Hi everyone. HAPPY NEW YEAR! Before you say it, I know I haven't written in ages. And I'm not going to push the blame on writer's block, cause; I have had the idea for this chappie for quite a while now. I have just had no time. School has been a hassle, and then there was Cross Country which consumed most of my free time. Not to mention work and all the other stuff my parents add to the mile long list of things I have to do everyday. But it's after Christmas, no parties to prepare for, no 14 hour car rides, (as of right now. I'm in Tennessee visiting family), and no baking! Thank God, because I suck at baking. So…. I just quickly reread this last chapter and decided things are going too slow…. So I'm kicking it into warp drive. Try and keep up. =)

~Annie

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Kate's POV

I'm not used to being out of the loop. I always know everything that's going on in my friends' lives. So, when Max stopped talking to everyone, I started to loose what was left of my sanity.

Ever since her party, she stopped answering emails and texts, ignored phone calls, and sat with Josh and his friends at lunch. She had even asked Mr. Castro if she could change lab partners. Something happened at that party. Something bad.

As if Max's aloofness didn't bother me enough, Fang has fallen back into his silent world. Blank stares, cold and emotionless eyes, the bland tone he has when he speaks. If he speaks at all. It worried me, it worried everyone. Fang refuses to comment when we question him about what happened. He just glances over at Maggie before walking away. After the third failed confrontation, we looked to Maggie for answers. She ran off after Fang.

It's been almost two months. My patience was running low. I was going to snap, soon. But, somebody else beat me to it.

We were all walking across campus to pick up Fang's and Maggie's rugrats. Fang was silent as usual, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his head bent, his long bangs covering most of his face. Maggie and Iggy were talking quietly, something about studying for a History test later on today. Ella and the guys had ditched us again. Something about more charity work. Honestly, if they did anymore 'giving back' they were going to be canonized into saints. I walked along silently, clinging onto my dance bag, listening to Sarah, Jordan, Lauren and Emily who were arguing over Harry Potter.

"I'm telling you," Lauren huffed. "Malthoy is evil."

"No he's not!" Emily protested as we crossed the parking lot in front of the kid's school. "He is nice! He's just raised to be mean."

"So it's his parent's fault?" Sarah inquired.

"Yes! What do you expect?" Jordan snapped. "They are a whole family full of Death Eaters! Of course they will raise him to be mean."

"But what about Harry?" Lauren countered. "Look at the conditions he grew up in, and he still turned out fine." (A/N: Yeah, debated this with my mom and cousins the other day)

"Yeah, but he's 'The Boy Who-." Emily fell silent her eyes locking on something in front of us. Everyone, including Fang, looked up.

A dark blue car carefully navigated its way through the students exiting the school. Through the tinted window, I made out Josh leaning over the steering wheel, Max sitting next to him in the passenger seat. Feeling our eyes, Josh looked up and rolled down the window smiling brightly.

"Hey guys!" he shouted. "Need a ride?" I glanced at the others who also looked uncertain. Before anyone could respond, Max said something to Josh, who nodded darkly. "Oh, darn." He said loudly, brightening up again. He turned to look back at us. "Sorry! I just remembered, I have-um…. Something to do on the other side of town!" Huh. Nice excuse. "See you!" He called as he sped off. I glanced over at Fang from the corner of my eye. His face still looked impassive, but I saw him clench his fists. I opened my mouth to say something, but I was cut off by a much louder voice.

"THAT IS IT!" Sarah screeched, causing everyone in the yard to look at us. "I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THIS….THIS….CRAP!" We all stared at her in horror. Sarah never got angry. And she never, ever used 'inappropriate language'. She turned and glared at Fang and Maggie. "You are going to tell us what happened at that party. And you are going to tell us now." Wow. Sarah could be down right scary when she got angry. But instead of answering her, Fang and Mags gaped at her.

"They aren't going to answer." Somebody said from behind us. We whipped around to see Angel skipping towards us. "It's an awkward situation."

"Awkward?" Emily asked, knitting her eyebrows together. "How?"

"I'm not sure. That's just what I'm getting from them." She said, tilting her head in the silent duo's direction.

"What's going on?" Iggy asked his 'sister' gently.

"Fang told Max that Josh was cheating on her. At her party. Which is just plain stupid if you ask me." My bag fell out of my hand. As it crashed to the ground, my Pointe shoes and leotard fell out. I didn't care at this moment.

"You did what?" Lauren gasped turning to look at the emo bird kid. He shrugged.

"What does this have to do with Maggie?" I asked, jutting my chin towards the red head as she pretended to look for her sisters in the crowd of munchkins.

"John was the one who told Fang about Josh. And Maggie overheard Fang tell Max at the party."

Jordan shook her head. "Why didn't you tell us? We could have helped."

