Island Time

Chapter 21

When I woke up, Angel was still in my arms. I stroked her face a little, not realizing for a moment where we were. I had dreamt that things were normal again. Well, as normal as they could get in my life. That we were camped out, still trying to save the world. Fang had been keeping watch next to me while talking to Iggy. Angel had had a bad dream and was cuddled against me. Isn't that weird? Knowing in a dream that someone else had a dream?

Anyways, I didn't realize that I was awake for a moment. Then I realized that someone was staring at me.

"Hey," I whispered, it coming out huskier than I intended. I cleared my throat and tried again. "Hey."

Fang, who was leaning up against a tree, just staring at Angel and I, nodded as a greeting.

I slowly got up, not wanting to wake Angel up. When I was gone, she just rolled onto her stomach, making no notion of being awake. Going over to Fang, I wrapped my arms around him.

"Dylan's gonna go with you."

Fang slowly put his own arms around me. "Really?"

"Yeah."

Fang kissed my neck. "I want to deal with Jamie and them before I go."

"Fang-"

"Only because I don't want you to have to deal with a bunch of guys while me and Dylan are both gone. All you'll have as for sure support is Iggy."

"And the Gasman."

Fang just blinked. "I just don't want you to have a lot to deal with while I'm gone. That's all."

I leaned against him. "I told Dylan that he can be our son if he does this."

Fang paused. "I'm going to strike that comment up to the fact that you're feeling weird about Angel being back."

"Oh, no, I really told him that."

Nodding slightly, Fang let me go. "Well, you have fun playing house while I go out and take care of real business, alright?"

I held up my hands, fingers spread apart. Without a word, Fang held up his own, quickly interlacing our fingers. We just stared at each other for a moment before he spoke again.

"You're so freaking weird."

"I know, huh?"

It was still odd, being able to see both Fang's eyes without any hair falling in front of them. His hair was growing of course, but he still looked…boyish. Cute. He looked more like a son than Dylan.

"You should go find Dylan and plan with him," I told Fang, still holding our hands up.

"Okay."

Neither of us moved.

"Uh, now would be nice, Fang."

"Uh-uh."

"Why?"

"I want to stare at you a little longer."

"That's cute. You're cute, Fang. Creepy as heck, but cute."

"Want creepy?" Fang still just stared into my eyes, his face deadpanned. "I want to cut your face off and keep it in my backpack."

"…Yeah, you can go now." I shook my hands free of his.

"What?"

"Just-Just go. Now. Bye."

Fang laughed a little bit before turning and walking off.

Just…yeah.

Going back over to Angel, I sat down next to her, stroking her head gently.

"Max?" She whispered.

"What?"

"My head kind of hurts."

"Maybe it's from over sleeping."

"Maybe."

I kept stroking her head. "Are you hungry?"

"Yes."

"I'll go get you food. You stay-"

"No, I wanna go with you."

"It's fine, Ange. I'll be right-"

"Max, I want to go." She sat up. "I'm going."

Rolling my eyes, I said, "Fine."

Not really feeling like finding the food, I took Angel down to the beach and then a cave where I knew Iggy kept his secret stash. Unfortunately, he was there when I got to it.

"Hey, Iggy," I said, walking into the cave, Angel following. "Can we have some of your food?"

At the moment, he was gathering his own food from the pile. "Have you contributed to the cause, Max? No. Why should I help you?"

"Angel's hungry too."

"Well, well, well. Little Angel's hungry, huh?" Iggy walked backwards out of the cave, which was further off from the other caves. Dylan had told me about it, as he and Iggy conspired together to make it. He feared that with as unpopular as I was around here that we might need to start hording food. "You can eat, Angel. Not Max though."

I just rolled my eyes. As soon as Iggy was gone, I got myself a few pieces of fruit before following Angel out. On the way back to our spot, we ran into Fang again.

"I can't find Dylan," he called to me. We were a few feet away from each other, so I headed over to talk to him.

"Have you tried the ship?"

"Not yet," Fang said, shaking his head a little bit. We were on the beach and I wished that I didn't have my shoes on, so that I could feel the sand between my toes. "You eating lunch?"

"Yeah. You want to eat with us?"

"Us?"

"Yeah," I said, turning slightly. "Angel's right- Angel?"

