Holy crap the new Gallagher Girls book is AWESOME! Love it! That will probably be my next fic, just as a heads up. I do not own Maximum Ride of anyone associated with it, just to remind you.

*Fang's POV*

"Nat! Look out!" I shouted, ducking under a punch, and shooting up with a flying uppercut. The Eraser I was fighting flew backwards spitting blood.

It was too late though. I saw the Eraser grab Nat around her waist trying to drag her off. She was fighting with everything that she had, but as she knocked down one Eraser, three more were ready to take his place.

I looked at her making sure she was ready and I saw her nod slightly giving me the okay. I jumped off as quickly as I could and shot across at a low height. Nat held her hand up, and I grabbed it, dragging her behind me in the air. She looked up and winked, letting go of my hand. She stumbled for a second, but recovered quickly running to keep up speed and jumping into the air folding out her wings.

We met up with AJ at the rendezvous point, approximately five miles away. He was already on his laptop, typing like mad.

"What is the deal? They really don't want us to get to this girl." I said in frustration, slamming my pack on the ground.

We'd started going after the girl AJ had found, Luca Morris, but have already been attacked by Erasers three times in two days.

"I don't know. I'm trying to break into Itex's database, but their encryption software is really good. We may just have to find out when we get there." AJ answered, sighing in frustration.

"Okay, let's get going. The sooner we get to this girl, the sooner we'll have one more person to help us keep the Erasers off of us. Pack up." I ordered, throwing my pack on.

"SHIT!" AJ yelled dropping his laptop and his pack as three Erasers broke through the woods. Nat and I dropped out packs and got ready to fight again.

"AJ, U and A!" I ordered, but it was too late. An Eraser crouched on all fours, and jumped, catching him in midair.

"Unh!" I heard Nat grunt as she flew into the Eraser, her shoulder colliding with his ribs, making him drop AJ. In between punches and kicks I saw AJ hit the ground with a thud. Luckily they weren't too far off the ground. He would hurt tomorrow but nothing would be broken.

I was fighting off three Erasers at once. I saw Nat taking on two at the same time, struggling but surviving. When I turned back I noticed I had lost one. Normally losing an Eraser would be something to be happy about, but something wasn't right.

"Run, you idiot!" I heard Nat shout but it was too late. The missing Eraser was diving towards AJ. I winced, knowing that his claws would be shredding AJ's side to shreds, but as I kept fighting I heard a higher pitched scream than I expected.

Nat.

I saw blood staining her shirt fast. She looked like she was dizzy and about to faint, but she kept swinging, kicking, grabbing and throwing all the same, and boy, was she in a mood.

Nat had been trained to kill, but that didn't mean that she liked it…usually at least. But this time I saw sheer anger as she literally began tearing Erasers apart with her bare hands. I'd never seen anything like it, and I've seen some weird stuff. Necks snapped, blood spilled, and body parts went flying.

By the time we were done most of the Erasers were lying on the ground, some of them in more than one place. AJ looked like he'd just seen a ghost, scared out of his mind. And Nat barely had her eyes open.

"Fang…" She muttered stumbling forward. I ran to her as fast as I could, catching her before she hit the ground.

"AJ! " I yelled for a third time before his eyes lost the glazed over look and I realized he was paying attention. "Get us a place to stay tonight…quick!" I ordered.

I lifted up Nat's shirt to see the wounds and the blood pouring out quickly. I tried to remember all the times Iggy had done first aid. I'd need bandages, and a lot of them. The wounds were deep too. She'd need stitches. I only knew two people who could do that, and I didn't think Jeb or Dr. Martinez would welcome me back with open arms right now.

AJ came through finding us a hotel ten minutes away in a small town outside of Omaha. I changed shirts since mine was stained with blood and tried to act as natural as possible. Is this how freaked out Max was whenever one of us got injured? My heart was racing, I was sweating like crazy and I knew my hands were shaking.

Maybe I'd screwed up by leaving Max. Maybe I wasn't cut out to be leader. Someone might die because…Shut up, act natural. Save her life, wallow in self pity later. God, how did Max do this?

I opened the door to a third floor room and AJ flew in carrying Nat in his arms.

"I need some gauze bandages, a needle, thread, and a whole lot of antiseptic." I ordered AJ throwing him a wad of cash from my pocket.

"Are you serious? Are you really…?"

"GO!" I yelled. I grabbed one of the hotel towels, pressing it to her side to stop the bleeding. It started slowing, but didn't stop at all. I pulled away long enough to pull up the laptop and click one of the bookmarked sites. I'd hoped I'd never have to use it, but I would today. It was a wilderness survival site, describing how to extract poison from wild animal bites, scrounge up edible food, and yes, stitch together an open wound when you weren't in civilization.

"Got it!" AJ flew in skidding and threw a plastic bag from a pharmacy on the bed where Nat was laying.

I took a deep breath. Don't think about it. Just do it. Don't think. Just do.

Before then I'd never even sewn a button on a shirt, but somehow I managed to stitch together a gaping side wound. Thank God for the internet.

I don't want to describe it. I don't want to think about it. I don't know how I did it. The only thing I do know is that I never wanted to do it again.

"What the Hell happened to me?" She muttered, trying to pull herself up a couple of hours later.

"Stay down." I growled. We had our differences, but Nat was one of the only people who could make this Flock work. I needed her. And while we had our differences, I cared about her too. Not in the same way I cared about Max, but I was still glad to have her around.

"Erasers." I answered simply. She looked down lifting up her shirt.

"Holy shit! Did you do that?" She gasped, even though she still sounded weak.

"I did what I had to." I managed. "Never make me do it again."

I went to my pack and pulled out two of the pills I had stolen from Dr. M's medicine cabinet so, so long ago…pain pills from when Ella broke her arm. I handed them to her, along with a bottle of juice AJ had brought back with the medical supplies. She swallowed them down with a gulp and shivered.

"Cold?" She nodded.

"You lost a lot of blood." I explained. I saw AJ shuffle in from the corner of my eyes.

"I'm next door. I'm turning in." He said quietly, his eyes never leaving the ground. He rushed out before either of us could say anything.

"He feels guilty." Nat observed, almost sounding sympathetic. I nodded, knowing it was probably true.

Nat huddled under the covers, hugging them to her as tightly as she could.

"Fang?" She asked shyly. Shy was something I'd never seen Nat be, though I'd been with her for almost a year.

"Yeah?" I managed with a yawn.

"Will you?" She requested, scooting over in the king size bed. I debated internally for a second before I peeled my shirt off and climbed into bed too, hugging her to me to warm her up.