woulda done this earlier, but i literally had no time last monday because i actually went out in the world to do stuff. and then tumblr swallowed the rest of the week. and then the korra finale destroyed the weekend.

. . .i'm not even sure why i have tumblr. i don't do anything with it. i just scroll about liking things.

disclaimer: don't own maximum ride.

14. finesse

Beep-beep, bee- "This is Red."*

"Black. You made your location?"

"Yep."

"Casualties?"

"No."

"Followed?"

"No."

"Good."

Con hung up and Blaze stowed the phone without complaint. Phones could be tapped, conversations listened in on. It was best to keep things short and sweet. With emphasis on the short. Sweet kinda just fell to the wayside.

She scanned her group's runaway location, a large thrift store in the northern outskirts of town. People of all looks and ages were always drifting in and out of the place, meandering through the aisles of recycled clothing and bric-a-brac, so it was pretty easy to walk in and blend. And, because it was a thrift store, anybody in a suit would be seen from a mile away.

"You all right?" Iggy asked mildly, and her eyes fixed on him. He was so light, like Sy, but more of a feathery fair instead of porcelain white. They were sitting together in the back corner of the store, in a makeshift coffee shop sort of place, while the Gasman, Avi, DJ, and Janey browsed through the nearby book section. Iggy's hands, long and slender, were on the table, entwined in two locked metal rings. It was some sort of brain teaser the Gasman had found on a random shelf and given him to figure out.

Rather than giving a direct answer to his question, Blaze frowned. "Why?" she asked, slightly accusing.

"You sighed the Con sigh," he said.

"Did not."

"Did so." The argument was reflexive, not hostile. It wasn't even an argument, really; they didn't fight that much at all. It was just a knee-jerk response of undermining whatever the other one said. Petty entertainment. "What'd he say?"

This time Blaze was conscious of her sigh. "Nothing. But that's just Con, he never says anything," she said, her voice taking on the tone of a much-practiced rant. "On missions, I got it. At home, I got it. But ever since we hooked up with you guys, I thought he'd. . .I dunno, unwind a little. Not be such an uptight little bastard."

"Leopards don't change their spots," Iggy said. His lips twitched in a half smile. "Or at least, so I'm told."

She cracked a smirk - no matter how stupid his lines were, sometimes they really did make her smile - but tried to not let it show in her voice when she said, "This isn't the time for blind jokes."

"It is always time for blind jokes," he corrected. The metal rings in his hands clinked and came apart; he'd solved the puzzle. "And I heard that smile."

"You can't hear a smile," Blaze said condescendingly.

"Blind people can. We hear the rays of light that reflect off your teeth."

"You can't hear light rays!"

"Blind people can."

"Ugh!" she groaned in frustration. "Why I ever decided to be with you is a mystery."

Iggy just laughed.

Beep-beep, beep. Beep-beep- "Con?"

"Duh. You made your location?"

"Yeah, we-"

"Any casualties?"

"What? No, but-"

"Were you followed?"

"No."

"Then good."

And then he hung up.

For as much as Max respected Con for being a leader who was all business, sometimes, she thought, he was just a downright jerk.

She was so annoyed that she blatantly ignored Con's previous warnings to never initiate calls. Plan A basically dictated that he was the grand master of operations, so he was the one who decided if and when it was safe to make a call. Instead of sticking to that part of the plan, she just dialed the number and tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for him to pick up.

"Nothing could have possibly happened in the two seconds since I just called," Con snapped as he answered the phone. Max scowled.

"That's not why I'm calling," she retorted. "We got away all right, but I had Swift run back for a check on the house. There are police cars all over it, there's no way we can go back there."

"That isn't vital information," Con said impatiently. "I guessed that would happen anyway."

Max's hand tightened on the phone. "You could at least thank me for being considerate enough to tell you."

"But I'm not going to. I have better things to do."

And then he hung up again. Irritated but resigned to the fact that she wouldn't get any more out of him, Max shoved the phone into her pocket and crossed her arms over her chest, glaring out the unfinished window of the unfinished building that was her group's temporary hideout.

