AN: Sorry I didn't update last weekend. Was kinda busy.
I hope you enjoy this chapter. They get to go to school and deal with all the students and everything. Of course, I don't want to make this another highschool cliché. So don't worry 'bout that :D
Disclaimer: I don't want to stun you with the news, but I AM NOT the owner of Maximum Ride.
Chapter 11
Max POV.
I was super cautious around this Janner dude. He was too nice. I'll admit though, it might just be my paranoid self, but it might not.
The drive back to New York was quiet. The tension was real. No one knew what to say because our relationship with each other was complicated.
As much as some of you might have been hoping, we did not leave Dylan. After he chilled out from our fight, he came back. He looked pretty shocked to see all these cops here at first, but now he's just emotionless. Kind of like Fang…
Right now I'm lying in some bed in some room they told me I could stay in (at the station). I'm staring at the dark ceiling, thinking in the perfect silence.
My life just feels so unstable right now. Just several hours ago I was running from these people, and now I'm lying in their bed. I'm trusting them. I'm starting highschool tomorrow for goodness sakes!
My life went from the streets, to captivity with Fang and Iggy, to freaking highschool. What am I, some sort of normal teen now?! Gosh…
I think about my hot mess life for a while, until I'm completely submerged into a deep sleep.
I wake up to something horrible. That sound! That ringing! Uhhhhggg! What the hell!
It might be the most terrible things I've ever heard. Where is it coming from?
I crack my eyes open a little, and see a little bed stand next to me. Bingo.
I slam the small table as hard as I could. I hear a crash, and the aggressive ringing finally stops. Ahhh, that's better. Right when I'm about to go back to my sweet dreams, someone rudely barges into my room.
"Rise and shine princess!" I hear Iggy's voice.
He comes next to my bed, but I pretend to be asleep.
"Damn, you totally murdered your alarm clock," he mutters.
Oh so that's what it was…
He snatches the curtains open, and light floods the room. I groan at the sudden blinding.
Next, he pulls the covers off my bed, humming a happy tune.
"It's time to go to school! You'll love it Max. Just make sure you don't scare anyone," he says.
Right. School. How could I forget?
I swing my hand to punch him away and he ducks right in time. I sink back into my pillow, hoping he would just give up and leave.
"Breakfast is ready Max, unless you want to miss it," Iggy warns.
I thought this bribe over in my head. I had a feeling that breakfast will be the best part of today's day, so I finally decided to get up.
Ignoring Iggy, I went straight to my little private bathroom. Splashing cold water on my face really made me leave the sleepy daze I was still in. I quickly ran a brush through my ridiculously long hair and brushed my teeth.
Looking at myself in the mirror, I noticed that this is the first time since forever that I saw my appearance for longer than a few seconds.
My large brown eyes were bloodshot and my small puffy lips were slightly chapped. The 'prettiest' part of my face was probably my long black lashes. At least they took the attention away from the dark crescent shapes sunken under my eyes, from the lack of health and sleep.
Sighing, I headed towards the kitchen in the small built-on house near the main police station.
Iggy, Fang, and Dylan are already there, with empty plates.
Before I can even grab something to eat, Iggy throws something at my chest. I swiftly catch it, and notice that's its clothes.
A pair of simple black skinny jeans and a grey t-shirt .
"Your school clothes. I mean, unless you wanna go like that," Iggy waves his hands, gesturing to what I'm wearing now.
Basically, I am wearing pajamas. So I'm pretty grateful for the fresh clothes.
I put the clothes on the couch, uttering Iggy thanks, and grab some French toast from the table and shoving it in my mouth.
"You excited for your first day of school Max?" Dylan asks me.
"No, You?" I snap back.
"Jumping with joy," he mumbles.
"You guys will love it there. You get to, like, sit in a classroom and learn about crap you don't care about. Then you get to go to lunch and eat food, well, if it's edible. And finally you get to sit and waste your life in more classes," Fang says, taking a sip of his O.J.
Gee, thanks Fang. I'm eve more eager to go now.
Fang POV.
The overly nice Officer Janner drove us to school.
Now, I don't want you to fall out of your chair from shock, but I was kind of looking forward to seeing Lissa again. I mean, she's the 'popular girl' and if Max can see that someone like her likes me, maybe she'll see me as a better person.
Or, she'll mistake me for a narcissistic douche that actually cares about what people think of myself.
Max is just so unpredictable.
"Alright, we're here," Officer Janner stops the car in front of the gigantic building.
Students are crowding the front lawn. Some are cheerleaders doing routines. Some are just talking. And others are standing in the middle looking pretty. Aka, Lissa.
I look over at Max and Dylan. It's their first time in this school so clearly they don't look too thrilled.
