Two things:

One – thank you so much for all your suggestions on how to handle the Max/Fang relationship, they were really helpful!

Two – Past 300 reviews? Seriously? Guys, you are bloody amazing, thank you so much. I feel like this story is actually a success! :P

And… onwards!

(P.S – My brother forgot to close COD before he got off the computer, so I'm just listening to all this taut, tense music in the background. Definitely sets this mood for this chapter…)

Max POV

'Where do you think we are?' I breathed quietly to Fang, gazing at my surroundings.

'Dunno. We could be anywhere, couldn't we?'

Unfortunately, he was absolutely right. Once we had managed to get out of our prison cell, we found ourselves in a maze of corridors, all identical to one another: white, neutral, devoid of anything that set them apart from the others. Consequentially, our attempts to wind our way through the narrow halls had ended up in us becoming utterly and completely lost. Typically. We'd started off striding confidently along, absolutely sure in our path (okay, so were we sneaking, really – who knows, maybe they have some sort of fish-eye lens somewhere, tracking our every move) but within ten minutes, our treads had slowed to an uncertain walk, every step laden with doubt. We were going on half an hour by now, and were still nowhere closer to getting out of this confusing section of the building.

I had no idea where all these hallways and extra rooms (doors lined every corridor we turned into) managed to fit into the building. I remembered my first sighting of the place, when I had arrived on a sweltering hot day besides Iggy; I had thought that the building wouldn't be able to fit more than two hundred people, but these corridors would be able to house at least that much, if not more. And it was only one part of the detention centre. I had severely underestimated the size of this building.

'Honestly, they didn't even need to lock us in the room,' I muttered, running my hand through my messy hair as I continued to stare around me. I was feeling dangerously defeated. I knew that letting emotions like that overcome me was a bad idea, but the hopelessness that was creeping up on me was too much to ignore. 'We're never going to find our way out of this hell hole anyway. We'll probably rot down here. We'll be skeletons before they discover our bodies.'

I just wanted to lie down and sleep. It didn't matter that I had been asleep not two hours before, I just felt so unbelievably tired. Maybe if I went to sleep, when I woke up this entire thing would be a dream. I would be home, in my run down shack that I shared with my parents, just having a nightmare in my normal, holey bed. Maybe the whole warehouse fiasco never happened and I'd never been sent to Gold Creek Correctional Facility and I'd never dug myself into this disaster that I'd managed to land myself in, and if I pinched myself then I'd wake up and life would go on as normal, unchanging. Just like it always had.

But no, another voice within me argued, springing up unbidden from the back of my mind. As awful and twisted this place was, if I had never been sent here then I wouldn't have met Fang. And I would never have been introduced to Iggy or Nudge. I had noticed a change in myself over the past month – getting to know them, becoming such close friends with the three of them… it had made me happy. It wasn't like I'd never been happy before; I'd had those occasional little sparks of joy flare up when something good happened – my first A on my report card, my first interaction with Alicia, the small smiles I rarely received from Mum and Dad, when they were sober – but this was a different sort of happiness. Instead of a flare of content that quickly disappeared, this was more like a simmer, boiling away almost completely unnoticed, but never truly fading. Even now, in the situation I was in, I knew that I felt far more comfortable being around Fang than I would have if I was alone. I was almost glad that I had been sent to Gold Creek Correctional Facility, which was totally insane, but also absolutely true.

'Don't talk like that.' Fang's voice snapped me out of my reverie and I was startled to hear that he sounded tense and angry. Far more emotion than he usually ever let anyone see or hear. I looked up and took in the clenched jaw, the fisted hands. 'Don't…' He took in a breath. 'Don't talk like that, okay? I just – ' He stopped again and glared at the sparklingly clean floors. He scuffed his battered black Converse on the floor, as if annoyed by its spotless state. 'We have to get out, alright? We have to.'

I cocked my head and took him in. Fang kept his emotions guarded well, he locked them away jealously in a box at the back of his mind for only him to see, but now it seemed like some of those feelings had broken the lock on that box and were escaping him. And if I was right, then he seemed almost… could he possibly be scared? It was such an un-Fang-like emotion that I surprised myself with my own conclusion. Fang didn't get scared. It just didn't happen. It would be the equivalent to Nudge and Alicia swapping places, Alicia turning into this incredibly sweet girl and Nudge a cold hearted, backstabbing bitch. An impossibility. And yet, here was the evidence right in front of me. Fang was pale and he had started to breathe a little faster. His hands were beginning to shake ever so slightly and even as I watched, his eyes shut tight like he was trying to hide himself from the world.

