Ughhh. Last chapter…enough said. I am not sure what fit of schizophrenia took control of my brain, but it was bad. Jeesh.

Writing is cursed. You never know how a chapter is going to end until you're actually typing the final words. And you wonder how you're going to manage pulling it all together again. Sort of like jumping out of an airplane and hoping you can sew your parachute before you hit the ground.

Like now, for instance. Right as I'm typing this, I have no clue what my opening words will be, or what's going to happen, or where they're going to be when this chapter ends.

That was random. But anyway…

Max POV

I'd woken up about five minutes ago, and already the Troublesome Trio had given me a headache. Yes, the Trio. It used to be the Twins, but I have expanded it to include Panther Girl and the two DNA-lacking girls.

I rubbed my forehead. I wasn't entirely sure, but from what I understood, something had given Madysyn a deadly disease, one that Shannon and Natalca had seen before, with a friend back in Jasper. Shannon almost killed herself trying to safe Madysyn herself, and then woke Natalca. Shannon used her healing power, stretching the boundaries to take energy from Natalca instead of giving it like her gift was obviously intended to do. Then she channelled her and Natalca's combined energy into Madysyn and flushed out whatever was killing her. In the process, their minds got linked temporarily, and now Madysyn is more in tune with them than ever before.

Now, isn't that wonderful? I have the Twin balls of energy, and now a third. Fantastic. That makes everything easy for Max.

And it also explains a bit of how and why Shannon and Natalca know each other so well. I mean, of course being together since kindergarten was most of it, being mind-linked twice was part of it, too.

For the first five minutes since I'd woken up, I'd felt good. Refreshed. Rested. Not bordering-on-snapping-stressed-out-extremely-tired. But the headache was taking that feeling away entirely.

My super-hearing picked up a footstep coming in my direction, and my body reacted without thinking. I spun, fists clenched, foot ready to snap into a kick.

But there was no need, because once again I'd freaked for no reason. It was Madysyn, and her head was cocked in confusion.

"Is there a reason you want to kill me? More than usual, I mean?"

"Yes. You've given me a headache. But I don't know why I reacted like that. Sorry." I sighed.

"Take a chill-pill, Max. You can relax a bit. No one's trying to kill us quite as much anymore." She gave a rueful grin. "Serena's gone. Taren's gone. And it's not just you looking out for five younger kids. Well, Fang and Iggy aren't much younger, but you know what I mean. You have Shannon, Iggy, Natalca, J.J., Fang, Regan, and I all on high alert just as much as you, ready to fight and defend. You're not on your own."

"Have you been reading Hallmark cards or something?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, they're very interesting. Would you like to hear some more?" she said sarcastically.

"Not really, no."

Fang came to my side, and glanced at Madysyn. She got the hint and left, shifting and bounding to Natalca, who was throwing cans at the wall using levitation.

I looked at Fang.

"Everyone's up. We can go." He said.

"Okay." I spread my wings, and Fang's mouth twisted into a frown.

"Max, are you okay?" he asked.

"Honestly, not really. I'm super stressed. But that's nothing new. Let's go." I said flatly. "Up and away, guys."

Everyone stopped and shot into the air after me, Wolf-Boy (yes, that's my nickname for him) and Panther Girl (haha. I bet she'd hate that) taking their customary places on the ground and running beneath us.

For a while, the tension in my muscles relaxed, as I let myself slide into blissful calm that always came with flying. Well, when we weren't running from crazed villains trying to kill us.

"Where to start, where to start…" I muttered.

We had to look for the School, but Dacca was very close packed, very squishy. It could very easily be hidden anywhere.

Madysyn POV

Regan was going insane, I could tell. He'd almost completely gone over the edge when I'd bee dying, but this was almost worse. He was so scared that it would happen again, with the same lack of warning. And this time maybe Natalca and Shannon couldn't save me, or they couldn't get to me fast enough, or the whitecoats would catch us first, and I'd die in a cell, or….it could go on and on.

Unfortunately, we were in animal form, so I couldn't talk to him. No, I couldn't command him.

