Sorry about Ch. 37 and this chapter for being short but it's all I could get out today, my writing feels clumsy because I haven't written in a few days.

Yay, you get two short chapters, lol. And also in this chapter we explore Fang's mind a bit.

38

The flock slept outside in the dining pavilion, it wasn't cold or raining or anything but Nudge was still sick of sleeping outside. Ever since they'd arrived at Camp Half Blood the flock has been treated like crap. They had to sleep outside and they only got leftover food and they were always being given dirty looks from other campers. Then Max left to get Fang and things got worse, they were the youngest kids at the camp and others constantly sneered. Nudge was told by Chiron that the sneering was only done by the Ares cabin; Ares was the god of war after all. It didn't help, she still felt alone. Then Fang came back. She was so happy. Eight months ago when they first left their home Max disappeared for a while and she and Fang bonded. Then the flock broke up and she missed Fang again. Then when he died she completely lost her mind. Of course she knew Fang wasn't really dead but it still scared her to death. She trusted Max to bring him back, Max was the leader and she had to get Fang back. Then after he came back she learned Max was gone. She just wanted them to stay together forever, a family. She knew it wasn't true that nothing could last forever so she wanted to spend as much time as possible with the rest of the flock.

Max can't be dead, she told herself, and Max can't die. She was the leader. She was like Nudge's mom. Nudge couldn't sleep so she pulled Fang's laptop closer to her and turned it on. She walked over to a table to make sure that the screen wouldn't wake up the rest of the flock but then remembered she couldn't sit at the tables. She was being treated like dogs. Not Total and Akila, they had it pretty good, but like dogs like Magnolia. She wasn't sure what to look up so she decided to read Fang's blog. She went through the archives and realized that Fang had changed so much in such a short time. When they were living with Anne Walker he was the same, dark, quite, moody person but soon after that he was more open, he was making more choices, he was becoming a leader. Max didn't like that, she thought to herself. Max was peeved about that.

It's so weird that Fang changed so much, she thought. I wonder what caused him to change like that?

She glanced over at the sleeping flock, looking so dysfunctional without the dogs and Max. Fang looked the same as he did when they left their house last May, yet he had changed on the inside. She touched the keyboard and felt what Fang felt.

She pulled her hand away, nearly crying at the feeling of all the guilt. Fang felt so bad about Max, he still kept things bottled up but not as much as he used to. He would push those old thoughts away, keep them all inside. Now he was different.

Growing up was hard but there was something else. What was it? She couldn't place her finger on it. Was he a clone? Well one feel of the keyboard told her he wasn't. Was he different? Was he hiding something? No, no. She was puzzled. What would make Fang so different?



"I know what it is," Angel said, sitting behind Nudge. Nudge was startled but quickly hid it. Angel didn't need to see another older kid scared.

"What do you mean?" Nudge asked.

"I know why Fang changed so much," Angel replied sweetly.

"Do tell," Nudge said.

"Ok but don't tell him I've been snooping around in his mind," Angel sniffed.

"Deal," Nudge said. Their pinky fingers briefly intertwined.

"He's been trying to make up for Jeb," Angel said. "He loves Max and all of us, he wants to be like Jeb was to everyone, and he wants to be like a father to the young kids and something more to Max. He matured a lot; he's still unsure how to show his emotions, he feels stupid whenever he lets his emotions show. He's too embarrassed to be himself around us." She said. "He's really complicated."

"Huh," was all Nudge said. How odd, Fang wanted to be more like a father to them but more like someone else to Max, he felt stupid when he showed how he felt and he really matured since the whole Anne Walker/clone Max situation.

Nudge was glad she understood Fang more.