"Do you want me to hold your hand Max?" I smirk.
She gives me a blank stare and gets out of the car. Iggy Dylan and I do too, and Officer Janner drives away.
I hear Dylan give a low whistle as he examines the building.
Before we can do anything, Lissa comes running up to us. Her friends Tess and Bridge are right next to her.
"Fang! Oh my gosh! I thought you, like, died or something!" she says, hugging me tightly.
"Hey guys," I say to her and her friends.
"This is Dylan and Max," I introduce them.
"Hi!" Lissa trills brightly at Dylan. When she turns to Max, she gives a more dull hello.
"Hey Fang, why don't you go get their schedules and I'll hang here," Iggy offers.
"Ok, lets go to the office," I wave Max and Dylan over.
Iggy just wanted to be with Lisa probably. He always liked her.
We get to the office, which its much more silent than the outside with a bunch of chattering teens.
The secretary looks up at us through her thick glasses.
"What?" she snaps.
I see Max raise an eyebrow at her.
"They are new so they need their schedules," I say in a bored tone.
"Names?" she asks shortly, ruffling through some papers.
"Wow, you sure are a talker," Max grins.
The secretary stops moving, and glares at Max. "I don't know where you came from, but in this school your bad attitude won't be tolerated."
"You call that bad attitude? Oh, do you want me to show you some real bad attitude?" Max protests, coming closer to her desk.
I grab her arm and pull her back.
"Chill out," I say, and she rolls her eyes.
"Their names are Max and Dylan," I tell the secretary.
She snatches two papers from a file and shoves them in my hands.
I say thanks and we leave her office.
"What's up with her?" Max asks.
I ignore her and pass her the schedule.
I look Dylan's over and notice we have most of our classes together. Max has just a couple of classes with me.
The bell suddenly rung and students flooded the building. The familiar sound of chatter and slamming lockers filled the main hall.
I notice Lissa, Maya, Bridge, Kate, Star, Ratchet, Tess, Iggy, and Sam all walk through the door in a group.
I didn't want to talk with any of them right now, (especially Maya because of our complicated past…) so I promptly decided to get out of the hall.
"Your locker is 521 Max. Yours is 345 Dylan. Good luck," I say, and quickly head to class.
Max POV.
Fang just left Dylan and I standing in the middle of the hall.
"I have Spanish first," Dylan says.
"I have Biology," I say, right as Iggy comes up to us.
"You two look like lost little puppies," he flashes us a grin.
"Whatever. Do you know where the biology room is?" I ask him.
He points down the hall.
"K," I say, and start heading towards it.
When I arrive, I find most of the desks to be full. The teacher was shuffling through some papers at his desk.
Everyone went silent when they saw me. Gosh, how much more awkward could this get.
Thankfully, I spot an empty desk in the back next to some guy. On my way over there, someone grabs my arm. I stop and see a girl with long bright red hair. She's wearing tight shorts and a blue tangtop.
"Hi, I'm Lissa! Your Fang's friend right?" she asks loudly so the whole class can hear.
"Uh, yeah," I reply.
"Oh ok! Well you can sit with me at lunch today because Fang is sitting with me," she flashes a perfect white smile.
So apparently where you sit at lunch is a big deal…
"Ok whatever," I say, prying her hand away from me.
Once I get to the desk, I drop my backpack on the floor and slump in the chair.
"Hey what's up? I'm Sam," the guy next to me says, nudging my lightly in the shoulder.
I turn and look at him. He has honey blond hair, kind of like mine, and light eyes.
"Max." I say shortly.
"Cool name," he gives me a small smile.
"Alright class, I'm sure you met our new student Max. Everyone say hello and continue with yesterday's worksheets. Max, come up here and I'll give it to you. Make sure you meet one of your peers after school to get you caught up," the teacher says.
He doesn't look too excited to be here.
I got the worksheet, and for the next 45 minuets of class Sam tried to help me out. He's a cool guy.
Right when I finished up the first page, the bell rung. Ugh, two more pages.
"So you wanna meet after school tomorrow so I can help you?" Sam offers, gathering his things in his backpack.
"Yeah sure," I agree. I mean, why not.
"You ready Sam? Lets go," Lissa comes over to us and links her arm around Sam's.
"Yeah. See you around Max," he says, heading out the door with Lissa.
Next class, English.
The classes before lunch were pretty uneventful. At lunch though, is when the craziness started.
So get this, I come in the cafeteria with my innocent self, and I get literally trampled. I land on the ground with two people on top of me. I noticed they are girls.
Everyone is standing in a semi-circle around these girls, roaring with excitement. They scramble off me and I quickly join the circle, not wanting to be part of whatever this is.