I didn't know what to do. I'd never been good at comforting people and this was no exception. For a moment I floundered in my own inexperience, before I gingerly laid a timid hand on his arm, praying that he wouldn't throw it off. He didn't, which was encouraging, but he didn't react in any other way either, which sapped at my confidence a little.

'Fang?' I tried, hating how unsure my voice sounded. How is it that I can yell at people twice my size without a second thought, and yet when it came to basic human interaction, I totally fall on my face? It was ridiculous.

His eyes slowly opened. He let out a slow breath, which I mimicked when I saw how calm he seemed. Nervous breakdown avoided? Thankfully.

'Sorry, Max,' he muttered. His hand fiddled anxiously with the hem of his jacket. He was avoiding my eyes. 'I guess I just let my feeling get a hold of me there for a moment. You know it doesn't usually happen.' I gave him a tiny smile. 'It's just this place and what you said about dying down here,' he continued. He appeared to be determined to explain his actions, like I would be ashamed of him if he didn't. 'It got to me,' he admitted. 'I just feel so claustrophobic and helpless here. I hate it.'

I met his eyes. 'It's all right to be scared, Fang,' I told him softly. 'This place freaks the hell out of me. All I want to do is get out. And your act just then didn't help either,' I scolded him in a teasing voice, hoping to make me feel better. 'It's scary to know that you actually feel emotions. I thought you were a robot!'

I was rewarded with an almost imperceptible twitch of the lips that let me know that my efforts, while not particularly effective, were appreciated all the same.

He sank down with his back to one of the walls, motioning me to join him. I sat down next to him with a tiny frown. What if a worker found us sitting here casually?

'They won't find us,' Fang said, as though answering my thoughts. 'Brigid is probably the only one who truly knows her way through this place. I bet all the other workers are just as lost as us.'

'They'd be late every day to work,' I said, smiling. 'And that can't be good, especially with Brigid as your boss.'

Fang shook his head. 'I still can't believe it's her,' he said, a tiny crease above his eyebrows. I found myself staring at it, absentmindedly thinking about how cute it looked. Then I shook myself. What was wrong with me?

'She only ever seemed like a secretary to me,' I agreed. 'A bitchy one, sure, but a secretary nonetheless.'

Then I hauled myself to my feet. 'Come on, Fang,' I ordered. 'We need to find our way out of here. I'm hungry and tired and this place is really starting to piss me off.'

He stood up next to me and followed me to one of the doors nearby, which, annoyingly, was refusing to open. 'Why do they lock it?' I exclaimed in exasperation, tugging fruitlessly at the cold steel handle. 'It's not like anyone's knows this place is here anyway!'

'Except us.'

'We don't count.'

I tried another door, and then another. In fact, I tried a whole corridor and a half worth of door before I finally discovered a door that pushed in obediently when I tried it.

'Finally,' I muttered, too pissed off to even be happy that one had eventually worked. The door swung open to reveal a dark square room lined completely with grey metal filing cabinets and a single, small desk made of a red wood pushed into one dark corner. The desk had a dead computer on it, along with a lone blunt pencil that lay forlornly on the surface, but was otherwise empty. There was a single door opposite us that presumably led to another corridor.

I stepped inside cautiously, expecting someone to leap out of the shadows and attack me at any moment. Knowing my luck, that wasn't as farfetched as it seemed. Fang followed right behind me, silent as always. He was like my own personal shadow.

'What do you make of it?' I asked quietly. Personally, the place was setting me on edge. All those filing cabinets, leaving not an inch of free space on the walls… I could guess what they contained. Almost unconsciously, my hand reached and took a hold of Fang's. I could feel the blood creeping uncomfortably along my neck and I was grateful for the gloom, hiding my redness from him.

You can imagine my relief when I felt him squeeze my hand reassuringly instead of pulling it away in disgust.

He walked silently over to the nearest filing cabinet, which was right up by the door, with me in tow and tugged it open. It moved stiffly as though it hadn't been opened in years, like it hadn't been deserted, forgotten. But it was packed full with manila folders, some thick, some thin, each one shoved in tighter than the last.

Fang extracted one with difficultly and flipped it open. The words were shadowed in the light, but evidently Fang could read them because he said, '"Eugenie Fitzimmons. 1978. Kleptomaniac."'

My eyes widened dramatically. '1978? This place has been open since the seventies?'