But I wasn't sure how convincing I'd be, anyway. I was scared, too. Call me a wuss, and I'll hunt you down and rip to very small shreds very torturously. You don't know what's it like to almost die, and not even know why. And then to know perfectly well that it could very much happen again. Soon. Worse than last time. I could drop dead any second now, for all we knew. Or maybe it wouldn't even be me. Maybe it would be Nudge. Or Fang. Or Iggy. Or J.J. Or Shannon.

Or Regan.

I shuddered. It could be anyone.

Jesus, I was scaring myself. And I was worrying about Max, as well. Something was wrong with her, something bad. She almost attacked both Regan and I when we approached her, and she seemed to be on a constant adrenaline rush.

Speaking of that, Regan wasn't himself either. Besides the obsessive worrying about me, I mean. He tensed up whenever anybody talked to him, walked by him, brushed against him, made a sound…he was on hyper alert gone to the next level. Except me, of course. I never made him jump.

I never made him jump…so what was different about me? It's not like I don't scare him because I'm his girlfriend. No, we're not some lovey-dovey romance story here. So why was I not scary and the others were?

Don't even think the fact that I'm female. So are Max, Natalca, Shannon, Angel, and Nudge.

I'm a panther. They're birds. But since when are panthers and wolves best friends? Except that we're both predators, hunters, stalkers, carnivores…and birds are often our prey.

They are birds.

My heart skipped a beat, and I messed up my stride, tumbling headlong into Regan's side. He gave a short bark and looked at me in alarm, wondering what was wrong. I shook my head at him, telling him I was fine. He looked away, not convinced.

But at the moment, I didn't care. I swear, it was all I could do to keep my paws streaking over the ground and not take a nose-dive. My brain was swirling around in a leap of intuition.

We're natural predators, and they're our natural prey.

The very first day I met the flock, along with Beth, the tiger. We had barely controlled our desire to rip their throats out. Especially Beth. Me, not as much. I hadn't travelled with them because of it. But then it had gotten better, and we'd become friends. Their desire to fight me faded, as my instinct to eat them faded, too.

Maybe our instincts were coming back. Regan didn't tense and jump when I joined him because I was a fellow hunter. He jumped when they were around him, because they were not fellow hunters. They were enemies, prey.

When Max had turned on Regan, snarling and hissing. She'd thought he was an Eraser, because they both gave off the same aura. Predator. Same reason when she almost attacked me earlier.

Oh, man.

Max POV

We'd been flying for hours, combing the city over and over, circling and spiralling. Madysyn and Regan were on the ground, trying to pick up trails of whitecoats, antibacterial, all that School kind of stuff. It was harder for them, though, because they had to avoid busy streets, and be sure to stay in abandoned alleys and the dark corners where no one would see them. Regan's frustration was almost tangible.

Angrily I glanced at my flock. I sighed, admitting to myself that they were dead tired.

"Stop, guys. Land in that alley, there. Maybe we'll find a hotel, stay the night, rest up. I'll get some info from the Voice." I said flatly.

"Are you sure, Max? We can keep looking, if you want. I'm not too tired." Nudge ventured.

I opened my mouth to say something, but Fang quickly interrupted, banking sharply and looking at Nudge before saying firmly, "Do what she says."

Nudge clamped her mouth shut and descended with the rest of us, Angel calling the other two mentally. They showed up, tails drooping and paws dragging.

"Sorry, guys. I should have stopped sooner. I shouldn't have let you get this tired. We shouldn't ever not be able to fight. I'm-" I began, berating myself.

"Max!" A chorus of voices stopped me.

"We're fine. You didn't do anything wrong. Stop beating on yourself. You do a great job of looking after us. I don't want to think what would happen if I tried to lead." Natalca argued.

"All right, all right. But we still need rest." I sighed, not up for arguing.

Shannon POV

For the very first time since Natalca and I had arrived, I was using my dreamwalking gift. Nope, wait, second time. I used it to show Iggy what happened with Serena. But that was an emergency, sort of. This was just for fun, and pleasure. When I peeked at other people's dreams, I felt like I was floating, or flying. When I put myself inside the dream, doing the whole dreamwalker thing, it was even better. When I influenced a dream, the feeling got even more intense, and I got a feeling of power.

