Chapter 14: Max P.O.V.
I shook from my sleep, shivering in the cold. Fang stirred behind me in his sleep, his arm draped over the dip in my waist and my back pressed into his warm chest. I nestled in closer to him, trying to absorb some of his heat.
I entwined my cold feet with Fangs, trying to ignore the pressing feeling that I was being watched. I strained my neck turning my head to the side to try and get a view of my small window, the thin curtains drawn and very little light being shed into the dim room. I turned away from the window and cuddled back up to Fang, breathing in his smell, like pine and dove soap. He shifted slightly behind me, breathing in and sighing, his hot breath running through the top of my hair.
I started to drift of to sleep again, my skin finally warming up under the blankets, when the quiet, almost silent tap of fingernails on glass sounded from my window across the room. I shot up board straight in time to see a shadow move out of my view from the window. I breathed hard and stared at the window for the shadow to appear again. Fang stirred and his eyes fluttered open.
"What's wrong?" He asked in a groggy voice, rolling onto his back and stretching in the dark.
"I saw something move away from my window." Fang chuckled softly and reached up to play with a strand of my disheveled hair.
"You're just feeling paranoid. But you're sleeping with a vampire, babe, nothing can touch you." He reassured me, tugging on my arm to bring me back down to him. I flopped back down on the bed facing him, his dark eyes closed and quivering as I pushed a chunk of hair away from his face.
"Do you regret me?" He asked, the words coming out in a sigh. I smiled and nestled closer to his bare chest, craving the warmth that constantly radiated from him. I did regret allowing myself to be pulled in by him, but I felt helpless to him, as if pulled in by gravity. I knew I wouldn't have been able to stay away from him even if I tried.
"No way." I said, and his brow furrowed. I was a little confused by his response, did he want me to regret him? The pricking feeling that I was being watched returned and I attempted to sit up again, but fang rolled on top of me, trapping me under his weight.
"Good." He said huskily, his black eyes just a few inches away from mine as he dropped his lips on mine, holding the kiss for a second and then pulling away and rolled off me, pulling me into his side.
"Fall asleep, Its four in the morning." I whispered, and he tightened his arms around me, not giving me enough slack to try and sit up to search for the shadow behind my curtains. Fangs breathing behind me slowly evened out and his arms loosened around my shoulders. the prickling feeling disappeared, but the eerie feeling kept me from falling asleep.
I sat watching my alarm clock until it showed six and slowly scooted away from Fang and tiptoed around the room gathering up my pajamas and putting them back on. Wandering out into the hall, the light of the T.V. flickered on the end of the hallway wall, and I padded down towards it, hoping that Ella was up, and not Angel. I turned the corner to find no one on the couch, the T.V. simply playing on mute while a corny medical show with underpaid actors played across the screen.
Picking up the remote from where It was carelessly wedged in between two couch cushions, I turned off the T.V. and plunged the room into darkness, the sudden creeping feeling of being watched returning as soon as the lights went out. I froze in place with my arms tucked into my body, one hand still clutching the remote. I waited in the silence for what seemed like hours before a scrape on the window made me spring into motion. I bolted into the kitchen, knocked over Ellas coffee maker and snatched the small pistol hidden under it. I cocked the gun and scanned the area behind me, searching the wall behind me for the kitchen light switch with my left hand, and flipping it on when my fingers brushed it.
The light illuminated the kitchen and some of the T.V. room, and the silhouette of a man's torso and legs outside the tall windows. Without thinking, I fired a shot at the figure, shattering the pane of glass, the man taking the shot in the stomach, stumbling back off the window ledge, and disappearing out of my sight.
I sprinted to where he fell, walking on broken glass in my socks and yanking the windows open, leaning out the window to look down to the street below, no body lying on the pavement below.
"Max!" Fang suddenly appeared behind me and yanked me away from the window. Ella stood behind him, her eyes wide, and Angel stumbled around the corner, dragging all of her bedsheets with her.
"Who did you shoot?" Angel asked mid-yawn, not seeing very concerned. I just shook my head and stepped out of the glass, pretending that the whole situation didn't bother me at all. I tossed the pistol onto the couch and stripped off my socks and tossed them in the hamper by the front door.