I looked back to the forest which we had just come out of. Fang craned his neck, looking behind me.

"There she is. Come here, Ange. What's wrong?" Fang stepped around me, going over to her. "Are you sick? Does stomach hurt? You need me to carry you?"

Still, she just stood there, watching Fang as he came closer. When he finally got to her, she attacked.

"Fang!" I rushed to get her off of him. Fang, not wanting to fight Angel back, had just let her knock him to the ground. She was snapping at his face, but he had his hands up, holding her back.

"Max, get her off me," he said through clenched teeth. I could tell that this was freaking him out, but I didn't know what to do. When I pushed her away, Angel just jumped back, staring at me. Then she took off.

"What the hell was that?" Fang stood up slowly. "Angel!"

"I thought she was better. She's been better."

"That's better?" Fang shook his head before taking off after her. I followed. When we found her again, she was back where her and I had been sleeping before, napping once again.

"Don't touch her," I told Fang.

"What?"

"You're the only one that she bites. You don't touch her."

"What are trying to say, Max?" Fang frowned at me. "I have to carry her to the ship."

"And risk getting bit?"

"Then what?"

"Just…" I trailed off as I went over to the young girl. Slowly lifting her into my arms, I tested how it felt to have weight in them before beginning to walk. "I've got her."

Fang still followed me to the ship. When I took to the air, he was right behind me. Landing on the ship, I decided that I was way too sick to be dealing with this… I sighed as Fang led me to a room. Gently, I laid Angel down on the bed.

"She sure does pass out enough," I muttered, but Fang just shook his head. We locked her in the room, though we both knew that there was always the chance of her kicking down the door like last time. Still, neither Fang nor I could be the ones to chain Angel. We both loved her too much.

We went to find my mother. It wasn't hard. She was in her makeshift lab, talking excitedly to Jeb. I reminded myself to be angry about that later. Gasman, who was with them, was also clearly excited. He looked like he was going to say something, but then my mother spoke.

"Max," my mother said turning to face me. "You will not believe it. I think I know- Oh. Fang."

He nodded at her a little bit, not saying anything. That was my job, after all.

"Angel's sick again. We were-"

"I know why though," my mother cut me off.

"What do you mean?"

"Angel has been poisoned," she said hurriedly. "And you, you've been cured."

"What?"

"Well, you were. Royce would cure you only to poison you with something else. He was testing."

"Testing what?"

"You getting sick gave him the perfect opportunity to play with Fang's…ability."

I glanced at Fang, but he just shrugged. Going back to my mom, I asked, "What ability?"

"He holds the key to immortality," Jeb cut in, which got me to cross my arms.

"Is this what that's about?" I moved towards Fang. "Come on, Fang, we'll go find some way to help Angel that's serious. I can't believe you're letting Jeb ruin you again, Mom."

"No, no, Max," she said, shaking her head. "He's quite right. When you first got sick, you remember how Royce kept insisting that Fang had to be tested, much more so than Dylan? When he left, he took many samples with him, some of them having to do with Fang."

"Look," Fang said, moving to stand in front of me. He reached out to grab the Gasman's hand, pulling him back. "What does this have to do with Angel? And I'm not down with Jeb being involved with this."

My mother became defensive rather quickly while my supposed father shrunk back. "This has everything to do with Angel."

"How, Mom?" I pushed Fang away when he tried to treat me like Gasman and grab my arm. "What happened?"

"I've experimented with a few things. Fang's samples react badly to Angel's while yours defeat the disease." My mother was excited again, clearly overjoyed by her findings. "You're the cure to Angel, Max, while Fang is the poison."

I paused, glancing at my boyfriend. "Angel did get better when you left the island. Then when you touched her, you transformed her back to bad."

Fang frowned at me. "It doesn't work like that, Max."

"I could. Huh, Mom? Couldn't it?" I was happy again, forgetting all about Jeb and his obsession with what was mine. "Don't you think?"

"That seems like a stretch, Max," she said slowly. "Though, it could be…I don't know. It's a heavy coincidence, if it's not."

"See, Fang?"

He still just frowned as he stared at my mother. "Why is Jeb here then?"

"I need help, Fang. I can't do everything on my own."

The Gasman, who Fang still had a hand on, nodded. "I helped."