'I guess so.' Fang shoved the file unceremoniously back into the cabinet, bending the folder severely and pulled out another. '"Patrick Wallers, 1981, Extreme Violence."' Back into the cabinet. Another one came out. '"Marcy Hallow, 1982, Burglar."' Fang looked up at me and said, 'I think they're in chronological order. These are the oldest ones, closest to the door.'

'Do you think ours are in here?' I looked around at all files. If the ones closest to the door were the oldest then presumably they became more recent as you travelled along the walls in a sort of circle, until you came to the modern day criminals. Which would mean that the cabinets on the other side of the door would be ours.

Obviously Fang had come to the same conclusion as me because he dropped the file in his hand on top of the rest of the files, not even bothering to put it back in its place, before slamming the cabinet shut.

I was already at the other cabinet, pulling it open – it slid much easier than the first cabinet – and pulling out the first file. 'It's Alicia's!' I called to him as he joined me. 'Because she's the most recent person to come here. Look: "Alicia McMahon, Assorted Crimes."' The files told you all of the person's details, plus their crime, sentence and any additional notes. In the additional notes section was simply written 'See page 38B for information.' There was a separate page stapled to the back of the folder. I was guessing that the information there would tell you all about whatever procedure she had gone through to make her… what she had become. Also, she's allergic to bees.

Fang pulled out another. 'This is yours,' he commentated. "'Maximum Ride, Burglar."' He stopped and a smirk appeared on his face. 'You're allergic to rabbits?'

'Shut up,' I snapped, snatching the file out of his hand and replacing it. 'It's something in the fur. Makes hives swell up and everything.'

I reached further back and pulled one at random. My jaw dropped open.

'No way!' I said.

'What?' Fang demanded, immediately abandoning his own search to see what I had found.

"'Ari Batchelder.2004. Repeated aggression."'

'Ari was a prisoner here?' Fang said, astonished. (Of course, his version of astonished was raising an eyebrow. But you get my point.)

'Proof's right here,' I answered. 'He came in 2004 for a five month period, but he never left…' My voice trailed away.

Additional Notes: See page 35A

I flipped the page over to see the additional notes. They were typed in an formal format.

ARI BATCHELDER

25th July 2004

Procedure: Standard

Head Surgeon: Brigid Dwyer

Cause: Continued disobedience. He has become a liability.

Operation Status: Failed

Optional Notes: Although Batchelder retains more intelligence than desired, classifying the procedure as a failure, it is believed that his brain has been altered during the surgery and he has become exceedingly loyal and obedient to his father and to myself (Dr. Brigid Dwyer). This may prove useful in the future. It is expected, however, that this change may have made his brain more delicate and less stable. It is expected that his life span has been shortened circa twenty years.

It ended with Brigid's tight scribble of a signature at the bottom of the page. I put the file back in it's place, feeling vaguely sick. So Ari had been operated on too, had he? And he was probably on of the first tests, too. Brigid would have been only twenty, twenty one back in 2004. Jeb would have offered him right up to be used to help her cause. And I don't even know what her cause is, yet. She refused to tell me.

'Is it bad that I feel sorry for Ari?' I whispered. My stomach was still roiling madly.

'No.' Fang's voice was low and husky. His lips were pressed tightly together and his eyes were fixed on Ari's file, where it stood in the filing cabinet. 'It's sad.'

I nodded and drew in a shaky breath. I tried to put Ari's fate from my mind and reached into the cabinet to pull out the next file.

It was Iggy's. I was expecting the usual, but what I received was the equivalent to a punch in the gut. I drew in a sharp breath and instantly Fang's dark eyes were on mine again, wanting to know what was going on.

The folder slipped from my hands and I closed my eyes, but the image of what I had seen was printed onto my mind's eye. The words TO BE TERMINATED stamped across the rest of the page in angry red letters would not leave me.

I heard Fang pick up the folder from the floor, but I did not care.

To be terminated.

It was obvious what the words meant. It was like a confirmation of what I already suspected in the back of my mind. I remembered the phone call Iggy had received from his two siblings, Angel and Gazzy, telling him that they thought someone was after him. They were right after all, were they? Somehow, I didn't feel any better knowing. I felt like I was I was truly going to throw up now and it was all that I could do to hold it in.

'They can't do this,' Fang's tight voice said.

I opened my eyes and started pacing the room, running my hands through my hair. I didn't care about any procedures now, or the hundreds of reports filed away in these drawers, or even Ari and his predicament. All I knew was they were going after Iggy, they were going to kill him, and I would refuse to let that happen.

