Hi guys!

So this update is a week late. Technically, I owe you another chapter, but oh well. The next one will be up next weekend. And I'm on vacation this week, so I'll make sure it's ready.

This chapter is okay. I don't hate it, but I'm not a fan of how I wrote the end. I'm also too lazy to fix it.

Other than that, there's nothing to say.

Read and review!

The bar was one of the most comforting places for Max. She had known it long before she had been legally able to drink, and she was relaxed there. Fang, Iggy, and Gazzy liked it too, but not because of Max's reason. They liked to drink.

That's why they had chosen to take their break at the bar. That and nobody wanted the slightly warm beers that Iggy insisted on having four of.

Max felt a little differently when she entered the bar. Sure, it still felt like a home, but there was something off. Maybe it was because she knew she had to kill the man who brought her here. Or maybe it was because she hadn't entered alone. Either way, she still had to take a deep breath to feel completely at ease in the familiar place. And that bothered. Everything in her life had changed, and she had depended on this place to stay the same. Of course she couldn't have that.

But she still felt happy when she sat down and got used to the strange feeling that came with being in the bar. She watched as Fang and Iggy bet Gazzy that he couldn't drink a ridiculous amount of alcohol with a small smile on her face. She rolled her eyes whenever they looked at her, but it was done good naturedly. She genuinely enjoyed being with these people.

"Chug, chug, chug," Gazzy chanted excitedly. He reminded Max of a young child; eager to experience the world even though he knew what it held. It was kind of refreshing to see an optimist.

She joined in on the conversation at some points, but was content observing most of the time. Everybody was enjoying themselves. Max even saw a grin on Fang's lips a few times.

A cocky smirk was playing on his lips when he turned to Max and passed her a shot.

"Really?" Max asked skeptically. "You want to do shots?"

Fang shrugged, but the smirk didn't drop from his face. "Why not?"

"Maybe because I've gotten trashed too many times this week already," Max pointed out, holding back an eye roll.

"Or maybe it's because you're scared."

It was a cheap shot, and Max shouldn't have gone for it. But as soon as the words left Fang's mouth, a steely glint entered Max's eyes and she set her jaw. "I'm not scared."

Fang's smirk grew. "Sure."

Without a word, Max picked up the shot and downed it. "I'm not," she said, holding up the empty shot glass as proof.

Fang's only response was to down his own drink.

It became a competition after that. Fang would swallow a shot, and Max would answer with another. It continued until they were both drunk and giggling, leaning on each other for support so they wouldn't topple from their chairs. They were so drunk that they forgot they had to be paranoid. That's why Max missed the eyes that followed her every move. That's why she didn't do something about it.

And of course this came back to bite her in the ass as soon as she tries to leave with the rest of her drunken friends.

"Max?" the voice shocked Max. She already had one foot out the door, and had just expected to leave, pass out on Fang's couch, wake up and regret everything in the morning, and continue on with her life. Why was there an obstacle in the very first step? "Max, what are you doing?"

It took Max a second to turn without falling. She had to use Iggy's arm to help, and still managed to stumble and nearly tumble face first into a table. She saw the speaker as soon as she turned. It was a woman with ebony skin, black, corkscrew hair, and chocolate brown eyes. She was flanked by two other women, who were too out of focus for Max to look closely at. All she could concentrate on was the woman directly in front of her and the fact that her vision was spinning a bit.

"Nudge!" Max exclaimed, excitement clear in her voice. "How are you? Do you still talk a lot?"

Nudge rolled her eyes and placed a hand on her hip. "Max, what are you doing?" There was a bit of disappointment in her voice as she surveyed the situation.

"Leaving," Max said, gesturing to the door.

"With them?"

Max furrowed her eyebrows. Why did Nudge care that she was leaving with her friends? Her drunken mind was too busy making her vision spin to actually think about that. "Yea. Why?"

Concern and disappointment made Nudge's lips turn down. "Max, I thought you were done going home with random guys?"

Laughter began to bubble out of Max's mouth, but before she could speak, one of the other women speaks. She had a head full of blonde curls the framed a pale face and blue eyes. She was small and looked angelic, despite her profession. "We're taking you home."

"What?" Max began to protest, but she was cut off again, this time by the third woman.

"Please don't argue with us," the Hispanic woman said, "Just come on."

They proceeded to loop arms around Max to insure she didn't topple over, and lead her out of the bar. While they walked, Max placed the third woman. She had dark hair and eyes paired with tan skin.

"Ella, come on. I wasn't going to do anything bad," Max complained, her voice a whine.

"Shush, Max."

Jutting her bottom lip out, Max crossed her arms and glared at the three women around her. They ignored her until they entered a taxi.

Nudge informed the driver where she lived and they began to whiz through the streets.

"Max," Ella said the words gently, as if she were talking to a child. And talking to a drunken Max essentially was talking to a child. "What were you going to do with those guys?"

Max shrugged. "Plan, probably."

Ella's head tilted to the side as confusion entered her eyes. "What do you mean by plan?" She already had a good idea. Assassins usually worked alone, but there were exceptions. Normally, only two worked together, so four was a stretch, but it wasn't unbelievable.

"How to kill Jeb!" Max nearly giggled when she said the words.

The taxi driver's eyes flitted up to the mirror so he could look at the women, but he didn't comment. That didn't stop everybody besides Max from seeing the panic in his eyes. They would deal with that later.

"Max," the words are growled out through gritted teeth, "do not say another word until we get home." Just speaking about killing somebody as powerful as Jeb could get you spoken to. And spoken to meant either tortured or killed. You were lucky if it was the latter.