"That's great, Gazzy," I mumbled, still concerned with the issues at hand. Fang still just stared at my mother. I was still slightly behind him and saw when his wings twitched. He was nervous.

"Then you can fix Angel?" I asked.

"Not yet," Mom said, shaking her head a little. "I need to play around with the samples first. And there is also something else that concerns me."

"What?" I asked, moving so that my back was against Fang. I was starting to feel weak, my stomach churning. I wanted to go lay down with Angel and sleep forever.

"He has this virus and, assuming he created the one that afflicted Angel, he also has that one. Also, he has samples from Fang." She stared at me for a moment. "He's very dangerous with all those things."

"What I don't understand is why he just let Max and Dylan escape," Jeb said, shaking his head.

"Maybe he's against caging kids? It's all the rage now, not abusing teens."

Jeb sent me a look. "Royce was once a very skilled scientist. You should have seen the things he created. Of course, lives were taken from his experiments. They can't all be successes. So, no, Max, I don't think that he's above torturing for a cause."

Fang's eyes found Jeb's, making the other man look away. Then he looked back at my mom. "If you knew all this, how come you let him come to this island?"

She rolled her eyes, clearly fed up with all of this. "I do not know everyone in the world, Fang. I knew only what I had heard of him and that was that he was very intelligent and successful in his work. Jeb clearly knew all of this, but apparently Max has some sort of vendetta against him."

Apparently? I was so done with her. "Oh, so you're saying this is my fault?"

My mother paused, counting to ten it seemed. When she looked back at me, she was calm again. "No, Max, I'm not. And if I had known about Royce, I would not have let him stay."

I felt like I needed to puke, but I was trying to ignore it. Swallowing, I said, "Okay."

"Now, what Jeb says does make sense. He let you leave too easily," my mother went on.

"Almost like…he wanted this," Jeb said, to which Mom nodded.

"Wanted what?" I asked. "He set fire to the island. He thought that everyone was dead."

My mom looked at me. "But what if he didn't?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if he only set fire to the island so that Fang and the others left. He knew that Fang would take over that other ship. I mean, think about it. Fang, you were there. Those weren't all of the scientists. We thought that some of them had stayed behind on the island, remember? But Max didn't see any when she was there. That must have been a decoy ship."

"You think those were the whitecoats that he didn't care about," Fang clarified, removing his hand from the Gasman's shoulder.

"Right." Mom nodded a little bit. "He wanted Max and Dylan to find their way back to you and Angel. But why? I've looked at Dylan's samples. He still has the original virus."

"He never gave Dylan anything," I told her.

"He didn't want Dylan cured," she agreed. "He wanted that virus, the one you have, and Angel's to all be on this island. But why? Dylan didn't take a direct hit, he doesn't have the full virus you originally had, Max. He can't transfer it. As far as we can tell, your new virus and Angel's aren't contagious either. Why would he do this?"

"What if he wanted them all together?"

Fang sighed. "Gazzy-"

"Let him speak," I said, elbowing Fang gently. God, I felt like I needed to pass out. I was now leaning heavily on Fang, but he didn't seem to mind. "What is it, Gasman?"

"What if he wanted all of you to be together?"

"Why?"

"I don't know," he said, frowning. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open, much less listening to him. "I mean, maybe because then he'd have all of the viruses in one place and he'd have Fang's immortality. And they would grow and morph together. Then, when he wants them, he'll come back for them with the other whitecoats that actually got away."

Jeb shrugged a little bit. "It is plausible."

"Then what? You don't think Fang should go out looking for him?" I asked, holding down a groan as my arm began to feel on fire again. If I was cured of that problem, why was my arm still black and painful?

"I don't think that's a good idea, no," my mom said. "I think that Fang needs to stay away from Angel though, incase what you said before is correct."

My boyfriend frowned. "Well, it's not. There's nothing wrong with me being around Angel."

"And there's also nothing wrong with letting Dylan, Max, and Iggy take care of her until we can sort this all out."

Fang stood there for a moment before turning to walk away. "So you've cured nothing, still have no idea how Angel got sick, and don't know what to do about Royce. Great, you've really accomplished something. Amazing."

Gazzy ran after him, but I stayed for a moment.

"Do you still need help, Mom?"

"You look sick, Max. You should probably go lay down somewhere."

