Max
Part 3- Gone Bad for the Winter
It's amazing how different a house can look after being away from it for such a short time. No longer did I look in the living room and think of home, now I just looked in there and thought about Ari; the long nights he spent on the couch watching hours of TV, the years he spent perfecting our perfect escape plan, the days we would have huge fights and I would throw a pillow at him and storm out of the room, leaving him to sulk on the couch.
A frown etched its way onto my face as I tried to ignore that nagging feeling. All those 'I hate you's, were they really the right way to handle things? Did I need to make my brother feel even more hated than he already felt to get something done? No, and I never did. I sighed, walking past the ugly grey couch and loveseat, passing the now-broken TV and letting my feet glide across the dark-stained wooden floors.
I headed into the kitchen, where everything turned into bright blue walls, green dishes, chrome finishing, and white tiles. I faintly remembered a sixteen year old Ari giving a fourteen year old me a piggyback ride as he painted the walls. I ended up painting his hair light blue and it stayed like that for months, but he managed to love me and all my goofiness. "This place is beautiful," Fang offered up a weak compliment, hoping to put some sort of expression onto my face. I shrugged, waiting for Ari to walk down the stairs, listening for the two crickety ones that groaned under a feather's weight.
"Yeah, this is where we hid out when we ran away from the School. Jeb never thought to look here. We thought it was safe, fixed the place up, put at least ten thousand dollars into it, and then they found us. Finally. Ari and I ran that day and we haven't been back since. The place is just how we left it." I explained quietly, the memories playing through my head with each dust-covered object I looked at.
I looked over at the fridge and didn't even notice the smile on my face until Fang walked up and kissed my cheek. "Food always does brighten your day," He joked and I rolled my eyes, shoving him playfully.
"Ari and I plastered pictures of each other all over that fridge, and if I remember right…" My voice trailed off as I headed over to it, opening it up and searching for a loose shelf. The second one from the bottom easily slid out and I slid my fingernails into the cracks on the side of the piece of plastic, popping it into two halves, one of which held dozens of pictures. I grinned, letting them all fall onto the kitchen island before replacing the shelf as it had been and scanning through them before finding the one I was looking for. 'This one's from when I was fourteen," I said, showing Fang the picture of Ari with light blue hair and me hooked onto his back like a koala since for a whole six months my ankle was broken and he had decided to carry me everywhere.
"Looks like somebody else is taking the picture," Fang pointed out like the observationist he was.
"Yeah, Nudge came and stayed with us for awhile then to help out. That girl can talk a rabbit's ear off but she's like the sister I've always wanted," I said honestly, leaning into Fang's chest as we travelled down my memory lane together. Each and every picture held a unique story that I was fully prepared to tell Fang.
"My sixteenth birthday. Since we don't exactly need cars Ari, Sam, and I had Nudge book us a private jet to hawaii where all three of us stayed for a couple weeks. It was a nice vacation, but like all dreams, I woke up from that one.
"So Sam, the breadstand guy?" Fang asked and I almost laughed.
"Fang, he's a Special Agent for the FBI. He was just doing some undercover work in Paris." I corrected, and got the oddest look.
"And you trust him?" Fang asked, bewildered.
"Yes," I answered, and that was that. Fang nodded once and hugged me closer to him as we continued our endless walk down a road that would hopefully never end.
I sat at the kitchen table, resting my elbows on the smooth wood Ari had sanded down when we had first gotten here. My fingernails clicked against the tabletop as I waited impatiently for my brother. He had finally woken up, and now he chose to make me wait for him. If it was me he'd drag me down the steps, but no, I decided to be nice and look where that got me? Twenty minutes down the road with my stomach still growling. I sighed in annoyance, wait for my brother to come into view.
It took him another ten minutes but he finally came down the stairs, his hair soaked and something like a smile trying to cover his face. Fang had been sitting next to me, complaining about hunger, and Iggy was cooking a dessert of some sort on the island, although all I could focus on was Ari. He still looked like hell, but at least he was alive.
"Did you fall into a river or something?" Fang asked sarcastically.
"I took this thing called a shower, you should try it sometime." Ari snapped back, casually sitting at the head of the table like he always did. Fang had tried to sit there earlier and I had almost ripped his head off for it. That was Ari's seat and nobody else's.
"Finally! I swear I've never heard Fang complain so much in my life," Iggy grumbled as he pulled a Macaroni casserole out of the oven.
