I'm totally not doing this while I should be writing my English speech. Which is due tomorrow. And has to be ten minutes long. And I haven't started yet.

Totally not.

And hey! I wrote this yesterday, and I updated last on Sunday (Saturday for you). So what's that? Like, two updates in three days? I AM BLOODY AMAZING. (Hah, not really. I'm just very sporadic about my updates. Like, very sporadic.)

Anyways! You've been yelling for romance for a while now, and, well... TA DA! Here ya go. By far the fluffiest chapter I have written in my entire life. I hope you're happy. I have a toothache from all the sweetness. Ow. (I also have a hand that is bruised all over and has swollen to twice its normal size. It hurts to move... pity me.)

The footsteps that echoed off the cold stone floor seemed excruciatingly loud to Nudge. She flinched every time her foot hit the ground, convinced that the clicking of their shoes was going to wake the entire building. Couldn't someone hear them walking? Surely someone would be alert to their footfalls. Nudge knew that she shouldn't worry about something so seemingly trivial, especially after ditching Max and Fang like that, but she couldn't help herself.
Of course, Nudge was consumed with worry about that, too. She felt so guilty about leaving them on their own like that, but she had been so scared, so certain that something had gone wrong, or was going to. She had panicked, she had demanded to turn around. She had persuaded Iggy to come with her so that she wouldn't have to walk through the black on her own. The dark terrified Nudge, just like so many other things, and Iggy's presence soothed her, calmed her. It reassured her that nothing was going to go wrong.

And yet no sooner had she reached her cell then she was having second thoughts about turning back. The door was still wide open and inviting, the electric lock giving off a soft light, just the way they had left it, but she hesitated to enter.
'Iggy,' she said after a moment, turning to the boy beside her. She knew that he wasn't very happy with her for making him turn back with her. But still he looked at her with a slight smile on his face. He always smiled when he looked at her.
'Yeah?'
'Do you think –' Nudge bit her lip and then continued. 'D'you think we should have gone with Max and Fang?'
Iggy sighed and leaned back against the bars of the cell with his arms folded. She could hardly see him in the blackness, but he had bright eyes that were iridescent and they had a sort of glow in the dark, like a cat's. They were mesmerizing.
'I think we should have gone with them,' Iggy said finally, his tone harsh. 'But we're back here now. Because of you, I may add. There's nothing we can do about that.'
Nudge winced. He was angry at her. 'I'm sorry,' she said in a small voice, wringing her hands together nervously. 'I'm just... I'm not used to doing this sort of stuff, alright? I mean, it's alright for you and Max and Fang. You guys broke the law all the time. But I'm not brave like you. I don't really know how to break the rules.' She gave a shaky laugh. 'Every time I tried I would chicken out. Like now.'
She looked at her feet.
When Iggy spoke again, his tone had softened and he sounded like he was smiling, although Nudge couldn't tell for sure because of the dark. 'Being criminal does not equal to being brave, Nudge,' he said gently. 'It's kinda cowardly, if I'm being truthful.'
'Well then, why do you do it?'
He chuckled quietly. 'It's addictive,' he grinned. 'Once you've got the bug...'
Nudge smiled as well and then looked at her empty cell. She hated that Max wouldn't be with her, she felt honestly awful. But that bed... she was so tired. She didn't even care that it was hard and thin and full of holes. She just wanted to go to sleep.
She sighed. 'We better get back to our cells,' she said. 'We've already wasted enough time dallying around here. Someone will come along soon.'
'Yeah,' he agreed. 'Maybe Max and Fang will turn up soon.'
'Night,' Nudge said. Silently, she cursed herself. She would have loved to talk to Iggy more; he was the most interesting person she had ever met. And yet, somehow she found herself tongue tied – where on earth did her motor mouth disappear to? She felt like banging her head in the metal bar beside her.
Iggy turned away to go to his own cell and Nudge went into hers. She was stopped by the sound of his voice behind her.
'Nudge, wait.'
She looked at him once more and was startled into taking a step back by his close proximity. From this distance, she could distinguish between every freckle on his pale skin, every separate strand of reddish blonde hair. He was breathing fast, his thin chest rising and falling rapidly. Instinctively, Nudge felt her own breath quicken until it was leaving her in little pants.
'I-' Iggy cut himself off and looked away as though frustrated. He met Nudge's eyes again. 'They will be okay, Nudge.' He said. 'They're Max and Fang, after all.'
'You talk of them as though they're invincible,' I muttered. 'They're only human, Ig. Just like you and me.' He didn't seem very human right now though, Nudge couldn't help but reflect. He was standing in what little moonlight came through the barred window and strips of silver light played across his face. He looked like an angel. His face was vulnerable, totally open to be read.
She cocked her head suddenly. Looking at him like that, so different from his normal snarky self, Nudge had had a ridiculous urge. Not a good idea, she told herself firmly. Bad idea. Awful idea.
She would do it.
Slowly, she stepped forward so that was as close as she possibly could be to him without touching. He gazed at her with wide blue eyes.
'They have to be okay, Iggy,' she said softly, her voice cracking as she said his name. 'They have to be.'
And then she stood as tall as possible on her tip-toes, placed her hands on his shoulders, and she kissed him.
It only lasted a few seconds, she knew, but it felt like hours to Nudge. In the few moments that her mouth was pressed against his, she felt so alive, so much more so than she had ever done in her entire life. She had kissed other boys before, of course. She had had several boyfriends in her sixteen years of life. But Iggy was different. His lips were warm beneath her own; they were soft and firm at all at once. He was startled in the beginning, she could tell, but after a moment his hands moved to her waist and he pulled her closer to him. And then she was lost to the sensation. She just let herself go.
When she stepped away again, his face was flushed and his eyes were shining. There was a wondering expression on his face. Nudge knew that she must look much the same way, bright eyed and red faced and like her dreams had just come true. It was, after all, exactly how she felt.
She smiled. 'Good night, Iggy.'