The city was spread out before her; their building was a tall office structure, almost ten stories up. While she wasn't happy about Spark's situation, Max had to admit to herself that it had almost been a relief to leave the house behind. Her group was all bird-kid, so it was almost like having her old flock back again. Just six kids with wings on the run from the law.

"Stop reading my mind!" Shadow yelled.

Max sighed. Shadow and the others were camped out on rolls of carpeting in the center of the room, left on the unfinished floors by the construction workers. Although he had been focused enough to follow Max to their hideout point, Max felt Shadow was going to be a source of major trouble during down time. It'd been bad enough at the house, where even Con could barely control the kid; without his usual leader, things were bound to get dicey. Especially around Angel, who, it seemed, Shadow had declared to be his eternal mortal enemy.

"I don't mean to, I just hear it!" Angel retorted irritably.

"It's not like she can turn it off," Nudge added, trying to be helpful.

"Just stop it, okay? I can feel you in there and I hate it!"

Max rubbed her temples, trying to block out the bickering. Okay, so it wasn't exactly like her old flock. In order to split young ones and old ones evenly between the groups, Iggy had volunteered to be in Blaze's. Gazzy had elected to go with him, leaving Swift and Shadow to take their places with Max, Fang, Nudge, and Angel.

Some people were unhappier than others about the arrangement.

"You okay?"

Max turned to find Fang standing at her side. Just at a glance she could tell the younger ones' arguing was getting on his nerves, too; there was a tightness around his mouth that spoke of annoyance.

"Yeah," she said tiredly. "Just never thought I'd miss Iggy and Gazzy blowing stuff up for no reason."

Fang tried to respond but was cut off by Shadow yelling again.

"Stoppit or I'll take your memories!" the boy shouted, and the resounding thunk told Max that he'd either hit something or stomped on the floor.

Max whipped around to order him to be quiet and calm down, but Swift beat her to the punch. He grabbed the back of Shadow's shirt and yanked, forcing Shadow to sit on the floor. Shadow tried to protest and get up, but was silenced by a sharp smack to the back of the head.

"Stop it now!" Swift snapped. "Things are bad enough without you making it worse."

"I hate this group," Shadow whined. "Why can't we be with Con?"

"Because that's not the plan," Swift replied. "Suck it up."

Shadow scowled and rubbed the back of his head, where Swift had hit him. "Jerk."

An uneasy sort of silence fell over the room then, and Max turned back to the window, closing her eyes and letting out a sigh. Yeah, this combination of Shadow with. . .well, part of her old flock was definitely going to be trouble.

Fang nudged her and she looked at him. He nodded back to the kids and muttered, "Not that I don't appreciate the quiet, but we're going to have to do something about Shadow."

She nodded. "I'll talk to Con about it when I get the chance," she said. Then she rolled her eyes and added, "If he doesn't hang up on me."

"Can't exactly blame him for ignoring you," Fang said reasonably. "He's back in his element. All business, no fun."

"Because our missions were always full of sunshine and daisies," Max said with a sarcastic smirk.

"There was that one time where Nudge found those flowers in that cave."

Max snickered. "Oh, yeah. We were living large."

Fang's mouth quirked in an almost-smile. But then it was gone. "You were happier then," he said quietly.

Max stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

Fang shrugged. "This whole house thing was great, but. . .you never really settled in, did you?" Max tried to respond but Fang held up a hand to stop her. "I know you didn't. You treated it like another rest stop. Now that we're on the run again. . .you're feeling more at home."

"I. . ." She flailed for an explanation, but who was she kidding? She heaved a sigh. "Fine. Yes, the house was great. But. . .it just didn't feel like home."

"More like a boarding school," Fang agreed.

"And in the middle of the suburbs?" Max shook her head. "No, thanks, I like my mountains."

"Maybe we can have that next," he suggested. He nodded to the city outside the window. "Now that this place's cover is blown and all."

