Life is totally beating me up right now. It's just a mess. The only thing that makes me feel a little bit better is the fact that no one else has updated, either XP

But I still love you guys.

So, here's the next chapter. We're so close to being done it's killing me. Hopefully we can get this done soon enough, though. I just want to write it, but I'm busy 6 days out of 7. And then that 7th day I'm doing homework. Agh school sucks agh. Either way...I know it's not very long, but I hope it's funny in the beginning at least. Super important, too. Oh, yeah. Read and Review, guys?

FANG

Well, that was interesting.

After having your baby sister kidnapped, breaking out of an evil corporation, seeing New York, seeing Epcot, having your brother kidnapped and blowing up another evil corporation, you would think that you had seen it all.

...Nope, still going.

Seeing Iggy get shot was the final straw for me. Everyone keeps saying I went completely nutzo. They're totally right. I can't...I can't describe the feeling. It's like asking Nudge to describe her love for unicorns; it'll take forever. All I could register at the time was that a gun had fired, Iggy had been dying, and that bastard Ari had been holding the gun. So, I proceeded to beat the living snot out of him. I can't say that I hadn't been building that up, though. It felt good. I had been angry and covered in blood.

And now I was covered in peanut butter. See how my life works?

"Gasman. Is. Insane." I gasped, falling back into Iggy's hospital room. Max whipped her head up at me, and then did a face palm. I didn't blame her. Angel skipped into the room behind me, giggling uncontrollably. Iggy's eyes seemed to find the peanut butter on my shirt. Maybe he could smell it. Max stood up and walked over to me. She looked me up and down, which made my heart do little back flips, and then she reached out, scooped peanut butter off of my chest with her finger and stuck it in her mouth. After a second she nodded.

"You're off the hook." she told me. "Now go get Gasman and take a shower."

"Yes, ma'am." I saluted. I went for the door, but she called me back. And sadly, she didn't proclaim her newly found love for me. I don't think girls roll that way.

"When you get back, we're going to go search the mountains for an abandoned house or something. If we can't find anything we'll just stay in a field. We're getting Iggy out of here in the morning."

"Alrighty then." I walked out the door, stalking down the hall. Gazzy ran right toward me, peanut butter stuck in his hair. In one motion I swept him up under my arm and carried him toward the bathrooms.

"Fang, Fang. Let me go, Fang, I'm serious, I'm going to so kick your butt let me go I will blow you up so bad!"

I tuned him out. It's a well-developed talent.

Just so you know, giving an eight-year-old a sink shower whose stint of personal hygiene lasted an all of twelve minutes is extremely difficult. We had to switch bathrooms after flooding the one we were in (twice), and gave the janitors of the place a job worth more than their measly pay. I felt bad for them, I really did. Soon enough, Gasman and I were peanut butter free and sopping wet, the way we like it. When we came back to the room dripping peanut-smelling water all over the floor Max gave us a lecture because there had been fifty-two complaints.

You can't please everyone, can you? I'm not that awesome.

"Ready to go?" Max asked me. I nodded, squeezing the water out of my hair and onto the floor. Gazzy shook like a dog. She turned to the kids. "You guys stay here. No trouble, no attention, and especially no peanut butter. Got it?"

Total moaned. "But it was fun!"

"NO peanut butter." Max yelled, and Total and Gasman cowered away. Max looked at Iggy. "You'll be fine?"

"Yes, Max!" Iggy scowled. "I'll be fine. Now go, I want to get the hell out of here."

I raised my eyebrow at him. He sent daggers at me like he knew I did it. I grimaced. There was something off with him. It was Iggy, through and through...but not. I shrugged it off. He was in a hospital, I had to give him slack. I had gotten out of there as fast as I could. He couldn't, so he was bound to be snappy. I flicked my head toward the window (idiots, giving us a window), and Max propped them open. I leaped out of them, unfurling my wings quickly and flapping up into the sky. We were only three stories up, and I wasn't going to take any chances. Max flew out after me, and I hovered above to wait for her. I saw Nudge wave before she closed the window, and I smiled.

Well, on the inside. I've got a reputation to uphold.

And now for a commercial break, sponsored by my emo side.

Life sucks.

Thank you.

"Fang?" Max asked, waving her arms. "Earth to Fang."