"John told me not to tell anyone." Fang grumbled.

"Well," Jordan sighed, glancing at the rest of us. "Maybe we could try and convince-."

"Not gonna work." Angel sang, inspecting the chipped pink nail polish on her thumb. "She has convinced herself that you guys already knew about 'Fang's plot'. That's why she's not talking to you guys so you don't 'fill her head with stupid ideas'." We stood there for a moment in silence.

"You're a creepy little kid, you know that?" I asked. Iggy punched my arm. "What?" I whined, rubbing my now bruised arm. "She is." (A/N: She really is) Rolling his sightless blue eyes, Ig scooped Angel up. She rested her head on his shoulder and yawned.

"I don't care. I just wish she didn't stay up most of the night thinking about it." She looked at Fang with wide eyes. "I almost fell asleep during my math test today." Fang gave her a hard look.

"Why don't you just block her out?" he asked dully.

"Because I need to concentrate to block out thoughts." She huffed. "Do you know how hard it is to concentrate and fall asleep at the same time?"

"She does have a point." Emily sighed. "What does she think about, Angel?"

"It's hard to tell. Her thoughts are all jumbled." She closed her eyes for a moment, her eyebrows knitting together in concentration. "Um, I guess it's mostly about how much it bothers her that you guys would make up such a cruel lie just because you don't like Josh." Everyone who wasn't a bird mutation stared at the blonde little girl in awe. "Her words," she added. "Not mine."

"What's not yours?" Gazzy asked walking up to us, with Nudge and Haley who were talking anitmitly. Haley's hand was wrapped around a much smaller wrist, which in turn was connected to Lizzie. (A/N: For those who don't remember, Mags has a bunch of siblings. John, Haley, Lizzie, Mary, and Henry.) Maggie sighed in relief when she saw them. She probably thought it would distract us from the topic at hand. She thought wrong.

"You're here. Good." She looked at her two siblings then around the school yard. "Where's Mary?" Haley ignored her older sister and continued her rapid-fire conversation with Nudge.

"Soccer practice." Lizzie explained, wrenching her hand from the pre-teen's grip. "John picked her up ten minutes ago. Said we had to go home with you."

"John has the car." Maggie huffed. "How in the world am I going to get you two home?"

"Uh… walk?"

Maggie groaned. "Great. Just great."

I smirked at her inconvience as I bent down to scoop up my dance attire.

"Bet Ig's gonna offer to take her home." I whispered to Jordan as I stood up again.

Sure enough- "I'll walk you guys home." Iggy offered.

The motor-mouths fell silent and looked at the blind boy, eyebrows arched in amusement. Apparently, the Igster felt their interested gaze, because he went tomato red. "I mean, if you want." Maggie shot a pointed look at her sisters before agreeing.

"Well," I breathed. "While you guys go play house, I have dance rehearsal for then next six hours." Fang looked at me, a quizzical look on his face.

"That's like twice the usual time."

"Yeah, well." I sighed shrugging my bag back onto my shoulder. "Our production of Nutcracker is coming up, so longer practices."

"Fun." Emily teased.

"Whatever. I gotta go. See you later." With that, I turned and began walking away.

"Hey, Kate!" Lauren said suddenly. I glanced back at her. "You develop those pictures from the party yet?"

"I dropped them off at Walgreens yesterday before dance. Should be ready today."

"Sweet," Jordan smiled wickedly. "Because, if I remember correctly, there is this one picture of Sarah drooling over a certain swimmer." Sarah went dark red as the girls chuckled knowingly. I shook my head, smiling slightly. My friends. What would I do without them?

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Max's POV

I sat in Josh's car, staring out the window. Even though I would never, ever admit it, I was lonely. I missed my friends and my Flock. Heck, even Fang at this point. But, I couldn't talk to them. They'd try to convince me that Fang's accusation against Josh was true. It wasn't. It couldn't be. He loved me. And I loved him.

Are you sure, Max?

I exhaled heavily.

Been a while since you inserted your unneeded wisdom, Voice. What gives?

Of all the things to be paranoid about, you choose this? You've known Fang forever. Yet you toss him and your friends aside for someone you just met. Where is the logic?

I don't need logic. I have my heart. And it says to trust Josh.

Is it your heart speaking, or your mind?

Whhaaaa-?

No response. Leave it to Voice to leave a cryptic message before hanging up on me. I shook my head slightly and focused my attention to the houses we passed.

But, these houses were too familiar. As in the ones on my street. I looked over at Josh.

"What's going on?" I asked as he pulled up to my house. "I thought we were going to Smoothie King."

"Yeah," he sighed running his hand through his hair. "The thing is I wasn't complexly lying about that job interview before."

"Really?" I arched an eyebrow. "I thought you made that up on the spot."