"Yeah. Just you, me, and the flock," Max said, smiling at the thought. Then she heard Shadow and Swift exchanging sharp whispers, having a soft argument, and she frowned. "Well, the real flock."

There was a miniscule narrowing of Fang's eyes. "And Spark?"

"Yeah." Still thinking about her flock in the mountains, she didn't quite understand that there was a question. Then it clicked and she blinked. "Wait, what about Spark?"

"Is she a part of that?" Fang asked. "The house thing? Because with her we'll get stuck with Sy and probably Con, too."

She opened her mouth to reply but was saved from having to come up with an explanation by her cell phone. It beeped again, signaling a call; in a second she had it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Why do say that like it's a question?" Con asked, sounding irritated. "You know it's me."

A frown tugged at Max's mouth. "Sorry," she said. "Allow me to apologize for my common courtesy."

"Apology not accepted," Con retorted, and Max could swear she could hear the arrogant smirk. "And before you start bitching about how much of a jerk I am, just know that Sy's back."

It took a second for the words to process. ". . .Wait," Max said at length. Fang gave her a quizzical look but she waved him off. "What? He's just. . .back?"

"Yeah," Con said shortly. "No idea why. He just got hit in the face with a pillow and snapped back."

"How did he get hit with a pillow?" she asked, bewildered.

"I threw it at him," Con said, explaining as if Max were stupid. She scowled.

"Really?" she sneered. "No kiddin'."

Con sighed irritably. "Look, I just thought you'd get pissed if I didn't tell you right away, so I told you to save myself the trouble. That's it. Goodbye."

And then he hung up. Again.

Frustrated, Max stuffed the phone back in her pocket. Con. God, he was starting to get as annoying as Spark.

"So." I sat back in the grossest, dustiest couch in existence and cradled Total in one arm. With the other hand I stroked him like a supervillain, slowly from ears to tail, and looked to Con. "What now?"

(It took a certain amount of self-control to not add on a "Mr. Powers" to the end of that. Seriously, I felt like Dr. Evil with Mr. Bigglesworth.)

"It's best if we leave town," Con said. There wasn't even hesitation to it. "Head out of state and out of jurisdiction."

I glanced up at where Sy was leaning on the arm of the couch; he shrugged a shoulder. Con, meanwhile, dug through his pack until he found a map, presumably of the southwest United States. "Okay, but where to?" I asked as Con opened the map.

"Knowing Max, she'll want to go to her mother's house," Con said, not looking up from behind the folds of California. "We tracked her chip data back when we were on you, and those were the only coordinates that popped up more than twice for any significant amount of time."

"But we can't go there," I said, straightening up. "If you found it, then other people can too."

"No shit. But since Max will want to go there anyway, we may as well head in that general direction," Con explained. "And since the other two groups don't have fliers**, they'll hang back in-state, or maybe hit the border. They'll be looking for safe spots too, so I suggest we hang out somewhere between everyone."

"A ring of fire," Sy said in a neutral tone. "You want to use the rest of them as a meat shield so you can know which ways not to go."

"Is that so wrong?" Con asked, not sounding as if he cared in the slightest.

Sy studied him, a look of general dislike clouding his face. But then he let out a small breath and shook his head. "It's classic you."

Con replied absently, "And we all know I'm very classy."

"That's not quite a valid response, Connie boy," Total said. Con ignored him. Like he usually did.

Ring of fire. I frowned, my methodic stroking of Total slowing to a halt. The way Sy had said it. . .it sounded as if the people after me would take out anything and everything in order to get to me.

Cuh-rap. I bit my lip and stared off into the corner of the room. Con was right - Max would run to her mom, even if only for half a day. That would mean Arizona, which was a little too close to Colorado for my liking. And. . .okay, I know that before, when given the choice, I'd sorta put off going home and seeing my family, but now. . .crap. Whoever was after me wanted revenge for Leander, and since he'd known about my family, chances were that they'd know, too. Things could get messy.

"Spark?" Sy's touch jolted me out of my train of thought and I looked at him. He appeared more than a little concerned.

