Author's Note: Apparently, longer chapters are a thing that I can do now. It almost makes me feel silly for how hard I worked to split chapters that got "too long" earlier in the story. Thank you to KLoves2Read for helping me find a balance between business-savvy lady and loving mom for Val, and everything else!

CHAPTER 34 – DEBRIEFING

The world behind his eyelids was bright vermilion rose. Scratchy sheets were plastered to his back, trapping sticky heat against his skin. He swallowed thickly and grimaced. His mouth tasted like ass.

"That's awesome, Gasman. Really."

"I'm serious, Max. You and me, we're gonna race. I bet I'm faster than you now."

"Now that you're a man, you mean?"

"Lay off, Angel!"

Fang needed the cool side of the pillow.

He tensed, rolling onto his side, and emptied his lungs in a long, low breath that made his knees curl into his chest. Most of his body felt hot and tingly with sleep, like he wouldn't be able to pick up a glass of water for another minute, but his back was another story. Like he'd been given a deep tissue massage with one of those spiky hammers people used on steaks.

Something squeezed his hand. He cracked open his eyes.

"Hey, you." Max was sitting up next to him, propped up on at least five pillows and smiling softly down at him. They were still holding hands across the crack between their hospital beds.

"Hey," he rasped.

Gazzy popped up on the other side of Max, still sitting in the chair at her bedside. "Fang! Welcome back to the land of the living!"

Fang saw Max's shoulders go rigid. She held his eyes intensely, face softening with compassion, and tightened her hand around his. She held her breath, eyes flashing, tugging Fang's hand toward her. He could practically see Dylan's death playing behind the concern in her eyes. Watch it happen all over again.

He forced himself to just look at her. At the way her eyes still looked rich and warm, even in the garish hospital lighting. At the way her hair looked, flowing lightly around her shoulders, finally clean and brushed out. He wondered if he had a sad little crease between his brows right now, the way she did. If the downturn of his lips said anything about how Dylan should have been there with them.

The doctor showed up a minute later with Dr. Martinez in tow. Val must have arrived while Fang was sleeping off his latest round of painkillers, because Max didn't look surprised.

Val, on the other hand, lit up when she saw that Fang's eyes were open. Her whole face softened as she looked at him, melting around the edges until all her wrinkles showed. Delicate lines fanned out from the corners of her eyes, framed her tender smile, furrowed across her forehead and twisting into a knot between her brows. It made her look younger, somehow, having those fine lines scattered across her face. Like she was more alive.

Fang could feel Val's kind eyes on him, even as he turned back to Max. He needed to keep looking at her or he was going to lose it.

She looked back at him like maybe she understood the ache in his chest, and he craved it. Even if she couldn't be as upset as he was, she was with him. She was slaying his loneliness.

He didn't look away from her until she squeezed his fingers and let him go with a thumbprint smudge smile, one corner of her lips turned up just so, comforting.

Dr. Akimoto introduced himself as the head of the trauma department at Fukuoka General. He had fine-combed hair and a face like an albino peach. Fang appreciated that his scrubs were dark blue instead of white.

Max settled back into her pillow tower. Her warm hand lay loosely in Fang's as Dr. Akimoto began working steadily through their charts. He was giving them the full run-down. Reciting the litany of wounds they'd amassed.

All Fang heard was a list of things that should have killed him.

The burn on his wrist had become infected and needed a skin graft.

In Gunther-Hagen's lab, Dylan's rib cage had wept with pus, outlined in the crisp, blackened edges of the scorched skin that had saved Fang from death by flames.

The pain in Fang's wing was caused by separated ligaments. It was far more complicated than a dislocation. Surgery was scheduled for the next morning.

On the flat rooftop, Dylan's wing had been literally ripped away. Separated ligaments, separated muscle, separated skin. No opportunity for reconstructive surgery. Even if he'd made it out, too, you couldn't reattach a limb like that. Even with magic healing spit.

The bullet that tore through Fang's stomach lodged in his liver. They had it in a plastic baggie, if he wanted it. (He didn't.) The blood loss had been catastrophic. He was very lucky, the doctor insisted, that the shot had missed his intestines and his lungs. His heart. That he was still alive.

Dylan's life had spilled out of the place where his stomach had been ripped apart, skin and muscle and bone peeled back. Fang and Max rolled right off the rooftop. Dylan had died.

