I woke up, again, to Max whispering in my ear that it was my watch. This time we weren't going to have a stupid 'talk.' I got up and went to a tree to lean on. Then I pulled out my laptop and blogged a little. The usual stuff. Eventually, it was Iggy's turn and I went back to sleep in my spot away from the others. I didn't see Max after she told me it was my watch, but I assumed she was sleeping behind something. I'm barley younger than her but I've found that I respect her. A lot. If I was leader with all these Eraser attacks, I'd snap under the pressure and… I don't know. Something bad, that's for sure. But not Max. Max is strong, and we couldn't go on by ourselves without her advice and knowledge.

When Iggy heard birds start to sing, he woke the rest of us up. Really all he did was yell "Everyone up!" and that's it…

"Can someone get out the breakfast stuff for me?" Iggy asked while getting the fire ready again. Since I was the closest to the bag, I grabbed it. I reached and I pulled what little we had left, a bunch of hotdogs. Yay, hotdogs again. But that's not what I was curious about. Taped of the hotdog package was a folded up note. My first thought was actually, 'we have tape?' but I quickly shook it out of my head and opened the note. I practically felt my own face whiten and I was suddenly very scared.

"Where's Max?" Angel asked at the same moment I looked up to look for her. I didn't respond. I read the note quickly at first, suddenly realizing why she had brought up her being absent last night. She left. Max, the one I thought was so strong, left us. Left to turn herself into the School. I felt the entire Flock's eyes on me. They saw the note I had, they knew I knew where Max was.

"She's…" I simply couldn't speak. Normally I choose not to, now I couldn't even if I wanted to. I handed the note to Nudge, and she read it out loud, tears falling out of her eyes.

"We have to go after her!" Iggy said, standing up and ready to go. Gazzy was the first to stand up with him, then the rest of the Flock.

"No point. She's gone. She left last night before her watch was even over." I said, and refused to stand up with them. I refused to even look at their teary faces. None of us could stand to loose her.

"But we can catch her! We can tell her we need her!" Nudge said, and everyone nodded in agreement.

"No. Point. There's no way we can catch her with her speed." I pointed out how fast she can go, and they realized that I was right. We can't catch her.

"She's to fast with her power, and even if she does get tired she to stubborn to stop and rest." I added, and one by one the flock sat back down, to exhausted and sad to do anything else but cry.

We're six kids. Kids with no family but each other. Kids with no home, not enough food, nothing to really distract us from things like death. Or our most cared about person leaving us. Max was a mom to the younger kids, and a sister - more like a best friend to me. Probably to Iggy too. She was our leader. She was the one who told us what to do for our own good. She made sure we had food, water, a safe place to sleep, when to fly, when not to fly, where to go. She made almost all of our decisions. She protected us. She loved us, and we loved her.

Now she's gone. And we can't get her back unless we ambush the School. But chances are, they've already made a deal with her, put her in a helicopter and are taking her to the main building where the security is far to advanced for us. Especially now that they have Max, they'll be expecting us to come. They'll be waiting for us. If we go after Max, we're all dead no matter what. Dead, or put into the School with her.

Part of me really wanted to go after her anyway. Knowing the consequences, but still seeing her face one last time…

I closed my eyes, put my head on my knees and tried my hardest not to listen to the Flock. No use. Their crying and asking each other why she had to go, just got through to me. I couldn't help it… This is by far the worst thing that has ever happened to us, loosing Max. Not even 'big, strong, emotionless' me bothered to keep from crying a tear or two. I just wish I could have changed her mind. I wish she had talked to me about this before leaving

I gave the Flock a lot of leisure time. We didn't set off to go anywhere for a long time. We were headed someplace special for Max. We were headed home. Sure the house had been blown up, but we wanted to go there anyway. Just for the heck of it. We were a long way away, so we only got about half way there before we had to stop for the night and eat something. It was weird all day. I was in charge. I have so much more to think about now… All day I tried to think about Max's reasoning for the things she did. To try and be more like her to lead the Flock. For their sake anyway. It hurt to think about her though. I wanted so badly to just… go crazy. Or to at least try not to think about her. But to be leader, to make the right decisions, you have to sacrifice yourself all the time. Usually not as bad as full out letting the School take you, but little things like thinking of someone you love who is now gone.

During our flight barely a word was said. Even Nudge was quiet. All she said all day was things like "I'm hungry." Or "I'm tired." Or some other important issue. Which is when I would nod and lead them down to rest or grab a bite to eat somewhere. Usually we just did a little dumpster diving. At dinner though we actually went into a fast food restaurant. Then we flew about 10 minutes until I found an area for us to sleep in.

By the time we finally got to where the house used to be, it was almost unrecognizable. There was a little bit of the house still around, bits and pieces here, but other than that it had grass growing all over. There were still no trees where our house stood, but there were some flowers and weeds growing there as well as grass. We were all quiet as we thought individual thoughts. Nudge was the only one to speak.

"It looks so different…" She said. No one really answered her though, no one really wanted her to speak. She was trying to do the right thing though, and trying to lighten the mood. But we just didn't want to have our 'mood lightened'

We ate the last of our food and laid down to rest. Before we all went to sleep, Angel came over and sat down next to me. She wrapped her small arms around my neck and hugged tightly. I wanted to be alone, but hugged back anyway. She was after all, so young.

"Why did we come here again Fang?" She asked me. I just shrugged in response. I thought it would be nice to see where our old house was. She got off me and leaned her back on me and sat in silence.

"Are we going to live here from now on? Now that the Erasers won't be after us…" She tried to ask again, but started to cry a little at the thought of what Max did for us.

"I don't know Angel. I'm still trying to figure this stuff out." I said and petted her hair a little. With that she sniffed and laid down near me to sleep. It had been a long few days since Max left.

The truth is, I'm not good at this leading stuff. I'm no good at talking to people or making hard decisions, or making the younger ones feel safe. I suck at all the things Max was good at. And I want so badly to just… I don't know. Make the pain go away. But I can't. I have to live with the pain as Max did for the Flock. I can't let myself go crazy and ignore the pain, I can't kill myself or hurt myself to numb the pain, I can't do anything about it but try and get over it.

But I'll never get over it. I'll never get over what Max did for us. She's by far the bravest and strongest person I know, no matter what she thinks about herself. I would never be able to give myself over like that for anyone. I'll never be as perfect as her, none of us will. Because Max is saving the world. One Flock at a time.

Hmm. To be honest, I think it's okay. Not my best peice of work.. But whatever. It's posted now.

So now, it's up to YOU. Should I continue the story and have the Flock decide to go after her or not? Keep in mind that there are two sides to this story. It's sad because Max is gone. Happy because the rest don't have to deal with attacks. Getting Max back will make everyone happy, but still horribly sad from the attacks again. (and if I continue it, it might be in vain because I tend to kill people in stories)

So, go to my profile and vote in the poll there. I'm to lazy to keep tally the regular way.

But, review anyway. I do like reviews. And thanks for reading, even though I only really like the last two paragraphs. .