"What?" I said. Wait, maybe he'd asked a question. Or maybe he hadn't. Um. . .let's bank on it. "Yeah. Sure."

Sy's brow wrinkled. Total coughed and twisted his head to whisper up at me: "He didn't ask you a question, Sparky."

Damn. ". . .Riiigght." For a second I couldn't help but smirk to myself. I may or may not have said that in a very Evil-ish manner.

"Are you okay?" Sy asked slowly.

"Yeah, just. . .kinda worried," I admitted.

"About?" Total prompted.

I hesitated for a second, but ultimately decided that denying the truth would get me nowhere. "Well. . .my family."

There was a crinkling of paper and I looked over to the desk, where Con had finally surfaced from behind his map. "Come again?"

I quickly explained my earlier thought process. Ring of fire, Arizona, family, general messiness. (I left out the Dr. Evil part.) As I talked, Total cuddled into my abdomen for comfort, and the boys just watched me with differing levels of concern/is-she-all-right-in-the-head.

The second one was more Con's look than Sy's.

Once finished, Sy tried to say something, but he was quickly cut off.

"Do you-"

"Don't even think we're going to see them," Con snapped. "It'll for sure put a target on their backs."

"But if we don't go, we can't warn them," I protested. "I want them at least to be ready for. . .well, anything."

"Then here." Looking ticked, Con chucked me his burner phone. I flinched, not having hands to catch it, but Sy's hand darted out to save me. "Call them. Tell them to run."

I shook my head. "No. You don't get it."

"What don't I get?" Con demanded.

"I can't just call them," I said exasperatedly. "They'll get too freaked that I'm actually contacting them. It'd be best to. . .to actually go there in person, suffer through the fussing, and then tell them in person what's going down."

"No," Con refused. "Not allowed."

I bristled, my eye twitching. When will people learn that telling me is a bad move? Now I just wanted to go home to spite Con. "Order me again," I dared, my voice tight. "See what happens."

"Nobody is ordering and nobody is going anywhere by themselves," Sy said harshly. Con rolled his eyes and I leaned back in my seat, resuming my Dr. Evil stroking of Total. "We can hide out in a crackhouse in Vegas for all I care, but we're sticking together. Whether we like it or not."

"I agree," Total said. "Except for the whole crackhouse part. If we hit Vegas, it's high-rolling or nothing."

"Seconded," I snickered. I looked down at Total and ruffled his ears. "You know, I didn't even like little dogs 'til I met you. You're definitely changing my opinion of them."

The dog's eye twitched in a wink. "We're not all like this. I happen to be an exceptional individual."

I nodded. "Noted."

Then something weird happened. Sy glanced over at Con, who frowned and stared back. They exchanged this weird sort of look, like the kind Max and Fang had when they both knew what the other was thinking.

Somehow I suspected it concerned me.

Which, coincidentally, was how a lot of the Max/Fang looks went, too.

Finally, Con rolled his eyes and went back to his map. "Fine. Whatever," he growled. "We'll go to her stupid house, I don't even care."

Sy looked at me and half-smiled. "I think that's as good as you're going to get."

"So it's decided?" Total said, sitting up and giving himself a shake.

"Yep." I took a deep breath and lifted my hands so he could jump to the floor. "Back to Mo-town."

"That's east, mostly, right?" Sy asked.

"Northeast," Con said shortly. Definitely not happy. But ah, who cared, he was never happy.

Sy pushed off from the couch and joined Con at the desk, probably to look at the map and plan a route. Total went to join them, and I stayed in my seat.

As their conversation ambled on into boring figurations of what highways to follow and which evasive maneuvers to take, I leaned forward and grabbed my backpack from where I'd dropped it on the floor. Unzipping it, I reached in and started piling its contents on my lap: a handful of small, imperishable foodstuffs, five rolled-up shirts, a little first-aid kit, and a spare pair of jeans.

That was it. Pack light, no unnecessary items. That'd been the requirement, and that was how every backpack had been packed.

'Cept for mine.

