10

He might as well not have even bothered. Ray caught up to him just as he had hunkered down in front of a tall, industrial cupboard next to the freezer. Kai barely spared him a glance.

"Leaving duty?" he pulled out a bag of flour and prayed the rows of white plastic bags weren't all flour. He hadn't a clue what to do with flour.

"I doubt the ship will have a freak out or some pirate sneak up on us while I'm watching you," he said, his cat like eyes slitted despite the darker kitchen. "Besides, you can hardly walk and can't cook."

"I'm passable." Yep. All flour. Next cupboard. So much for trust. But, whatever.

"You couldn't even manage bacon."

Kai didn't point out that bacon was tricky, no matter who you were. You didn't even know how well you did until you took it out of its own fat. Anyone would have a time dealing with a meat that sneaky. But he just tossed the cupboard closed and found a counter to lean up against. He could feel that he had torn out at least one of the stitches over the night, and didn't want to think about it.

"Fine. But if Max comes down here freaking out that we're not going to LA—"

"Too late."

Max had just stepped through the doorway, chest heaving, probably from the effort it had taken to run the length of the ship. All that defensive weight couldn't be easy to transport without water's help.

Kai sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was like his life was a freaking movie. How many must-have-been rehearsed entrances did this make?

"What's up?" Max asked, tone clearly straining to stay cool.

Kai looked at Ray, and fought the urge to make himself scarce, not that he could even if he wanted to. He had some accounting to do, but that didn't mean he looked forward to facing Max's legendary Mama-love. This would be ugly.

At least Ray got the hint and went on to explain, though he only got to the point about Tala, before Max's restraint broke. "Oh, so your old Abbey friend is more important than my mom?"

"This isn't a rescue boat," Kai said, dryly.

"And Kai said he could help us find cover—" started Ray, if half-heartedly.

"So could my mom!"

"Yes, because she did so well at avoiding detection the first time around."

Max's face turn red than purple faster than a streetlight. "Like she'd know the freaking gov would be after us! I'm turning the ship around—"

Kai was expecting this. In two strides he was across the room and in the small space between Max and the door, probably popping five more stitches from the feel of it. But he had to do this quick and fast. In any drawn out match, Max was sure to win, though when he had started to think of this in terms of a beymatch he didn't know.

"Even if you knew where your mom was in LA, every blood-thirsty American fed will be after us, or did you forget that we just destroyed a military base?"

"You destroyed it—"

"Oh, yes, because they're going to make that distinction when they capture you and everyone else here to become their human weapons." At Max's shock, Kai let out a dark smirk. "I'm sorry, did you think we were going to be helping them build streets and houses for the poor? Or did you forget that there's nuclear war in the air?"

Max pushed at Kai, and the phoenix found himself hard pressed to hold his ground, as in not at all. Max's armored bulk was the antithesis of Kai's light boned, feathered body, despite his recently acquired muscle. Not to mention one of Kai's legs was more or less out of commission. He had to snatch on to the door handle for support.

"Out of the way," said Max quietly, though the ears sticking out from his messy blond hair were still purple with rage.

"No. You will not endanger your team."

"I'm not going to endanger anyone! I'll go by myself, I'll catch up with you later—"

"Use your brain, Max. If you go into enemy territory, Tyson will follow you, and so will Ray and Ayah—and then I'll have to come out of obligation to make sure none of you get killed."

"Well I'm so sorry that you have—"

Kai struck, clothes-lining his arm about Max's neck and throwing his weight behind it. He couldn't wait any longer. Max had already begun prying the doorknob from his grip, and he knew the moment Max got out, he'd be over the rail and in the water, far from Kai's reach.

Course, he suspected that Max's broader base and weight would make it difficult to throw him. But he had been trained as a kid to kill adults, so he did have a card or two up his sleeve, like jumping his good leg to the door and kicking off of it. What Kai had loss in weight compared to Max he made up for with strength and training.

The whole kitchen rattled when Max came down with a bang. The blond boy was so startled, he didn't even have the time to think about trying to move before Kai had straddled him and put a blazing hand to Max's face.

"Grow up, Maxie," he said low, staring hard into Max's belligerent gaze. "You go, you endanger all of us along with yourself. But you probably haven't even given a thought to anyone else's feelings besides yours. You don't care if you'll frighten and worry your teammates, you don't care how your mom will feel when she see's all her attempts to keep you safe go down the drain because you've stupidly charged into LA, you don't care about your father's feelings or that of whoever else doesn't want you dead or used as an American plaything to kill thousands. You just care about your mommy worries being satiated, nevermind everyone else here probably has family they're worried about too."

"Kai," Ray had stepped forward and had a hand on his shoulder, clamped hard.

He shrugged of Ray's hand, but allowed the fire on his hand to die out. A hard, painful jerk tried to uproot his innards when he saw angry blisters across Max's nose. Averting his gaze, he got off onto his good leg and pushed up. An angry heat had become his thigh. He didn't look forward to seeing the results of his action.

Even though he probably wouldn't be able to pull anyone up, he offered Max a hand.

"I'm sorry," and he meant it. "But I can't let you do something so stupid."

As he expected, Max slapped aside his offered hand. He had to roll onto his front before he could get himself to his feet, as the plates made his back hardly flexible. He didn't look at Kai as he went to back to the door, though he did stop with his hand on the handle.

"That's really funny, coming from you. Didn't think about anyone's feelings when you tried killing yourself last night, did you?"

Yep. He felt that. As if burning Max's face hadn't been enough, but he could think of no other way to overpower Max's sheer bulk than with a show of fire, even if he had been in peek form. If it ever came to it, Max could probably do him over in minutes.

The moment Max had vanished, he turned to the tiger. "Ray, go after him."

The look Ray gave him was incredulous. "Seriously? After the crap you just pulled?"

"That's exactly why you should go. He's likely to do something stupid if I try to look after him. Ask him to catch you those fish you wanted, it should distract him, but make sure he understands that we'll send Ayah to find him if he doesn't come back."

For a moment, Ray just looked at him, not quite glaring, but not exactly happy either. Kai knew on a rational level Ray understood why he had done what he did with Max, but that didn't mean he liked it.

Finally, Ray closed his yellow eyes and sighed. When he looked back up at Kai, he said, "That really was rich coming from you."

Kai could feel something like fire, but more like acid, percolating up from his stomach as he watched Ray head towards the door. He found his mouth had gone dry.

If it stayed like this…

"Ray."

Ray paused in the doorway, glancing back.

But Kai kept his eyes to the chrome backdrop behind the kitchen sink. "I'm sorry."

Without a word, Ray left, leaving Kai back where he had started: trying to find something other than flour for breakfast.

-And that is the end of this book. Stay tuned next week for book 8, "Before Beasts, There Was Ice!" And please let me know what you think of the series so far. ^.^ No, it will not go on forever. The end is near. Yes, I will finish it. Pinky promise.