Fang stared up at the foam board ceiling, counting tiles. The overhead light closest to the door flickered every few seconds, buzzing mechanically beneath the textured plastic cover. It was the one that was always on, even if the others were switched off. Fang wondered if it would keep him up at night.

The doctor was explaining the pins in Max's arm now. There was metal inside of her, all the way from her wrist to just below her shoulder. Some of it would eventually be removed, but some of it would be there forever. She was a bionic woman. They'd had to do a lot of minute reconstruction, the doctor said. Hollow bones shattered. Not a clean break or a couple of chips, like normal human bones.

Fang's breath rang hollow through his nose and he let his head fall to the side, away from the flock. His unfocused reflection stared back at him from the double-paned window that looked out into the hallway. His face was thin, gaunt, cheekbones pronounced under two days of stubble. A dark splotch blossomed across his puffy cheek where the butt of Marty's gun had cuffed him. His torn ear looked weird, sticking out with a point on the crest, swollen and scabbed. His eyes were dull, bleary and sunken, framed by drawn brows and puffy eyelids.

He looked different. Creepy. Sallow and empty.

But that was all right. It was better that he looked different. It would have been worse to look the same.

Max's grip suddenly loosened, her hand slipping away. Fang held her back by the tips of her fingers. She turned her face away from him instead, pressing her nose into her shoulder.

"It's not anything to be too concerned with, long-term," the doctor reassured. "You will simply need to take extra precautions for the duration of your natural cycle."

"Excuse me?" Fang's voice cut in, raspy and soft but enough to draw all eyes toward him.

Max flushed furiously, half-heartedly tugging at her hand in his. "Fang, leave it."

He curled his fingers around hers, drawing her hand back into his palm. She let him.

The doctor smiled kindly. "Your wife's blood work indicated a very high concentration of several drugs: progesterone, clomiphene, leuprolide, gonadotropin-releasing hormones-"

Fang's confusion must have rendered on his face. The doctor smiled sympathetically and rephrased, "Ms. Ride has been administered several common treatments for infertility at unprecedented levels. There is an extreme likelihood that you would end up pregnant as the result of any direct intimate contact. You will both want to take extra precautions until her ovulation returns to normal."

"Oh." Fang's mouth went dry, stomach heaving. Marty had brought it up, back in the helicopter. He'd known that attempting natural reproduction was part of why Genitex wanted Max. But to know that she was already pumped full of chemicals, primed and waiting to be impregnated, made everything in him revolt.

"Then again, given your unique genetic makeup and the uncertainty concerning the chances of a successful conception under normal conditions, this may be an opportunity to take advantage of."

"Bow chicka wow wow," muttered Gazzy.

Iggy snorted rudely.

"Oh-kay!" Val cut in. Her eyes flashed in Gazzy's direction. "Doctor Akimoto, thank you. I think we just need some time to discuss everything."

The doctor inclined his head politely. "I understand. Ayumi-san will be in shortly to begin preparing Mr. Ride for tomorrow's surgery."

The doctor left, the door falling shut behind him with a soft click.

Nudge picked slowly through the Scrabble tiles, dropping them one by one into the black velvet bag. Max's flush crept up her neck. She rocked a little, like she was evading his gaze. She sat up suddenly, pulling up her legs and resting her cheek on her knees.

Angel was worrying her lip with her teeth and watching Max intently. There was a certain kind of edge to her stare that made Fang wonder what silent conversation they were having. Angel answered the question before he could even ask it.

She rolled her eyes with a huff and turned to Val, breaking the silence. "What about Max's wings?"

Max's head shot up and she hissed through her teeth, flush deepening, "Angel!"

Angel gave her hard stare right back.

Nudge just looked confused. "What about Max's- oh!" Her hand flew to her mouth, eyes wide. Max leaned forward, arms curled inward nervously, and shook her wings out, putting her ruined feathers on display.

"Oh, Max," Valencia whispered, posture falling slack. Max cringed.

Iggy's head weaved to the side. "Seriously, you guys? What's going on? Wanna help a blind guy out?"

Her voice sounded so small. So solemn. "Here, Igs." Max extended one wing, eyes locked on the blanket pooling in her lap. Angel took Iggy's hand and guided him to the bedside.

His fingers danced over soft feathers, his face a mask of concentration. He palpated the curved ridge, the sinewy muscles, the bones, finding them all intact. He was about to withdraw when Max jerked her wing higher. Her feathers brushed across Iggy's fingertips and his fingers curled under, discovering the choppy ends of her primary feathers, feeling the splintering ends of the shafts where they'd been hacked apart with dull clippers.