Planting one hand on the tower of items to steady it, I used the other hand to feel around the inside of my now empty bag. As I groped for the start of a zipper, Total meandered his way back to me and watched me curiously.

"Is there a reason you're un-packing?" he asked.

I ignored him as I caught the zipper and pulled. When we'd been preparing for situations such as these back when we'd first moved in, we'd decided as a group to pack all the bags in a uniform sort of way. But I'd had a secret weapon, and as such I'd had to keep it, well, secret. And so I'd gone out and gotten a stretch of fabric and a zipper and sewn in another compartment to the bottom of my backpack.

Zipper unzipped, I flipped back the flap of the false bottom and reached down to the real bottom, where my hand touched cold metal and dry leather. I wrapped my thumb and two fingers around the thing and used the other two fingers to pinch a plastic baggie. I pulled my secret weapon out of my backpack and rested it on my lap, on top of the tower of my pack's contents.

Total gave a low whistle, which made Con and Sy look up from their map. I pretended to ignore the way they glanced at each other uneasily, instead calmly setting the gun aside as I quickly re-packed my bag. Once done, I picked the gun back up and began to examine it, checking for wear and tear.

"Spark?" Sy finally ventured. "Is that Leander's gun?"

Total let out a little "Oh" of recognition, but I tried to be nonchalant in my answer. "Yep."

It was almost easy to handle the weapon that taken its owner's life. It looked so normal and clean. An old-style six-shooter pistol with a pearl handle. The holster, on the other hand, was different: once perfect white leather, it was now stained with the rusty red of old blood.

Leander's blood.

I'd scrubbed and soaked and sponged that thing for hours and hours, with any number of cleaning solutions, but it just refused to be white again. And I guess that was all right, in a way - I kind-of hate white now - but still. Bloody holsters just make for bad luck.

"Why would you take it?" Sy asked quietly. His voice was closer now and I took a peek out of the corner of my eye. He'd left the desk and was now kneeling at my side, acting like a cautious cop around a young witness.

I returned my eyes to the gun and shrugged as I knocked out the chamber. It clicked loudly. "Nothing deserves to be forgotten."

"When did you take it?" Con sounded more curious than worried for my well-being.

"I picked it back up when I stood up," I said shortly, knowing they'd know. There'd been more than one night when the three of us had stayed up together for fear of nightmares. "And I grabbed the holster after I puked."

Con let out a breath. "Well, can you shoot it?" he asked briskly. He pulled his own gun and held it up. "Or do you wanna trade with me?"

"I'll be fine," I said shortly. I loaded the last of six bullets and snapped the chamber back into the gun. "Besides. We'll need it."

"Let's hope not," Total muttered.

"If they're coming after her because of Leander, then they won't be holding back," Con stated. "Realistically, we're gonna need it. So you better not freeze up on me if you have to fire that thing."

"You always speak with such finesse, Constantine," Total said airily. "It's one of the many things I admire about you."

"You be quiet, or I'll have you fixed," Con threatened, pointing at Total with his gun. The dog snorted and Con shoved the weapon back in his waistband. "How's that for finesse?"

As their conversation dwindled off into back-and-forth quips, I holstered the gun and clipped it to my belt, where Sy's pale, thin fingers met mine. I looked to him but his eyes were on my hip.

I waited, and at length he said softly, "I don't like that you took that gun." He glanced up at me from beneath the fringe of silver hair and I felt a slight pang of guilt. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think you'd get it," I confessed. Something flickered in his eyes, causing more guilt, and I sighed. "I just. . .even though it was the worst part of my life, I don't want to forget it. I can't let myself do that."

"But why keep a constant reminder of it?" he asked. I hesitated and he took my hand. "Spark. You can tell me."

Can I really say this? I wondered about it for maybe a second, my fingers tightening on Sy's hand. There's a lot of stuff I'll say, even about myself - mostly all people have to do is ask. But I guess even I have my limit.

Whoa. Did that just happen? Did I just acknowledge that there are some things that I am unwilling to say? How. . .uncharacteristic. We should change that.