'They can't,' I said, as though saying it would make a difference. 'I won't let them.' Turn. 'They'll have to go through me first. And I'll be a big obstacle. And we'll get him out of here, we'll let him escape, and he can go get Angel and the Gasman and they can live together in some big house out in the wilds where they won't find him and he'll be safe and he won't die.' Turn. 'They can't. They can't, they can't, they can't.' Turn.

I looked up to see Fang watching me with a very strange expression on his face. I didn't recognise it, at least not in relations to myself. It was the kind of look a boyfriend gave his girlfriend. It was the look old people gave each other when they had been sixty years in love. It was the look a wife gives her husband on their wedding day.

That wasn't the sort of look anyone ever gave me. Generally, I was that annoying pebble in a person's shoe that they will do anything to get rid of. I was a mosquito. I was a smear of mud on a sparkling clean floor. Nobody ever gave me the look Fang was giving me now. Ever.

'What?' I asked, feeling incredibly self-conscious.

He shook his head. His fingers were playing with the hem of his shirt again. 'It's… watching you worry about Iggy like that…it's nothing.'

A faint pink tinge had appeared on his cheeks and my eyes widened. Was he blushing? No way.

I was about to go back to my pacing, disappointment flooding through me (but why?) when he spoke again.

'You're an amazing person, Max. You are the most incredible person I've ever met.'

If Fang was blushing before, then I was officially on fire. I could feel the heat flaming in my cheeks and at the same time there was this unfamiliar swooping feeling in my chest that I was certain I had never felt before.

Fang took a step towards me. All his previous nervousness had vanished and now his eyes locked onto my own, capturing my gaze. I stood frozen.

He was right in front of me now, closer than he had ever been before. I could see tiny little gold glints in his mesmerizing eyes.

My breathing was quickening and it just about stuttered to a halt completely when he reached a gentle hand towards my face and used a cool finger to tilt my chin up. 'Max,' he whispered.

And then we were kissing and it was like an explosion detonated in my chest. I felt like I may have truly caught fire in that moment, or maybe I had been electrified, because there couldn't be any kiss in the world that could give me a feeling like this. I could feel every nerve in my body, every nerve in his body and I couldn't imagine every wanting anything in the world except for Fang. Every other though fled my mind – Iggy, Ari, our predicament, the fact that we were kissing in a filing room, out of anything or the procedures. All I could think about was Fang, Fang, Fang. He was everywhere. His hands were wrapped tightly around my waist and my arms had twined around his neck. I was pressed against him like we were one entity, and in that moment at least, that's exactly what we were. His kiss was rough, passionate, desperate, gentle, sweet, all at once. His lips were soft and warm and smooth against mine, and they were making me feel like I had never even dreamed of feeling before. And I was kissing him back with just as much force and he was pushing me back against one of the cabinets and my hands were knotted in his hair and one of my legs was around his waist –

'What the hell are you doing?'

The voice cut through the air like a whip crack and broke through the moment immediately. Fang pulled away from me in an instant, his breathing harsh and jagged, much like my own. His chest was rising and falling quickly as his wide eyes met my own and simultaneously, we turned our heads to stare at the door.

Brigid Dwyer was standing in the doorway with Alicia, Dylan and Ari. Her hair was mussed and disarrayed and her eyes were wild, bugging out of her head as she stared at the two of us. She was visibly shaking and she looked completely insane.

'How did you get in here?' she shrieked.

I didn't answer; instead I sprinted for the door on the other side of the room. It slammed open with a loud bang and then Fang and I were running down the corridor like our lives depended on it, which they probably did.

'Get them!' I heard Brigid howl from behind me.

Then there were three sets of heavy footsteps and I quickened my pace desperately, grabbing at Fang's arm to keep him with me.

The footsteps were getting closer. I didn't dare look behind me to see where the three of them were. But I didn't even need to, because seconds later, something hit Fang in the back of the head, hard. He stumbled, then tripped completely and went sprawling. And they were on him like wolves.

Ari backhanded Fang harshly across the head and he fell into the wall. I heard the crack as the skull and concrete collided and then Fang collapsed without so much as a whimper.

I think I screamed. I knew that I was close to hysteria, because I could feel the tears pricking at my eyes and yet I had the awful desire to laugh.

I could see Ari bearing down on me, but it was like watching a film. It wasn't me, it was my body. He was grinning, his expression more alive than I had ever seen it, and then his fist connected with my skull and I fell fast into the blackness waiting to meet me.

Yeah, like hell I was going to just let them escape… pshh.

Anyway! What did you think? The kissing scene in particular.

You know the drill… REVIEW!