His hand drifted down, limp at the wrist. His voice choked with pity. "Max..."

"It's fine. Whatever." She yanked her wing back in and dropped Fang's hand to rake her fingers through her hair, scowling into her lap.

Val's lips were pursed as she stared, unfocused, at the wall behind them. The moment she took a breath to speak, she held everyone's attention. She nodded slowly to herself, choosing her words carefully. "Max, how often do you shed feathers? Do you know?"

Max's eyes darted up to Val's face, only for a second. "A couple a week, I guess. But usually it's just the little downy ones."

Fang's hand lay next to her, palm up and empty. His fingers twitched.

"What about the bigger ones? The secondaries and primaries?"

"Once or twice, that I know of."

Nudge watched, back and forth, and turned to Val earnestly. "You want to know if they'll grow back in, right? They do, it just takes a long time."

Fang eyed her skeptically. He couldn't remember losing any of his long feathers, and he definitely didn't keep track of how long the little ones took to come back in.

Max's eyes flashed but she didn't look up from her lap. She kept her voice even, trying to sound offhanded about it. "And you know this, how?"

Nudge shrugged self-consciously. "Once, when I was still a kid, when I hated my wings – I don't anymore, chill Gazzy, jeezums – I got so mad once that I ripped one out. A big, fat, long one, right from the middle. It hurt so bad that it still makes me cringe. Like tearing a hangnail so it bleeds.

"As soon as I'd done it, I was so scared – scared that it would never grow back, scared that the others would fall out and I'd never fly again, scared that Max would find out – that I flushed it down the toilet and locked myself in my room and missed dinner. Only Angel knew, 'cause, you know, the mind-reading. I remember crawling to her room one night in a complete meltdown because it'd been two weeks and it didn't look like it was growing back, and I really thought I'd ruined that part of me forever.

"But I didn't. Obviously. You couldn't even tell I'd done it at all after three months, it's not like it leaves a feather-scar or a mark or anything." She fanned out the end of one wing, demonstrating, pinching one of her long feathers and wiggling it a little. "See?"

Max blanched. "Three months?"

"That's great, Nudge." Val was nodding again, looking far more encouraged than Max. "I think I'd like to wait until we're back in Colorado, Max, when your body's had some more time to recover. We can stop by the vet clinic and remove the first half-"

Gazzy sat tall next to Max. "Remove them? That's supposed to be better?"

Val just nodded. "It is. We need to jump start regrowth. Primary feathers aren't replaced anywhere near as often as cover feathers, and they won't come back in until they've fallen out. As long as we can remove them without damaging the follicles, Max's body should be able to regenerate everything."

Max's breath hitched, softly enough that Fang was sure no one else caught it. Her voice sounded hard. "So you really think they'll grow back?"

"Eventually, yes. There's no reason why they wouldn't. It'll just take some time. We'll need to pick some strength exercises, Max, so your wings stay in shape in the meantime."

"Okay," Max nodded, rolling her lips between her teeth and settling shakily back against her tower of pillows. "Okay."

Her hand slipped back into Fang's. Her fingers twined with his, curling under around to press against the knuckles on the back of his hand. He held her tightly for a minute, pressing his thumb into the well of her palm, hoping it felt reassuring.

Max cleared her throat, chin popping up. "So, what about the hotbed of crazy scientists we've just unearthed? Interpol's cooperating with the CSM, right?"

Val pulled in a slow breath through her teeth. The words took a while to form, and when she did speak, the whole room quieted.

"It's gotten complicated."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Max shot back.

"Ooh, is it because of the Freeze?" Nudge worried. "I really need to get home so I can get back to work on that."

"Actually," Val stopped her, "we've made some headway on the virus. Once Fang told us that Dr. ter Borcht was the originator, one of our other IT heads was able to start chipping away at it. We definitely still need you, Nudge, but we're operating at a basic level at this point."

"Mom," Max called, "can we talk about one thing right now, please? An evil group of scientists commissioned kidnappings, held me hostage for half a month, and has plans for...for god knows what," she gestured to her stomach, flushing again but plowing ahead, "so what's complicated? Shut 'em down."

"Here's the thing, Max: There's no one to shut down."

"Uh...come again?"