Nudge wasn't very tired anymore.

xxx

Max POV

They took us to what I could only assume was a holding cell. It was a big white room with a metal door that locked from the outside and had no windows. In fact, it had nothing in it at all; it was totally blank, with nothing at all to decorate. The walls were so perfectly white, I could barely tell where one ended and another began – the corners were practically invisible. On the ceiling, there was a large light that spread harsh white light throughout the room. It gave my arms a sickly pallor.

When Alicia and Dylan had left, I slumped heavily to the ground in one of the corners with my arms wrapped tightly around me. It was cold in here, much colder than it had been in the operating room or the main facility.

Fang slumped down beside me and sat perfectly still with his legs drawn up to his chest and his cheek resting on his knee. His eyes were closed and his long lashes cast spindly thin shadows over his sharp cheekbones. He was breathing smoothly and quietly; I thought that he might have fallen asleep, somehow. He just looked that calm. Even in the situation we were in he refused to let his emotions take a hold of him. With my twisted mind, I managed to find that both tragic and endearing in the same way: tragic that he was so closed off and reserved, endearing that he was so controlled. It was a very strange feeling.

I gazed at him, watching the way his eyes twitched under their lids, how his chest rose and fell in a slow pattern of breaths, the shadows that his hair cast as it covered his face. A slight smirk appeared on his lips. 'Had enough sightseeing?' he asked. His dark eyes opened and met my own. I started in surprise.

'How did you know I was looking at you?' I asked, quickly looking away from him and picking at a loose thread on my clothing. I refused to meet his gaze.

'You were quiet,' Fang shrugged. 'You're only quiet when you're thinking about something. That something being me, obviously.'

I scowled and smacked his leg. 'You couldn't have known I was thinking you. Maybe I was thinking about Dylan and Alicia, or that bitch, Brigid.'

'Yeah, but why ponder them when there's the likes of me to obsess over?'

'You know, it would have been nice to find out that you were this conceited before now,' I said sourly, regarding him and wrinkling my nose.

He sighed and the playful look deserted his eyes. 'Just trying to lighten the mood, Max.'

I looked down. 'Do you think we can get out of here?' I asked him quietly. 'Honestly.'

There was silence. I looked up to see him biting his lip in an unusual display of uncertainty. Finally, he said, 'I don't know, Max. We don't know if we don't try, do we?'

I nodded. 'You're right.' Getting up, I quickly skirted the perimeters of the room, looking for cracks, weaknesses, anything that could let us out of the place. But nothing presented itself to me. The walls were smooth and high. The door was edgeless. As far as I could see, we were trapped.

I huffed and sat back down in another corner, now opposite Fang. He had sat quietly the entire time I had been prowling the room, watching me search it with those alert eyes of his.

'I don't see how we're getting out of this, Fang,' I said hopelessly. 'Let's face it: they're going to leave us down here to rot, and then when they find a use for us, they're going to turn us into more mindless zombies, just like Alicia and Dylan. We're not getting out of it.'