"Sorry." I muttered, snapping out of a daze.

Max smirked. "Well now that you're clocked into reality, we can find us a safe house."

I gestured with my hands. "Lead the way."

"Let's go, tiger." Max said, and then sped off with amazing speed to the north. I froze.

Did she just call me tiger? Tiger? No, I must have imagined that. I was insane. Yep.

I flew after her, brushing my feathers against hers. Max rolled and flew upside down for a minute, deliberately making me feel lame. She turned back around and flew over me to my other side, smiling. All the while we scanned the ground for any sign of abandoned houses. We saw plenty of fields, so that was a plus side, but its kind of hard to judge whether houses are abandoned or the people who live them have social lives from a hundred feet up in the air. Max spoke without looking at me, keeping her eyes glued on the ground below.

"How's your head?" she asked, biting her lip. I ran a hand through my hair.

"Better." I admitted. "Hurts a bit still, but that's normal. Dr. Martinez helped a lot."

"She's a good person." Max replied. I wanted to be suave and say 'Like you', but my mouth didn't move, like it sensed the awkward silence that would emerge from that. I gulped, returning my gaze to the ground.

"You think Ig will be okay?" I inquired, slipping a hand into my pocket.

"He's Iggy." Max replied coolly. "If we're not back soon he'll be blowing up the hospital."

"True that." I laughed. Max laughed mockingly. "What?"

"You're trying to be hipster." Max scoffed. "It's so stupid its cute."

My hormones were raging.

"What about that down there?" Max said quickly, realizing that I was sending her my best I See What You Did There look. "Let's check it out."

We dove down into a field, me smirking my ass off the whole way. I'm such a douche. After running through a thin forest for a minute or two we stumbled upon a dirt road lined with evenly lined, nice-looking rocks. You know, living on the run for years you start to not appreciate good-looking rocks. That was a weird sentence. Mums were placed in between the rocks, and at the end of the driveway was a nice log cabin with no lights on. We walked up to it, and Max pointed to a sign in the front lawn. It was a For Sale sign, but on top it marked "Sold".

"Perfect." Max smiled. "A nice, empty house that'll remain empty for two more days. That's all we need."

I nodded. "Looks nice."

She turned toward me. "Should we stake out the inside or just go tell the kids?"

I crossed my arms, looking the cabin over a few times. "I say we bust Iggy out of that place when they don't have the light on their side."

Max stared at me for a second, and then shook her arms. "You're right. Let's get him. He'll be happy to get out of there."

We took to the skies again, but now Max didn't talk to me or show off in front of me. I guess stuff was on her mind. I couldn't think about mind-blowing matters for more than sixteen minutes since my head whoopsie, so I just glided on the air currents and blanked my mind out. It was a pleasant feeling, thinking about nothing.

"FANG!" Max roared. I looked at her, and she glared at me.

"...What?"

Max clenched her jaw. "You were spacing. Like, majorly. I said your name like six times. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah." I replied, and Max rolled her eyes.

"Anyway, get ready to grab and go." she told me. "I'll get the kids out. You help Iggy."

"Roger." I did a mock salute. We angled down toward the hospital, and Nudge propped open the window again. Max did a super hot, awesome shoulder roll into the room, pulling in her wings with sharp precision. I turned up at the last moment, flipping gracefully and landing in a crouch on the windowsill.

Iggy had his eyebrows furrowed. Gazzy stared at me. "See, this is why we don't let you out at Halloween."

"I'm not that scary." I shrugged, walking past him. "But don't forget to look under your bed tonight, Gasman. I hear the monsters like peanut butter."

"Hey!"

Max whacked me in the back of my head and then threw our new backpacks at all of us. She opened the door and took a look around. She swung it shut and shoved a chair underneath the knob (jerks don't put locks on the doors...they're just determined to make our lives that much harder). Then she turned around, all seriousness.

"We found a house. We're leaving now." She stated. I wondered if normal kids' parents dropped a house move on them as quickly. Max stared at me. "Help Iggy into some clothes."

"Why...okay." I stepped forward and yanked some jeans we'd bought Iggy from Target out of my backpack. Max shoved all the little kids out of the window.

"When you're done fly out." She said. "We'll wait."

