I don't own Maximum Ride. While I have your attention, no matter what happens in this next book coming up, I'll always love you, Fang.

"That's rather disconcerting. Now, type the chapter."

Aww, you're no fun…But you're still my little flying teddy bear!

"Max, you've gotta stop this. You're training way too hard."

I rolled my eyes, ignoring the ignoramus, formerly known as Dylan. Seriously, we'd already been in this metallic hideout for three weeks, the planned day for infiltrating Angel's fortress was a week away, although that could be changed whenever we wanted, and what had Dylan done? Nothing. Nada. Zippo.

Well, that is if you considered complaining night and day doing nothing.

The only relief for me was that Dylan and Fang hadn't totally killed each other. However, if Dylan told me one more time to stop training, I might be slightly more than tempted to show him why training for a mutant-bird kid is important.

"When are we getting out of here, anyway?" You could literally here my better judgment snap. Bye bye nice Max.

"What's up, Max?" Dang it. The one voice that could always reconnect my brain in the right way.

"Hey Fang," I said, turning my back to Dylan. I could see Fang taking in my training room. I was pretty proud. I'd fixed the entire thing myself. In the far corner, there was a huge tree branch that I had ripped out on my first and so far only outing since coming into this hideout, in the center was a chair that was torn in pieces. The goal was to put it back together…That really wasn't going too well. Finally, by the door, there was a big dummy made of doors and knobs that was coincidentally dressed using some of Dylan's clothes. Heh. Who says that I don't have a dark side?

"This is pretty sad." With those four words, my little Max-world crumbled.

"Yeah, well, I'm not going to train myself…" Wait, that was wrong, but I trudged on. "So, how are you doing, Fang? Getting ready for next week?"

Fang grimaced. "Yeah, speaking of which, would you like to go out?"

I frowned. "Is this a joke?"

Fang just stared at me. Oh, yeah. Fang doesn't really joke. At least, not anymore. He was so serious whenever I was around him. The Fang I was used to was silent, but he was also…totally awesome and funny, smart and open with me. It was like this Fang was hiding something. As the leader of the Flock, it was my job to figure out what.

No, not the leader of the Flock. As Fang's girlfriend, it was my job to comfort him, just like he's always comforted me. I knew this day would come some day, I just didn't think it would happen in an alternate universe in some time warp thing.

"Where would we go? Is there some special room in this metallic hub?" The whole metal thing was getting to me. What can I say? Every time I touched a wall, I felt like getting a tetanus shot.

Oh wait. Needles. Never mind. I'd deal with it.

Fang chuckled. Something told me that he didn't like this whole metal thing any better than I did. "No. But there is a mall past the woods, just a few miles from here."

A mall? What am I? A girly girl? However, after thinking a bit…"Does it have a food court?" Jeb's cooking? Horrible. Or subpar at most.

Fang smiled. My heart fluttered. "Yeah, there's a food court."

I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. "Sure." With that, Fang and I held each other's hands and headed out. For a minute, I thought I was forgetting something, but I just shook my head.

"Hello, what about me?" Dylan yelled desperately, but the door closing behind the more than happy couple drowned him out. "Dang it," he whispered under his breath. With nothing better to do, he started piecing together the metal chair that Max had been working on for three weeks. Within an hour, it was as good as new. "And she says I need training," Dylan scoffed, just before he walked right into a wall, banging his nose.

Sorry for the shortness and the lack of updates. I'll do my best to finish this up quickly, but I figured a short chapter is better than no chapter at all. Please, please, leave a review! It gives me the warm fuzzies.