickle and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He'd learned to trust his instincts a long time ago so when he looked expecting the worst he saw an alarmed look on Max's face and heard her barely audible whisper, "Lizard Skins!"