Getting Iggy into pants wasn't very easy when he was blind, he was injured, and he weighed a lot more when he was conscious. Getting him into a shirt was easier, even with his hurt arm. Sure, he cried out a few times, but we got the damn t-shirt on him, didn't we?

...The answer is yes, by the way.

"You ready, big guy?" I asked casually, smirking at Iggy holding his arm and tripping over the bed stand. Iggy cuffed me on the back of the head. Apparently that was the place to hit me now.

"As ready as I'll ever be." He muttered, shuffling toward the window. He shook out his wings, rolling his shoulders.

"You go," I told him. "I'll be right behind you."

"I'll try to believe that, Fangles."

Iggy knelt on the windowsill and launched out with difficulty, flapping his wings drastically and cursing profusely. I jumped out after him, closing the window behind me. I called to Iggy and we flew up toward the rest of the flock. Max waved and started toward the house.

It didn't take long to reach the field near the log cabin. Iggy was surprisingly fine with the flight. I thought he'd start puking or something; he had been close to doing that even before he got shot. Gasman was over the moon that Iggy was up and out of the hospital, jumping around and doing flips in midair and saying that once they got to Canada they were going to blow up an entire valley. Angel held Celeste in her arms, and Nudge carried Total. We started walking through the woods until we reached the house. We all gathered on the porch.

"This is so awesome." Nudge exclaimed, bouncing up and down. Total griped and whined with every hop. "We have a home again!"

"Just for a few days, hon." Max replied, looking at the door. "We'll have to pick the lock."

"I'll do it!" Gasman cried, jumping forward. He looked back at Iggy with a smile on his face. "You can rest, Iggy. I'll show you how good I've gotten!"

Iggy had an uncomfortable grin. "Uh, sure, Gasser."

It took almost twice as long as it would have if Iggy had done it, but we got inside no problem. The house was unfurnished but carpeted in some places, so we could sleep on the floor comfortably. Angel and Gasman flew around excitedly through the halls as Max plopped our bags on the ground. Nudge ran up the stairs and poked her head back toward us.

"There are rooms up here!" she called. "We can sleep in rooms!"

Sure, it seemed silly, but if you ever bunk with the Gasman you will understand.

After some dinner of hospital food and Chex Mix we settled into the carpeted rooms to sleep; Gasman and I, the girls, and Iggy on his own. Gazzy and I were asleep instantly. Peanut butter takes a lot out of you.

I never really have dreams, per say. Mostly nightmares. My dark side follows me into my dreams and tortures me sometimes. The other times I dream about Max or Jeb dying.

This time...sucked ass.

"Fang." Max whispered. She came up behind me and grabbed my arm. "Fang!"

"Help!" Angel screamed from the distance. "Max! Fang! Help!"

Nudge screamed. Gazzy cried. I couldn't see any of them. I turned to Max.

"Where's Iggy?" I asked, but no sound came out. Max started to drift away. I ran after her, but she disappeared. Angel shrieked. A teddy bear dropped to the floor in front of me. Gasman yelled in pain. Nudge went silent.

"Fang..."

I looked up right into the barrel of a gun in the hands of Ari. He cackled maniacally. I was frozen on the spot. The flock yelled to me.

"Fang! Fang!"

Max screamed. Ari pulled the trigger.

I whipped upright into a sitting position, breathing heavily. I looked over at Gasman, who was asleep on the floor. I jumped up and opened the door, feeling the sweat trail down my neck. I fell into the hallway, stumbling toward the stairs. Suddenly I slammed into something, and I looked up at Iggy. He was standing rigidly with one hand on the railing. There was a small knife in his hand. He swung his head at me.

"Sorry Ig," I mumbled, tripping over myself. "I was...I was just..."

My eyes warily found their way to his. They were clear as day, and they locked right into mine, looking at me fiercely. He stared at me, his lips contorting into a cruel sneer. My breath left my body.

He could see.

"Hey, Fang." The imposter whispered in Iggy's voice. I backed up, slamming into the wall. He spun the blade in his fingers. "Nice to see you."

"I-Iggy-" I stammered.

He lunged.

So, you know when I said there weren't going to be cliffhangers...I lied. XD Sorry. But...I need your opinions, comments, revelations, anything! I'll try to write and update sooner, but until then, that little review button is waiting for your love. :)