Val sighed, long and weary. She sunk down into one of the blocky chairs with wooden arms and scrub-green vinyl upholstery that were scattered throughout the room. All eyes were trained on her, so Fang guessed she hadn't explained much of anything to anyone yet.

"Listen, Max: Nothing's tied to the location where you were held. There are no sales records for the property from less than forty years ago. The buildings are all empty. The company that allegedly built the newest facility was dissolved months ago and their records are lost. Fang told Nudge that a company called Genitex was responsible, but there's nothing to link them to what happened."

Nudge frowned. "What about ASIX? Fang had me look up the shoe factory where his backstabbing boss sent him. Genitex had their hands all over it."

Val shook her head. "We looked at that, but apparently the merger was never finalized. The CSM has a team there now, as well as on Gunkanjima, but if they were really there, they stripped everything down before they left. There's nothing."

"That's impossible! I looked them up like two days ago," Nudge insisted. She slid her phone out of her bedazzled back pocket and started typing furiously. Fang didn't get how she could type that fast on something without physical keys. "What the crap?"

Angel leaned over Nudge's shoulder with her lip between her teeth, watching Nudge thumb through article after article.

"I swear, it was here. Look, here's the CEO, Hayato Tanaki." Her fingers spanned the back of her phone as she held it at arm's length. Max leaned forward, squinting, and scowled.

"That's him. Steel-toed boot guy."

Fang remembered the pointed bruise across her ribs.

Valencia widened her eyes helplessly. "Well, he's clean. His company has no ties to any of our leads, and his alibi is watertight. He and his family were evidently at their condo on Oahu for the past two weeks. They've got receipts and flight records..." She heaved a worried sigh and fixed Max with a focused gaze. "You're sure it was him, mija?"

Max nodded sharply. "Definitely him. And more than once. He sure as hell wasn't sunbathing on white sands in his $300 suit."

Val blew a breath that made the loose hair that framed her face flutter. "I trust you, but there's not really anything to be done. This case is squeaky clean, Max. I don't know how he covered his tracks like that, but there's nothing that we can legally pursue him for. I'll make sure the CSM puts feelers out, but that's really all we can do right now."

"This blows," Gazzy muttered.

"And he wanted...what, exactly, with Max?" Iggy's hands splayed wide.

"Information, we think. Pure research, specifically about the genetics involved with you guys. The CSM's been getting anonymous requests for copies of the Itex research for months, and then they faxed over the threat to kill Max if we didn't deliver. I think it's clear now that they never had any intention of following through with that threat, considering the fertility treatments."

"They wanted me, too." Fang kept his face impassive as all eyes turned towards him. He felt his throat closing up and he hadn't even said the name yet. "And Dylan." He swallowed tightly. "When my boss found out he had wings, too, Marty pulled strings to fly us both out here. He was the guy they contracted to get us here." He was also the guy who had directed Fang's job for the past two months. The guy Fang saw every morning at the office. The guy who signed his paychecks.

"Psycho," Gazzy spat. "Good riddance."

Nudge and Angel started whispering. Iggy nodded, an angry scowl across his face.

Fang wanted to kick himself. He should have known, that first week when Marty showed up at National. Something should have tipped him off that his boss was trouble. If he'd known, he would have asked Max to run him through the CSM's system. If he'd known, maybe he wouldn't have let Dylan come.

Fang didn't like the way Val was looking at him, dark and quiet. Like she could see every sad thing that had ever happened to him written in ink across his forehead.

The light flickered.

"Fang, honey?"

It was coming. His grip on Max's hand tightened.

"What happened to Dylan?"

He could feel their eyes like spiders on his skin. Covering him, waiting for him to open his mouth so they could rush inside. He waited for the light to flicker again.

Max pulled her eyes away from him and addressed her mom. Her quiet voice settled over the room like a blanket of snow. "He didn't make it. We were almost there, on the roof, but he didn't...well, he couldn't... He didn't make it." She trailed off quietly. Her thumb pressed into Fang's palm, into the soft place between his bones, and then dragged out along the muscle. She did it again. Fang blinked hard, feeling his insides settle into stone, and tried to just feel Max's thumb against his slack palm.

Gazzy shifted uncomfortably, hands between his knees.

Iggy scratched the back of his neck and then let his hand hang there.

No one would look at Fang.

The light flickered.