"Do you know how much it sucks for me to not remember things?" I said. I picked my words carefully and avoided looking at anything but the floor. Sy just held my hand and didn't say anything, instead waiting for me to speak at my own pace.

"They did tests on me when I was little. I'm supposed to be able to recall every single thing that has happened in my life. But after that last straw, when they were shipping me to New York, I ran away and just blocked out random parts of those first five years. When Shadow. . .did what he did, and messed with my head back in Salt Lake, it made me remember some things."

I had to stop there, and I noticed that the room was dead silent - Con and Total had quit calling each other names long enough to listen.

Awesome.

"And?" Sy prompted gently.

"Some things, Sy," I emphasized. "Not all. And the fact that I know there are things that I can't remember because I've blocked them out just drives me insane. It makes me hate my own mind."

"And you don't want anything similar to happen now," he said, realizing.

"Yeah. Leander's was bad. But everything before and after it has been amazing, and I don't want to forget a single second. I can't do that again."

Sy watched me for a few seconds, then sighed helplessly. "Fine. But I still don't like it."

"You don't have to." I stood up and slung my pack over my shoulder. Sy stood as well, and tightened his grip my hand with a reassuring squeeze. I gave him a small smile before peering around him at Con and Total, who were standing by rather awkwardly. "We ready to go?" I asked them.

Con blinked and busied himself with folding his map and packing it back in his bag. "Got no reason to stay," he said.

"Right. So let's fly away home***," Sy said.

Con scoffed and stepped out from behind the desk. "That movie was stupid."

"Do you have to have an opinion on everything?" Sy asked tiredly.

"Yes," Con retorted. "And since my opinion's right, I share it with the world. Deal with it."

"I'd rather deal a chair to your face," Sy said dryly.

"That's nice, coming from a nancy boy," Con countered.

I felt Sy's hand clench and he snapped, "I swear to God-"

"Do you two ever stop bickering?" I blurted, cutting off Sy's threat. They both looked away, annoyed. "Seriously, you're like an old married couple. Only violent. No, wait, that's still an old married couple."

"We are not," Sy objected, just as Con said, "Don't be ridiculous."

Total chuckled and I grinned. "I swear, one day I'm gonna take you both to see my grandparents," I told them. "A little time with them and you'll see the similarities, and you'll realize just how ridiculous you both are. So let's just shut up and get going."

Neither of them responded, which made Total laugh again. "You boys need some succor after that particular decrial?"**** he asked, slightly mocking.

"Shut up," Con grumbled, and he strode for the door.

"Leave it to the dog to have a pretentious vocabulary," Sy said under his breath, and I snickered.

Having overheard, Total stuck his nose in the air and led the way after Con with a cocky trot. "My finesse knows no bounds," he declared.

"And may it never find any," I proclaimed.

"Amen."

*the anti-flock have color codenames, like the power rangers, or the main characters of the pokemon manga. Con is Black, Blaze is Red, Swift is Gray, Shadow is White, and Avi is Blue. Spark would have been Gold.

**did you know a flier is what they call a rectangular step in a straight flight of stairs? i didn't. until now.

***god that movie's old. i don't even remember what it was about. just that it involves birds of some sort and maybe a girl and a plane.

****this is total's version of "would you like some ice for that burn?" i shall use it whenever the situation arises from now on.

most everything i write starts out as just an outline of conversations, and then i go in and add dialogue tags and action paragraphs and then just leave it. this time i think i actually tried for some scene description. well, sorta. in the beginning i did. but as time dragged on i kinda gave up 'cuz i didn't want to deprive you of new storyline.

also, since the beginning of this enterprise i've gotten better and more used to writing first-person. as you can tell from max's pov sequence, third-person has fallen to the wayside. oh how my writing skills grow and flourish, like that ratty old rose bush that haunts the corner of my house and just won't die and stabs me with its thorns when i try to mow the lawn.

. . .that metaphor began well. . .sorta got away from me at the end there.