"Actually, I remembered. I lied about it being across town though." He gave me a helpless grin. I rolled my eyes. Grabbing my stuff, I got out of the car and walked around to the driver's side. He rolled down the window.

"Where is this job interview anyway?" I asked.

"Hm? Oh. Uh. Starbucks. Yeah. The Starbucks by Walgreens." I nodded recognizing the location. It was in the same plaza as Kate's dance studio. Plus, it wasn't too long a walk from here.

"Okay. Good luck." I bent lower, expecting a kiss.

"Hm? Yeah. Okay." He gave me a hasty kiss on the cheek before speeding off.

What was that all about?

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Kate's POV

I have no idea how I got so lucky. I had only been in dance class for, what? Two hours? My instructor got an urgent call. Something about her kid falling out of a tree. In her haste, she dismissed the class, instead of getting one of the other twenty instructors in the building to take over. Ah well. I called up my mom and it turns out she was still at work, about an hour away and wouldn't get off for another couple of hours. On top of that, my dad was out of town. So, grumbling in annoyance about having to walk home, I made my way over to Walgreens to pick up my pictures.

I quickly paid for the pictures, and then decided to grab some candy. I was silently contemplating between Skittles and M&Ms when somebody tapped my shoulder.

"You might want these." Adam said, placing a pack of Swedish Fish in my hand. I smiled up at him.

"Good choice," I complimented. "But, this is hardly enough." Pushing past him, I scrambled down the aisle to the box containing the Swedish Fish. I grabbed four more of the tasty candy packets before walking the register, Adam silently tailing me.

"Is there a reason you look like you're ready to hit the pool?" Adam asked as the cashier placed the candy into a plastic bag. I looked down at my attire, blushing. I still had on my black leotard, and thankfully a pair of Aggies' shorts. But no shirt. Smooth.

"I just got out of dance," I huffed pulling an Arizona Crusaders shirt out of my bag and over my head.

"Ah. That's right. You're one of those dance zombies." Adam teased taking the bag from the cashier. I stuck my tongue out at him. "Mature." He snorted. We walked out in silence. He gently nudges my shoulder. "Wanna go to Starbucks?" He inquired, tilting his head towards the coffee shop. I nodded vigorously before pausing.

"Yeah," I said forcing myself to sound calm even though my heart was pounding. "I've got nothing else better to do." He shook his head chuckling slightly. As we walked across the parking lot he draped his arm over my shoulder.

"You know," he said slowly. "I never did introduce you to that girl I was telling you about at Tina's party."

"Oh poop." I said, acting disappointed. "Why don't you tell me about her?" I asked, pulling open the store's door and stepping in. I was met with the over whelming smell of coffee and the loud buzzing of the machinery. One of the barista, Jake, caught sight of me and waved. I was a frequent costumer to say the least.

'The usual?' he mouthed.

I nodded and mouthed back, 'Make it two.'

"Let me see," Adam drawled, putting the back of candy on top of one of the coffee tables and sitting down on the purple loveseat next to it. "This girl is… a lot of things." I sat down next to him, listening closely. "She is clumsy. Sarcastic. Funny. Quite the prankster too." I smirked.

"Go on."

"Well," he reached next to him, shaking a pack of Swedish Fish free from the bag and tossing it onto my lap. "She has a sweet tooth. She's smart and friendly. Not to mention pretty." He added tugging on a lock of my hair. I swatted his hand away. "What else? She always manages to remain calm around me. And that makes me extremely nervous." I looked up at him curiously.

"Why?" I asked arching an eyebrow.

"Because, I have no idea what she's thinking." He said slowly, watching my reaction carefully. "She could be plotting someone's doom, or thinking about some guy. Who I really hope is me." I shifted in my seat uncomfortably.

"Who to say she isn't thinking about you?" I asked sheepishly, blushing slightly.

"Is she?" he asked moving closer, his emerald green eyes holding my gaze.

"Um… Maybe?" I squeaked. He smirked slightly. I swallowed hard as I realized he was only inches away and…..

"KATE! ORDER'S UP!" We jolted as my name was called.

"Coffee." I grumbled standing. I marched over to the counter and handed Jake the money. "You couldn't wait too more seconds?" I huffed. He shrugged nonchalantly and handed me the frapachinos. I turned and started walking back to Adam when something in the corner of the café caught my eye. Something not good.

"Oh, shit." I breathed. I dashed to the coffee table and slammed the fraps down. Adam looked up at me, surprised.

"Kate? What is go-?"

"Something's come up." I hastily explained, grabbing my bag. "Something huge. I'm sorry, but I'll explain later." And with that I dashed out the door, praying Adam didn't hate me now, and that I hadn't been caught.

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Ohhh! What has Kate seen that caused her to stand up Adam? You'll have to wait to see!