The minute he dropped it down on the table Fang took about half of it and scooped it on his plate before digging in. I don't even think I could eat as fast as he did. That boy had his plate licked clean (literally) before the rest of us had even been served. (not that there was much left to dish out).
"So can I have seconds" Fang started innocently before Ari cut him off.
"Where's Lupo?" Nobody answered. I watched as Fang set his plate back down on the table slowly, and Iggy pushed his plate away from himself, suddenly not hungry. I looked down at my own meal, trying to decipher all the delicious-smelling ingredients. Maybe if I focused on that enough he wouldn't ask again.
"So, remember this place, Ari?" I asked, trying to change the subject, however, the glare my brother sent me was enough to know that this was not the time for small talk.
"Where's. Lupo?" He asked in a much more threatening tone than I had ever heard before.
"She's sleeping," Iggy whispered solemnly, and I could see the tears threatening to spill over his eyes. We were all on the verge of tears to be honest. We all loved Lupo so much, and now a faint promise of her sleeping forever hung in the air. One nobody dared to say out loud for fear of the truth.
"Sleeping, or dead?" Ari snarled and I think that word, dead, is what triggered the fight.
"Why do you care?" Iggy shrieked, getting to his feet so quickly his chair tipped over. "She's not your girlfriend! You don't love her like I do! You can't possibly care as much as I do!"
"You better not yell at me in my house, you little punk or I'll throw your ass out of here so fast you'll get whiplash," Ari stood up just as quick, and I watched as his chair fell over.
"Ari stop," I whispered, but he wasn't finished.
"No! He thinks he's the only one who cares about her! News flash Iggy; other people love Lupo, her world does not just revolve around yours!" Ari shoved Iggy back against the wall and I let out a small squeak as he smashed into a little side table. It splintered everywhere, raining down like hail on a cold day.
I stood up as Iggy went in for a punch, putting myself in between the two of them and holding the two back from each other and themselves. "Guys, stop. This is pointless. You need to start acting your own age-" I started, but Ari grabbed my arm and flung me back. I stumbled a few feet before catching myself.
"Stay out of it Max, if he wants to hit me he can, that way when I kill him I can say it was self-defense," Ari growled and I watched as Iggy went in for a left hook, but not before Fang could tackle Ari. I watched in utter horror as he punched Ari square in the nose, re-breaking it with a sickening crack.
"Who the hell pushes a girl like that? Don't you ever touch Max like that again," Fang warned, and I blinked, trying to figure out what was going on with him. Fang wouldn't usually pick a fight with Ari like this, but now he seemed more willing than Iggy.
Ari shoved Fang off of him and added in a quick roundhouse that only Ari can manage to pull off while on the ground, before getting back to his feet and cracking his knuckles.
"Alright Iggy, come on, hit me." Ari snarled, but this time I was the one who shoved Iggy away.
"EVERYBODY STOP ACTING LIKE A THREE YEAR OLD!" I yelled, causing Fang to pause mid-lunge towards Ari, and Iggy to stop trying to get around me. They all looked at me in awe, and I rolled my eyes.
"Fellas, I know I'm hot, no need to stare, especially you Ari," I added jokingly, but for some reason none of them moved. I blinked in confusion, waiting for somebody to say something, but when nobody did, I guessed something was really wrong.
As if to answer my thoughts, I heard something clatter to the ground behind me, and spun around so fast the breeze slapped me in the face. My eyes widened to the size of quarters as I watched a sobbing Lupo stumble into the kitchen and fall to her knees.
She looked so hurt and broken I couldn't even think of how to comfort her. How do you comfort somebody when you don't know what's wrong? "Sweetheart, are you okay?" Iggy asked lamely, slowly walking over to her and crouching by the sobbing mess. Lupo clutched onto his shirt desperately, and even Iggy looked a little freaked out by this very-un-Lupo like display.
"They took my baby," She choked out through her sobs, and that is when all hell broke loose.
Hey guys so I think half of my fans died cause I don't get as many reviews as I used to. I love those reviews you know, they keep me pumped up and ready to go. Although I guess updating during the week makes it harder to R&R.
I am going to start asking one question each chapter so here goes:
Okay, so anybody notice something OOC about Fang? And if so do you know why?
Alright, I love you guys, you are awesome
oh and for M, this might not be how you pictured the ending but I just kinda felt like it needed to be like that so,
Soar on
VR