"Max..." Fang warned, as Ella took the pistol from the couch and placed it back under the coffee maker.
"There was someone outside the window." I told him, taking a water bottle from the fridge and taking a sip.
"And you shot him?!" Ella screeched, looking appalled.
"Other will have heard that shot Max! Now we'll have to go through the police on why you open fired on some creep outside your window and pay for a new pane of glass!" Ella snatched the water bottle from my hand and quickly downed half of it and slammed it down on the counter, looking furious.
"The police isn't a problem Ella." I told her calmly and she huffed out a breath of air that tossed one of her brown strands of hair out of her face.
"That doesn't mean that you can just shoot at anything that moves, just because they can't touch you!" fang looked down at Angel who stood watching the scene with disinterest.
"Do you have any idea what's going on?" He asked, and she gave him a sly sideways glance.
"Nope." She responded sweetly, and dragged herself and her blankets back to her room. Fang gave me a confused glance and shifted from foot to foot while Ella fumed about the broken window.
"Is he dead?" Fang asked, making Ella freeze mid-rant. I played with the top on my waterbottle.
"No, no body fell." Ella's face flushed and Fang crossed his arms over his bare chest, sighing and looking more annoyed that surprised.
"I need to go." He said flatly and walked down the hall to my room. I chased after him, leaving Ella to gawk in the kitchen.
"What do you know?" I asked him, standing in the middle of my room watching him as he gathered up his jeans and put them on. His eyes flickered up to me, but he didn't respond, and went to pick up his tee-shirt.
"Fang, tell me! I shot it for christ sake, it could be mad and come back." Fang sighed and pulled his shirt over his head backwards.
"He won't come back, okay?" I leaped on his words.
"So its a he? Do you know him?" I asked, but Fang just turned his shirt forward and furrowed his eyebrows.
"Fine, I MIGHT know him, that doesn't mean I do." I huffed as Fang pulled on his socks and boots, pulling his bag over his shoulder from where he felt it slumped in the corner.
"I don't want you following me either. I don't know what I could be getting myself into, and you definitely don't need to get yourself into a situation involving...Who I think it could be." I shifted my weight between my feet, guilty of wanting to follow him. He walked by me to leave, but turned around and pulled me into his chest, my arms flying around his waist and hugging his warm body to me.
"See you later, Maxie." He leaned down and placed his lips on my hairline before turning away again and walking out the door, the sound of the front door slamming behind him.
Fang P.O.V.
As soon as I left Max's apartment, the remnants of my smile faded from my face and I let my anger show through. Max was aware of someone watching her, and took a shot at them but not killing them. It had to be a vampire, but so few of them remained in this city. I left through the lobby and out into the cold morning air, unlocking my mustang from across the parking lot and tossed my bag into the back.
Firing the engine, I pulled out from the apartment complex lot and drove towards the outskirts of the city, leaving the limits of the city and driving through the wooded outskirts. I took a sharp right and tore down a long, gravel driveway that was barely wide enough for my car, and burst into a clearing, the well lit and massive modern house a beacon in the middle of the woods. I stepped out of the car, and hadn't taken two steps when a blur came around the side of the house and raced up to me.
I backhanded it out of the way, the female vampire flailing from the blow and landing several feet away from me, snarling. I gave her a withering look and walked casually towards the front door of the house, the door bursting open when I reached it, and I caught a second, male vampire around the throat and tossed him behind me carelessly, ignoring the hiss as he hit the dirt.
Stepping inside, my brother appeared around a corner with a bottle of wine in his hand and took a seat in front of a smashed grand piano.
"Well, I didn't expect you to come visit so gracelessly..." He said cooly, setting the bottle down on the glass table in front of him and pouring two glasses. I didn't move, but watched his every motion.
"Come on, Nick. I haven't seen you in a while. Sit down!" I sighed and crossed my arms,
"I'm not here to drink and hang out, Dylan." He took a sip from his glass and leaned forward, looking slightly offended.
"Fine, what's so important that we can't even pretend to be family?" He spat out and I sat on the edge of the chair in front of him, refusing to relax. Getting him mad wouldn't help me negotiate or get anything from him. He looked satisfied and leaned back, motioning for me to continue.
