A/N: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed! Once I have fifteen reviews, I will post again. Four reviews… you guys can do it!

I hope you like this chapter… and don't despair about Max too much. All will be well.

FANG POV

By some miracle, I actually did wake up with the sun. No clichéd, annoyed moments of, "Crap, I overslept, I hate myself." Feeling a thousand times better than when I'd fallen asleep on the wet leaves of the forest two hours later, I scuffed the coals enough to get a little heat – just enough to warm my hands a little. Three minutes later I'd eaten and was off, Max in my arms, facing the ground away from which we were currently soaring as fast as I could manage with her in my arms.

Max was facing down because I couldn't look at her face. I couldn't bring myself to gaze into the lifeless eyes of the corpse I was carrying. I'd caught a glimpse while carrying her earlier, and the image would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Max's eyes had been the one thing she'd never mastered controlling. She could control her emotions so well – she could be upset or infuriated or whatever, and no one would know because that's rule number one of being the leader of a flock of bird kids fighting for their lives: don't show your weaknesses. Mad? Sad? Too bad. No one can know.

Except me.

Because I'd spent my entire life looking into those eyes.

When she was worried or distracted, they would be the slightest bit unfocused. I could tell in school when she was thinking about flying, because her eyes would soar as if riding the wind. When she was caring for Gazzy or Angel, they'd melt before my eyes. Or when she'd move something over to help Iggy out inconspicuously – there'd be this slight crease on either side of her eyes, like it made her sad. When she looked at Nudge, she was often rolling her eyes.

Her mom or Ella, that was easy – this look of reverence and awe, like she could never really believe they were really there.

Me… when she looked at me, sometimes… sometimes they would light up… like a light bulb, like someone flipped a switch…

I needed to stop thinking this way or I wasn't going to be able to see where I was going.

Jeb. I concentrated on his face, letting the fury, the rage, wash over me and consume all other feelings. Rage was good. Rage didn't make your heart feel like it was being clawed out slowly or your throat burn like there was a fire burning inside it. Rage was safe. We were old friends.

Truthfully, my rage wasn't quite as deserved as we'd always thought it to be. Jeb had saved us all many times, I knew that now. He'd helped Max out in Germany. Dr. Martinez had trusted him.

But then again, Dr. Martinez wasn't exactly doing well, either.

I had to trust Jeb now, though, like it or not, because he was my one hope. He was the only reason I was still capable of functioning. As long as I was moving toward Jeb, I was moving toward a solution. I could fix this because he could fix it. So there was no need to feel so wretched.

No reason to feel like I was the dead one.



No reason to feel like there wasn't a reason anymore, to anything.

"You're going to have to be the leader now… You can do it, I know you can..." her whisper echoed in my head. Could I do it? Sure, we were the same age, but Max had always been the natural leader. I was good at following, good at noticing things and following directions and getting my butt out of bad situations.

Could I be the leader?

Could I tell the rest of the flock what to do? Did I possibly have it in me to comfort them, to make them understand that we had to keep fighting? Could I keep them safe?

No, a voice inside me insisted. Of course not. There was no way I could ever do what Max did. That was what made her Max.

That was what I loved most about her.

"It doesn't matter anyway," I breathed against the wind, the sound of my whisper not even reaching my own ears. "I won't have to find out. Max's gonna be fine. I'll never have to be the leader, never."

But the shield of rage around my brain was gone, so I was able to feel with clarity the uncertainty ripping through my being, hurting worse than any injury, wrenching my heart and blinding my eyes.