Val looked like she might be sick. "It was a ghost town inside that building. Just bare furniture. Scuff marks on the tile. Trash barrels out from that looked like they'd held burning papers. But the roof..." She pulled the elastic out of her hair with shaky fingers. Dark waves fell around her face like a curtain. Her voice wobbled. "The roof was just a mess. We didn't know."

"I want the body."

Val's watery eyes locked with Fang's. She didn't bother hiding her surprise. "You've gotta understand, there's not much left."

Fang's heart beat hard inside his ribcage. He needed this. He didn't realize until just then how badly he needed this. "I want to bury him."

Val carefully pulled her hair back into a fresh ponytail. She took her time smoothing the bumps at the top. "Okay. Okay, I think I can make that happen." She gave him a tight smile and tugged her hair in two to tighten the elastic. "I'll try, okay, mijo?"

Fang nodded. Val promising to try was enough. If it could be done, she'd do it.

That was when Nurse Ayami came back, smiling sweetly at Fang and depositing an assortment of supplies on the table next to his bed. "To be ready for surgery in morning, okay?"

He watched down his chin as she refreshed the dressings over his stomach. He could just barely see the stitches, thick and black against swollen skin stained yellow with iodine.

Max shifted, lying down facing him and pulling his hand to her face. She searched his eyes. "I feel like dirt," she whispered, "the lowest of the low," her breath warm across his skin even as her voice cracked, "but I'm so glad it wasn't you."

He just closed his eyes and pulled her closer, arm shaking, and buried his face in her hair.

Then the nurse made him flip onto his stomach, ignoring his pathetic moan, and scribbled across his wing joint with a purple marker.

Max tried to distract him. "Gazzy finally got his power boost." She waited until he looked at her. "He's got super-speed, like me. He thinks he can beat me in a race." She gave a fluttering, sad little smile and rolled her shoulders. Her gaze dropped back to her lap.

"Hey," Fang whispered, grabbing her hand again. Their flock surrounded them, but for a brief second, it was just him and Max. "Mom said they'll grow back."

Max just wrinkled her nose, whispering back, "I'll believe it when I see it." Still, she looked like she felt better about it. He'd have to remember to watch her so he could pull her out of her head about it when she started making herself upset again.

"That's why you're alive, you know." Max's eyes flitted up and down between his eyes and their hands. "Gaz flew you over here like the freaking bullet train. And then he gave two whole pints of blood. They took a pint each from Nudge and Iggy, when the rest of us got here. You needed so much. And then Gazzy made them take one more as soon as he could stand without seeing spots."

Fang looked over at Gazzy where he sat, still right next to Max but leaning down over his knees to talk to Angel. His fingers curled around a wad of gauze taped to his palm. He looked like he hadn't seen a shower in too long.

He hadn't really been paying attention to Gazzy, just in general. They hadn't had a close relationship growing up, not like Gazzy had with Iggy, or Fang with Max. And now, he traveled so much for work, and the kid- well, Gasman and Angel stayed busy with classes. But he could see that Gazzy looked different. His shoulders had broadened considerably, and he was just as tall as Fang was at this point.

And there was the way Gazzy handled the rescue. He got Max out. He stayed behind for Fang. He took care of it.

Fang had severely underestimated him. It made him want to curl up and hide.

Gazzy caught his eye just then, shooting him a goofy grin. Fang tried to smile back, but Gazzy had already turned to Angel again.

He turned his head the other way with a sigh. He wasn't about to try turning onto his back again anytime soon. He debated asking for more pain medication, just so he could sleep until the surgery.

Iggy came over and collapsed in the chair next to Fang with a groan, arms flung loosely over the sides, head flopped back. He looked like he'd been wearing the same clothes for days.

His lips twitched across his teeth before he turned and pierced Fang with his milky stare. "I'm sorry about Dylan."

Fang just watched him tiredly.

"He seemed cool. Like he was the right person to have on your team." Iggy pulled both hands through his hair and sat up a little, looking serious. "I'm glad he helped you find her."

They lapsed into silence. It wasn't uncomfortable in a way that made Fang want to say anything, but it didn't help the grim slant in Fang's thoughts. He breathed slowly, feeling his breath roll across the pillow. He wanted a toothbrush.

The light flickered.

"I still haven't been home to see her yet." When Fang didn't answer, Iggy shifted until his whole body faced Fang, elbows propped on his knees. "Ella." The grin broke out onto his face like flowers poking up through snow. Like he couldn't hold it in, and didn't care to try. "I already have a ring. I've had it for a while, I've just been waiting. I don't know what for, so don't ask. But I'm gonna do it. She deserves that."