"Come on! Put her back in her place! Kill her!" was things I heard from the crowd.
It was a fight.
One of the girls, a small blonde, swings her skinny arm with incredible force and punches the other one across the face. Her head swings to the left so hard that she stumbles back.
She has dark hair and looks a little taller. She straightens up and shoves the blonde.
"Wooo! You go Beth!" the crowd yells. I guess they are rooting for the tall dark haired one.
The blonde girl falls on her back from the push, slamming her head on the hard marble floor.
The crowd grimaces slightly at the thud.
Beth comes up to the fallen girl and kicks her repeatedly in the ribs.
I have to admit, this is kind of cool.
The blonde won't give up though. She manages to catch Beth's ankle and pull her down on the ground. When Beth is down, she straddles her waist and slugs her across the face several times.
Beth's head is whipping to each side with each hit.
The crowd bellows eagerly, encouraging Beth to stand up. Finally she manages to by spitting blood in the blondes face. That made the punches stop for a split second, and that was enough for Beth to get up.
She delivered an uppercut to the blonde's face, making her let out a shriek.
Both of them look bloody and bruised. The cafeteria floor had splashes of red.
Right when the fight was heating up, Fang and Iggy come barging through the door. Fang pulls the blonde girl off Beth and Iggy pulls Beth away.
"What the hell is going in here?" Fang asks, looking pissed.
Wow Fang, thanks for stopping the highlight of my day…
Beth was screaming and trying to get out of Iggy's grip. She looked like she was ready to murder the blonde.
Next, a bunch of teachers came in and blah, blah, blah.
That was the most exciting thing all day. They made everyone leave the cafeteria because it was a mess in there. Basically, we didn't even have a lunch. So much for my awesome plans with Lissa.
The next couple classes were with Iggy and Fang.
I sat with them on either sides of me. We got about five warnings to stop talking.
"So why did that fight piss you off so much," I whisper to them as the teacher babbled on about the Crusades.
"Because if Officer Janner found out that there was a fight and we didn't stop it, he wouldn't be too pleased. We're basically like the security of this school," Fang whispers back to me.
I nod in comprehension.
The bell finally rings, signaling the end of the day. Thank God!
Officer Janner picks us up and drives us back to the station.
I go into my room, and right when I'm about to lock my door to change, Fang comes in.
"What do you want?" I ask, clearly annoyed.
"I wanna talk," he shrugs.
I raise an eyebrow, "What, you wanna share your feelings."
"Shut up Max, will you," he calmly says. "For real, I just want to apologize for everything I did to you."
I stare at him for a couple of seconds, and then burst out laughing.
"Sorry! I just didn't expect you to be the sorry type!" I say through my obnoxious giggles.
Fang comes close and puts his hands on my shoulders, looking intently down at me. This is weird…
I stop laughing and give him a 'what the hell are you doing' expression.
We look in each other's eyes for a while. I don't know what it was, but it felt good. It was kind of like the feeling I had for Dylan before he was on my hate list.
"I hope you can forgive me one day Max. Although I know that'll be hard," he says oh so softly, his breath lightly blowing on my face.
Silent moments pass until he slides his hands from my shoulders down to my arms and finally holding my hands.
We stay like that for a while. He then gives me an actual smile, (no not his usual smirk. like a genuine smile.) and leaves my room.
I'm just standing dumbfound like an idiot. What just happened?
Fang POV.
I want to thank Lissa. I want to thank her for letting me have such a great example as a comparison between real and fake.
She is fake. Max is real.
Max has been through so much crap in her life, but that doesn't define her.
Lissa is more scared when she gets a pimple than Max when she has 50 guns pointed at her face.
Now that's attractive. Not being so damn dramatic. Being strong. Being smart.
I used to never be really into girls because I thought they were all like Lissa and her friends. I mean, I was into girls, but not into who they really were. If that makes sense.
I'm lying in my bed right now, thinking about how much Max changed my way of thinking. No one would know of course because I rarely show my thoughts.
But I know, and it's refreshing to have someone like her in my life. I never regretted anything more that hurting her. That may sound cheesy, but it's true.
Max just has this strange way of being perfectly imperfect. Her imperfections include being too violent or dressing like a bum or having zero social skills. Yet that is simply amazing.
I can't quite describe it, but I feel it. Hopefully she feels it too.
AN:
For ToLateForMe- I think that's a great idea! I might include it in my story but no promises! :D
I hope ya'll liked that chapter and pleeeaassseeee review because that is the only way for me to know if this story is worth continuing.
And sorry for any mistakes cuz I wrote this at about 12 am.
~Fly on, Dawn