A/N: Congratulations to Flyingtothestars! You guessed exactly what was going to happen! (applauds) Now I'll get to telling you how it's going to happen…

Chapter 11: An Unexpected Reunion

Fang's POV

I whirled around. Next to me, Max turned around also, somewhat slower.

"Lissa?"

And it was Lissa. Bright red hair flashing, she bounced over to us.

"Oh, my God! It is you! I can't believe it!"

Neither can I, I thought dryly. I suddenly realized that I found her voice incredibly annoying. Why had I never noticed that before?

"Uh…yeah, it's me," I said warily.

I could feel the tension radiating off Max in waves. I felt horrible about putting her through all this. But then, it wasn't really my fault that Lissa had showed up.

"Wow! This is so exciting! What are you doing here?"

Wow! She was so irritatingly chipper! Ugh…I felt like kicking myself. What had I been thinking, hanging out with her? She was definitely not my kind of girl. No, that would be Max…Bad Fang! Now is a bad time to start daydreaming about Max! I snapped my attention back to the conversation.

"Oh…well, not much really," I hedged. "Just…visiting."

"Oh." Her smile slipped a little, probably because of my lack of interest in the conversation.

"Fang," Max cut in, her voice tight. "We should get going."

"Yeah, I know," I agreed, trying not to sound too enthusiastic about getting away from Lissa.

Lissa looked puzzled. "Fang? But your name's Nick."

Crap. I'd forgotten about that. Apparently Max had too. Luckily, she was good at thinking on her feet.

"Nick name," she said. Hm…interesting pun there.

"Neat. Why Fang?" Lissa asked, looking intrigued.

"Um…" I racked my brain, trying to think of something. Come on…there's got to be something reasonably believable…There wasn't, so I decided to go with the truth. Shocking, I know. "Actually, it's my real name."

Max and Lissa both looked startled.

"Er, Fang, what are you doing?" Max asked, looking at me like I'd lost my marbles. Maybe I had. Would you be able to tell if you didn't have them?

I turned to Max. "Currently? Completely failing at coming up with a decent reply to Lissa's question. The truth is always more believable than lies, right?"

Lissa finally got her voice back. "Your real name is Fang? Why would you lie about your name?"

"Many reasons," I replied. "Do you remember hearing any rumors about us after we suddenly left Virginia?"

Lissa nodded. "Yeah. A whole bunch of people were saying you guys like, grew wings and flew away. But since that's like, totally impossible…" She trailed off as she looked at my face. "You're saying it's…it's…true?" She whispered the last word.

I shrugged. "Well, technically we didn't 'grow wings and fly away'," I said. "We already had them, but other than that it's true."

Lissa had turned white, and Max was staring at me like I'd sprouted a second head.

"Fang," she hissed. "Are you out of your freaking mind? Why would you tell her?"

Honestly, I was still trying to figure that out myself. Why had I told Lissa? "I'm not sure," I replied. "It seemed like a good idea?"

Apparently Max wasn't satisfied with my answer. "We don't tell anyone, Fang. Ever. That's sort of our motto, and it's worked so far."

Just by looking at her, I could tell Max was taking this all the wrong way. She thought I'd told Lissa because of what had happened in Virginia. How could I set her straight?

"I know," I said. "But maybe she can help us. You know, get into the White House?"

Lissa looked up. "You need to get into the White House?"

I turned back to face her. "Yeah."

"I'm on a field trip to the White House," she said. "It's a yearly thing. Sort of a tradition. I could probably get you guys in. But only if you answer a question first."

Oh, great. Hoping it wasn't anything really bad, I said, "Okay, but whether or not you get an answer will depend on the question."

She nodded. "I understand." She took a deep breath, like she was about to go underwater or something. "Are you and Max actually brother and sister?"

I nearly laughed. "No. Not related in any way."

Lissa's face fell. "Oh. Okay. Just wondering."

I was actually kind of glad she'd brought it up. I didn't like the fact that she thought Max and I were siblings. It seemed weird, considering the way I felt about Max. Internally, I sighed. Back to that dilemma. What to do about Max…

Lissa's voice brought me out of my thoughts. "Okay, let's go meet up with my class. I'll try to figure out a way to sneak you guys in."

"Thanks," I said, not completely paying attention. "Very kind of you."

What to do about Max…

Max's POV

Ugh. This was so annoying. First, Ms. Red-Haired Wonder shows up. Then, Fang tells her our deepest, darkest secret that we never tell anybody. And now, to top it all off, we're following her to the White House so that she can sneak us in with her class. For some unknown reason, we're trusting her. Could my day get any worse? Wait, don't answer that. Whenever I say something like that, things always get worse.

"Okay, we're here." Lissa gestured to a large group of school buses. "I'll just go talk to my teacher, and I'll be right back." She walked over to a group of kids and teachers milling about near one of the buses.

I decided to take her absence as a chance to talk to Fang. I motioned to him, then headed around the backside of a bus so we could talk privately.

"Let me guess," Fang said, before I even got a chance to open my mouth. "It's about Lissa, and why we're trusting her."

I nodded. "What are you thinking?"

He sighed and shook his head. "I don't know why I told her in the first place; I guess it seemed easier than trying to come up with some sort of lie about my name, not to mention the fact that she thought we were siblings."

I stared at him. "Why did you care about that?"

"It just seemed…weird, you know?" He smiled slightly. "Anyway, I did tell her, and now I think we can use that to our advantage. We needed a way into the White House. Well, now we've got it."

I thought about his words for a minute. "I guess I can see that. And it did turn out to our advantage. So…maybe it's not so bad. As long as she doesn't tell anyone."

"That we'll have to wait and see about," Fang said. "I don't know if she's the sort of person that would tell all her friends or not."

"Or worse," I added. "The authorities. Depends how scared she is."

Fang shrugged.

Then Nudge came around the corner of the bus. "Lissa's back." Fang looked at me, his eyes saying 'Just trust me', then he followed Nudge back out to the parking lot.

I sighed, then followed them.

Lissa was standing there, twisting a lock of red hair around her finger. "My teacher says you guys can come in with us. I told her you were relatives from out of state that really wanted to see the White House. She seemed okay with it."

"Okay. Thanks Lissa," Fang said.

She blushed. "It's nothing. Come on, they're leaving."

She headed to the group of people, and we dutifully followed her.

Hopefully we weren't making the biggest mistake of our lives. I guess time would tell.

A/N: Sorry if I'm focusing too much on Fang and Max. I'll try to get the rest of the flock into the next chapter a little more.

Also, I realized I've been capitalizing 'flock'. It doesn't really matter, I guess, but sorry for the mistake.