"Who in your coven was shot." I asked blankly, and Dylan looked a little taken back by the question.
"Excuse me?" He questioned, looking aghast that I would ask that.
"Who in your coven was shot tonight? There are hardly any other vampires in this town." I learned to him, and he gave a sly smile.
"My entire coven is here, proof." He motioned over my shoulder and his vampires trickled into the room, giving me a wide berth as they gathered around Dylan. Three females and three males.
"Everyone appears to be accounted for." He said with snide satisfaction, my jaw tightening at his bloated confidence.
"Then who is following Maximum Ride?" I asked him, and his smile dropped. Any mention of her would send him reeling.
"Is she harmed?" He asked, standing up suddenly.
"How many of these newborns did you turn yourself?" I asked, trying to get him to pin anyone in his coven who may have been following him.
"Nickolas! Is she okay!" He shouted, a nerve beginning to fray.
"Your singer is fine." I rolled my eyes and he visibly relaxed, a wiry blonde girl standing behind him sending me an even glare.
"You're not the only one watching her." I told him, and he hung his head, running a hand through his neat blonde hair.
"You already knew that, didn't you." I asked him in a dead tone, and he raised his head, taking his wine glass from the table with a steady hand.
"I thought it was you, but It should have been obvious that you wouldn't be so...creepy." He said spitefully, tipping the glass back and emptying it.
"You saw it?" I asked, leaning farther forward in my chair.
"Him." Dylan corrected.
"Where was the last place you saw him?" I asked, trying to get any free information on Max's stalker that I could.
"Why should I tell you?" Dylan spat, suddenly hostile towards me.
"Why shouldn't you? You want to find him yourself and feel the satisfaction of having your singer all to yourself?" I mocked, and he set his jaw.
"She doesn't even know you exist!" I hissed, my possession over her gave me leverage over him, and he knew it. An animalistic growl tore from his throat, as he gripped the chair next to him and hurled it at me. I dodged it easily, but was knocked onto my back and pinned down by him.
Hi hissed in my face again, his jaw unhinging and long, pointed canines pushing through his gums, his eyes yellowing and becoming bloodshot and a pale bluish white. Saliva spattered my face, and I curled my legs up under me and shoved him off my chest as hard as I could, launching him into the ceiling, plaster and glass from the lights showering down on him as he hit the floor.
Springing across the room, I forced my teeth through through my gums, my vampire gene pulling my human teeth farther back into my mouth and my vision sharpening, the little blood I had in my body pulsing loudly in my ears. From across the room, Dylan crouched down, his long teeth barred as he sidled out of the rubble from the ceiling, another low pitched hiss tearing from his throat.
I kicked off from the wall behind me and barreled into him, driving my shoulder into his ribcage, the crunch as two of his concrete ribs snapped, and he flew backwards into a set of glass doors leading to his library shattering as he crashed through them. he paused for a second, lying in the glass as I gathered my breath, exhausted from my transformation. in the blink of an eye he had a fist across my face, a firm kick to the ribs, an uppercut to my chin that sent me stumbling back.
"You're weak!" He ground out in an almost mechanical voice. I blocked his next punch but his next one was too fast for me to react to, and sent me flying back into a marble statue that fell and crumbled on the tile floor.
He was at me again before I could react and sent a roundhouse kick to the side of my head that once again sent me back into the wall behind me, the plaster indenting. He gripped me by the throat and raised me off the ground, looking me in the face with bared teeth, glass shards and plaster dust covering his body.
"You're too human to protect her." He dropped me, but before I hit the ground, he expertly snapped my neck before my feet could hit the ground, and I fell, unable to move from the neck down in a useless heap. He leaned over me, his coven silent and unmoving at the farthest end of the room.
"You can't defend her from what's coming. But you can keep her from it." He bent over and carefully cracked my neck back in place so that it would heal correctly. His vampiric features seemed to melt of his face, until he was calm, collected Dylan again. He motioned for his coven to follow him as he exited the room, muttering about the mess before turning around again, and calling to me over his shoulder.
"I'll keep in touch, brother." He added, before walking away, beginning to sing,
"Now we're all in this together, and it shows, who we are we're all stars and we see them..."