Fang smiled wearily, even though Iggy couldn't see it. "Congrats, man."

"You can thank me by standing by us when we take our vows."

Fang's smile felt a little more honest. "Of course."

Iggy nodded shortly, and that was that.

On his other side, Fang could hear Nudge talking with Max.

"I feel lucky that I've seen practically your entire story. That boy loves you so much."

He could hear Max's smile in the way her voice lilted at the end. "Yeah?" He felt her squeeze his hand softly.

"Uhm, chya. You should have seen him when he came storming into the office, when he realized you were missing and not just out for a fly. He'd have had his guns blazing, if that were a thing. He couldn't hop a plane to find you fast enough. And then I guess he found Dylan instead," Nudge's voice dropped to a whisper, "since they showed up together to break us out of Gunther-Hagen's crazy setup."

Max squeezed his hand again. "Yeah, well, I want the whole story at some point. I've only heard bits and pieces so far."

"Of course! Maybe later, though. Angel's been waiting to get another chance to beat me at Scrabble, so..."

"It's fine." There was a soft kissing noise and then a light rustling as Nudge slipped back onto the floor and pulled a new set of Scrabble tiles.

Fang smiled and turned onto the other cheek so he could face Max, rolling his head back into his shoulder when he felt the sharp kink.

Max was sitting up, looking down at her repaired arm, running her thumb over her fingertips with the barest hint of a smile on her face.

"You're awfully quiet."

She glanced at him. "Hmm? Oh." She laughed softly through her nose, eyebrows arching, but squeezed his hand. "I'm just enjoying this. Our family."

Fang hummed in response. It caught in his throat, low and gravely, so he swallowed it back down.

"What about you?" She teased, "You're a real Mister Chatterbox over there."

She was still smiling, but there was a certain tightness at the edges, a particular intensity to the way she was gripping his fingertips. She was worried for him.

He just shook his head, scratching the front of his neck and letting his other arm fall limp over the side of the bed. He'd rather just listen. Try to focus on something besides the way Dylan's death kept pulling at his thoughts like gravity.

How was it possible to feel someone's absence like you'd lost your right lung when you lived for eight years without realizing you were missing anything at all?

The bullet wound was nothing.

So Fang listened. He tried to keep track of the Scrabble games. He listened to Gazzy push Max to agree to race him when she could fly again. He could hear snatches of the audio book playing on Iggy's ear buds while he napped in one of the chairs. He even helped Angel study, holding flashcards for Bandura and Piaget and Freud and promising not to look at the answers until she'd guessed already. So she couldn't read it in his mind, she'd said.

He reached compulsively for Max's hand every time she took it away.

And every so often, his thumb would wander over that numb patch on his thigh and he'd press down into the unfeeling flesh, letting himself think about Dylan until his thumb was red past his knuckle. The pink thumbprint lingered long after he let go.

The light flickered.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who's taking the time to read and review. You are wonderful, and SUCH an encouragement. My writing is getting better with every chapter, and it's because of you! Giving me feedback, letting me know what I need to work on, letting me know what I'm doing well! So thank you.

pancakes-for-you: Thanks for dropping a note! The sequence of climax chapters was a blast to write, with so much action and so many characters. I'm glad you've enjoyed them.

Nola96: Yeah, I'm really fond of the short chapters. It's fun to be able to do something a little more...I don't know, stylistic? All of the big plot points are through, we're wrapping up, we're losing momentum. So it feels like there's room for me to get creative with some of it, in a different way than I could when the focus was driving the plot forward.

thestupidgenius1123: Ahahahah, I made you cave. That alone is quite a compliment, missy. I'm glad you're loving it! The more I write the flock, the more I enjoy it. They're hard to write - there are so many characters, and I try not to leave anyone out, and I always feel like i'm juggling water balloons - but when I can work the scene out just right, the end result is really satisfying.

Lustrex: Did this answer your craving for a longer chapter? I almost hit 5k words. And the final chapter exceeds 5k. There's a lot of ground to cover, and I didn't realize it until I got here, but I think I'm covering everything. And I'm not too sure about Angel's powers! She's not figured prominently in this story, so I didn't put much thought into her mind-reading and the rules behind it. I think I'll have to, though, for the stories that I will work on next, since she will be a bigger player in them.