He said nothing.

'I'm going to sleep,' I snapped, throwing myself onto the ground. I was cold, I was hungry, I was pissed. I just wanted this to be over already.

A few minuted later and I was shivering violently. My teeth were chattering loudly and my hands felt like ice. I suppose moving around had kept me cold. But now...

There was movement behind me and a moment later, a soft, warm heaviness settled over me. I sat up quickly and Fang's thick black jacket fell off me. I raised an eyebrow and picked it up, examining it. 'A jacket?' I asked snidely, looking up a Fang who was standing a few feet away, now only wearing his grey prisoner-issue t-shirt. 'Isn't that, like, the most cliché move in the book? Come on.'

Fang rolled his eyes. 'I'm not cold, you are,' he said slowly, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. 'Just take the damn jacket and don't argue for once.'

I narrowed my eyes, but didn't release the jacket from my grasp. 'Chauvinistic asshole,' I muttered.

However, the jacket was warm – well, not warm, but warmer – and it did indeed help me sleep. I drifted off into uneasy dreams of needles and operating tables and I was only woken when I felt the hand on my shoulder, shaking me awake.

I jerked upright and snapped out a fist – it connected with flesh and my shoulder was released.

'Ow!' snapped a familiar voice. 'God dammit, Max! It's only me.'

My eyes flicked open and I saw Fang in front of me, rubbing his jaw and glaring at me through slitted eyes.

'Oh.' I sat up and smiled apologetically. 'Sorry. Reflex.'

'Sure it was.' Fang shook his head. 'Anyway, I want you to come see something. And give me back the jacket – I'm freezing.'

I handed over the jacket and followed him over to the door where he was pointing at the hinges in a way that clearly said, 'Look! Look at what I found!'

I blinked. 'Um... yes?'

Fang rolled his eyes in exasperation. If he was prone to emotions, he would have smacked his forehead at my obvious idiocy. 'The hinges.'

I studied the hinges closely. They looked totally ordinary to me. I shrugged. 'What about them?' I asked him.

'They're loose,' he explained. 'Like, really loose. I was pulling on one before and it came right off.' He showed me a rusty nail in his hand.

I was slowly getting it. 'You think we should take the door off?'

'Well, what other choice do we have?' Fang said. 'If they're stupid enough to let the hinges rust away...' he gave a sudden and surprising grin. I was struck by how bright his teeth were, and how his smile tended to light up his entire face. It was like there was a whole other side to him that was only let loose when he smiled. I loved getting to be the one to see it most often. It made me feel like I somehow was special to him. Jeez, I thought to myself, you sound like a lovesick loon. What is wrong with you?

Shaking my head, I joined him at the door and ran my hands over the metal. My fingers came off with a slight orange coating of rust. 'How long do you think it's been since these were replaced?' I asked him.

'Must be years,' Fang frowned. 'It's a lot of degradation. I wonder how the water got in.'

'To think that Brigid's been doing this stuff for years, though,' I said, shuddering as I considered the horrible possibility. 'She totally insane, y'know.'

He nodded in fervent agreement.

I moved forward and tugged at a bolt in the door. It gave way very slightly. Another couple of pulls and some more twists and I was holding the nail in my palm.

'You know,' I said thoughtfully, staring at the nail, 'I think we could actually do this.' I dropped it to the floor with a clink. A satisfied smile was spreading over my face.

We spent the next half an hour pulling with all our might at the nails, twisting and tugging feverishly, and eventually we had a collection of rusty old nails rolling over the floors as we dropped them. There was only once left, which Fang bent to undo.

I glanced at my watch – 7:30. The others would be heading to breakfast by now. I felt a pang as I thought of Iggy and Nudge. Had they gotten back alright?

'Max!' Fang stood up, clutching the last nail. I'd never seen him so excited. His face was slightly flushed and his dark eyes were bright with anticipation. Behind him, the door had been placed carefully and silently on the wall beside it. The doorway was clear and empty.

I grinned. We were out.

Soo, I was gonna continue, but I figured this was long enough. Didn't you love the Nudge/Iggy bit at the beginning? Please say yes.

Also, you know what? I swore that I was gonna put some Fax in this chapter, but (god dammit) I just can't seem to do it. HELP ME.

Review! Give me suggestions on how to manage the Max/Fang relationship! I'm STUCK!

P.S – All the writing has made my hand really fucking hurt, so you better shower me with sympathy...