I just looked at her. "And leave you alone with Jeb?"

She sighed loudly. "You're still sick. Send the Gasman back in here once he's done with Fang."

I went off to find my boyfriend, already knowing where he would be. When I got to Angel's room, she was still sleeping, him and her brother standing by her bedside.

"You have to stay away, Fang."

He didn't even look behind me. "Don't pass out in here, Max. Let me take you back to the beach."

"Gazzy needs to go finish helping my mom."

"But, Max-"

"Please? You were such a big help before."

"Fang said that nothing got accomplished."

Fang shook his head a little bit, glancing at Gasman. "And nothing will unless you go help. You want Max and Angel to get better, right?"

"I still think a zombie with boobs would be cool…"

"Go."

After he was gone, Fang stared at Angel for another minute before going over to me.

"I'll send Dylan and Iggy in here," he told me as he led me out of the room. I nodded a little bit. When we got back to the beach, Fang took me back to our spot, where Dylan was waiting.

"Go look after Angel," Fang said to him before telling him what room he was in. "Trips off, by the way."

"Am I still the son, Max?" He asked before looking at my face. "Oh. Sick, huh?"

"Just screw off. And find Iggy to help you," Fang ordered. Dylan ran a hand down my arm before leaving us alone. Fang made me lay down before taking his hoodie off me.

"Hey-"

"It stinks. I'll wash it for you." He left me with that, but for some reason, I couldn't sleep. I was just laying there when Jason showed up.

"Angel," he was calling. "Are you here, Angel?"

I sat up as he came into the clearing. "She's not here, Jay. She's sick again. She's on the ship."

The little boy stopped in front of me, his too long hair falling into his face. He needed a haircut.

"Is she okay?"

"She's with Iggy and Dylan right now," I told him. "She's just not feeling well."

"Oh. Can I see her?"

"Not right now. When she's feeling better, I'm sure you can."

"Well, okay, Max," he said, turning to walk away. He ran into Fang, which made him growl.

"Making a habit of this?" Fang asked him but the other boy just pushed him before running off. I stared at Fang.

"Going to explain that?"

He went over to a tree and hung his hoodie, which was now wet, from it. "He thinks that we're enemies."

"Why?"

"Same reason Jamie and I were, I guess."

"Does that make you and Jeb enemies?"

"Not all," Fang said, coming to sit down next to me. "What makes us enemies is that fact that he tries to hurt my family."

"You sure are throwing the word family down these days."

Fang just stared at me, his face solemn. "I lost you, Max. I could still lose Angel. For now, we're all complete. Why wouldn't I like that?"

I moved closer to him, leaning my head against his thigh. "I told Dylan that you were the dad."

"Am I?"

"I hope so."

"If you're the mom, I guess I have to be."

"You're pretty good at it."

"How do you figure?"

"You shot Nudge's boyfriend. I don't think it gets any better than that. Then you got drunk with my brother."

Fang scratched the back of his head. "So you found out?"

"Yep."

"Don't hold it against Iggy that he fingered Nadia."

I paused. "What?"

Fang paled. "You didn't-"

"No."

"Max-"

"Is this what the island really is? Just a huge sex thing?"

"For everyone, but us. Have you even heard what Ella and Iggy have done? It makes us look that a preschool relationship."

I frowned. "No wonder you were trying to keep Nudge out this."

"Yeah. Everyone over fourteen has, like, done everything."

"Except us."

"And the losers."

I closed my eyes, sighing slightly. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"You know, making you stay a loser."

"Nah, it's fine, Max." Fang patted my side. "I'm not a man whore like Iggy."

I yawned a little. "You're not?"

"No. My hands suits me just fine."

"You're nasty."

"Just truthful."

Breathing deeply, I tried to keep his scent with me as I fell asleep.

"Lay down with me?"

"Gladly," Fang whispered as he moved to do so. I settled against his body, now content. "I love you, Max. And like you said before, that first day when we were off the island, our relationship isn't just a sex thing."

"It's really not," I mumbled, starting to fall asleep.

Fang kissed my head as he opened his wings, letting one of them fall over me. "It'll just make it better when we do start doing shit."

"I thought I said no more cursing?"

"No sex and no cursing? God, spending so much time with Dylan gave you some weird ideas about what teen boys are like."

I fell asleep before I could respond.