The remainder of the ride was silent. Nobody dared to speak, Ella, Angel, and Nudge because they feared somebody would hear something they weren't supposed to, and Max because she was afraid she was going to vomit if she opened her mouth.

Max exited the car first when they reached Nudge's house. She didn't notice, but Angel slipped the driver an extra fifty to keep his mouth shut about what he heard.

It was a struggle to get Max into the house and sitting on the couch. She kept stopping to wobble and nearly trip, or to admire something that as simple as a particularly pretty paint color on a wall. But eventually they made it, and Max was seated and quiet.

Nudge was the first to speak. "I thought you were done going home with guys, Max. I thought you realized how stupid it was and how it wasn't going to fix whatever it is he broke inside of you. I thought you were smarter than to go home with three guys!"

Max's eyes had narrowed slowly as Nudge's voice had risen. So by the end of Nudge's reprimand she was nearly shouting and Max's eyes were narrowed to slits.

"Don't you ever talk about him." Max's voice was deadly calm. It didn't matter that she was drunk; any mention of him was always enough to get to her. Her giggly, happy, drunken demeanor had dissipated in less than a minute. It would return; her angry episodes only lasted for short bursts when she was drunk. The three women knew that too.

But Nudge still took a step back. No matter how long she had known Max, or how good their friendship was, she was still very aware of how dangerous Max was. Nudge wasn't worried about Max hurting her – she never lashed out when she was drunk – but it was instinctual to step away. Almost like when a caged snake lunged forward suddenly. People jumped anyways.

"I'm sorry."

In a matter of seconds, Max's grin was back on her face. "It's okay."

Silence shrouded the room for a moment while the three sober women decided if Max was done with her anger. When they agreed that she was, Ella spoke. "Max, do you want to explain why you're planning to kill Jeb?" Her tone was condescending, as if she was a teacher speaking to a student.

"I don't want to die!" Max said, as if that cleared it all up. "And Fang doesn't want to die. And now that Iggy and Gazzy are with us, they probably don't want to die either. So we have to kill Jeb."

Angel and Nudge shared a look of exasperation, but Ella just continued to speak. "Why would you die if you didn't kill Jeb?"

Max furrowed her eyebrows and pursed her lips, as if the question required a lot of thought. "I got a job. I was supposed to kill Fang, but I couldn't. So we decided that Jeb had to go."

"Why couldn't you finish the job?" Ella asked, ignoring the whispering coming from her friends.

"I just couldn't," Max tells Ella as if that was an explanation. Then, she waited to see if the sober woman was going to speak again. When she didn't, Max said, "I'm tired."

As soon as the words had exited her mouth, she curled up on the couch and started snoring.

The other three women were left wide awake and confused. How had Max failed? She was the best; she didn't fail. And her explanation was that she couldn't? A killer doesn't just get cold feet. Every assassin had to be comfortable with murder. Max certainly was. So why couldn't she just finish her damn job?

It wasn't like they could find out anything more than facts when Max woke up. Drunken Max was confusing and annoying, but she was honest. Sober Max was cold and closed off; she would never give anything other than facts unless it was needed. Her feelings were always off limits.

"Do you think she's telling the truth?" Nudge asked after they were positive Max was asleep.

"She is," Ella replied, "That's her fatal flaw. Give her a bottle of tequila and she'll spill her guts."

Nudge and Angel began a heated discussion about what to do if Max really was planning to kill Jeb and why she even wanted to do so, but Ella stayed silent. She knew Max's motives.

She knew the whole story, not just the little clips Max had given the other girls. She knew how Jeb had reacted after it happened, and how Max had been devastated. She knew how Jeb had sided with him. She knew everything.

Ella was just unsure of her opinion on the matter. Should she have helped Max? Should she have informed Jeb of the possible threat? Should she have just stood by and let whatever happened happen? She had no idea who she wanted to betray.

And that was what was making her decision so difficult. It was the fact that she had to hurt somebody, betray someone, to get through this.

That was the question, she decided as Nudge and Angel argued. Who could she live without?

Because her decision would affect who lived, that was certain. If she told Jeb, he'd put a price on Max's and Fang's heads, or maybe just go to kill them himself. If she helped Max, the biggest father figure in her life would most likely die, and it would be partly her fault. She knew it would be difficult, but Jeb would not survive a fight against seven trained assassins. He could try, God knew he wouldn't go down without a fight, but Ella knew that his efforts would be wasted.

So that was the question. Who did she want to live, Jeb or Max?

She imagined a life without Jeb. It was sad for a little while. People mourned the loss of the only leader they had ever known, but then somebody else stepped into the power and life went on. Ella was sad for a while. She cried for a while. She remembered her father for a while. But she moved on. People like her were experts on moving on.

Then her mind switched tracks, and Max had died. It was awful. Ella saw herself becoming what she hated most; a cold blooded killer. Sure, she was an assassin. She has killed more people than she'd like to admit. But that didn't mean she slept well at night. No, instead she tossed and turned and dreamt of everybody that had ever died at her hands. That's what Max's death did to her. It made her uncaring, it made her deadly. It made her everything she didn't want to be. She saw more people than her suffering from similar consequences. She saw Nudge and Angel with bags under their eyes and dripping knives in their hands. She saw those men Max had been with, even though she didn't know them. She saw them sad and alone. The one time she had been around them they had been wearing goofy grins. Now, in her mind, they were weighed down by straight, grim faces. No matter how far into the future Ella went, she only saw grief and mourning.

And that's what answered her question. Ella chose.

And she chose her sister.