When you tell people you can control dreams, they tend to scoff. Well, at least the few people I have told. What can controlling dreams possibly do? More than you'd think. You know when you were little, and you watched a scary movie and had nightmares for weeks? Or had one nightmare and were scared of the dark for a while? Or when you kept having the same nightmare over Andover and you were really freaked? Well, that could have been me, if I felt like it. Or it could have been a totally normal subconscious thing. Most likely the latter.

But I could also do a hell of a lot more than scare four year-olds. I could give such a terrifying nightmare that you would lock your doors and sleep with the lights on and one eye open for the rest of your life. That's about a five on a scale of one to ten. Ten was committing suicide the next day.

The problem was that there was some dreams I could not influence. Some minds just had built in walls against me, but that was rare. Sometimes whatever was making the person dream was just too strong in the subconscious for me to do anything about. That, too, was rare. The worst problem was what I called 'recoil'. That was when I was either careless, weak, too strong, too closely mind-linked, or a plain fluke. It was when whatever dream I influenced or completely made disappear popped up in my mind next time I fell asleep. And let me tell you, that can scare the crap out of you when a dream you know you've never had before seems so familiar. The first time, it took me a while to figure it out.

But obviously, my gift was not just a weapon. I could use it to be nice, as well, but that was less likely. When we were in the School, and Natalca had a nightmare of something, I'd make it go away. And if I couldn't, I'd at least put myself in it to talk to her and make it less scary. I remember a few nights after we'd run away when I'd sensed a small child nearby having a bad dream, and fixing it.

See? I'm not completely heartless.

And right now, I was having fun looking at the flock's dreams. Iggy was dreaming about me, and bombs. Jeez, that sounds bad. Let me clarify. He was not dreaming about using the bombs on me, but for me, against whatever enemies were trying to kill me. It was quite cute, actually. His mind was quite creative when it came to enemies. First it was Erasers, then Flyboys, then a bunch of creepy things that kept coming. I thought about changing it, in case he was scared I was going to die or something, but he seemed content in his abilities to kill everything but me.

Natalca was having a very weird dream that jumped all over the place. It was hard for me to follow, so I couldn't imagine how confused she was in her sleep state. And it was in black and white. For a while, I watched it like it was a movie. Then things started to get clearer. Still in black and white, the 'plot line' changed completely. She was standing in a clearing, and she was alone, staring up at a full moon. She was scared. She knew something bad was going to happen, but I couldn't find out what it was before it happened. There was a long, drawn out, blood-curdling howl, and something huge came out of the bush at full-tilt, coming to a stop across the meadow from her. It stared at her, and there was familiarity between them, as if they knew each other. And it was a wolf. Huge, strong, and magnificent.

My first thought was Regan. But it was pitch black, no question. And besides that, it radiated viciousness. Natalca was no friend of his. The wolf pulled his lips back and snarled, terrifying canine teeth long and sharp. Threatening.

Natalca went still and stared at it, not moving at all. She seemed scared. And that's when I realized the difference between this Natalca and the real-world Natalca. This one didn't have wings. This one was completely human. Which meant she was weak like a human.

She knew she was in horrible danger. But she wasn't terrified. With a start, I realized she had come here on purpose, coming to meet the wolf. Why, I had no clue. The wolf snarled again and started moving forward. Stalking. Natalca still did not move. And then it lunged. Of course, I could have been nice and changed her dream so she didn't die (the ending of this dream was clear) but I didn't. I was entranced. And then I was shocked, because she didn't suddenly wake up because the wolf had killed her.

No, there was another shape in front of her, diving at the black wolf's throat. I saw a flash of chocolate brown fur and black legs. It was Regan.

Tsk tsk. Dreaming about Regan. I thought. Madysyn will not be pleased.

But then there was a long, lithe, blur of more black fur, and the slash of silver claws. Madysyn was here, too. I watched curiously, wondering why her subconscious was giving her this dream.

The black wolf howled, and it sounded frustrated. And then Natalca was on her feet, her face angry. But she wasn't glaring at the black wolf, she seemed to be seething at Madysyn and Regan.

Then she woke up. Of course.

I woke up as well, as I always did when the dream I was looking at ended. I would talk to her, but she was in her room with J.J., and I was with Iggy. I rolled over and quickly fell asleep again.

This time I moved on to Fang, very curious as to what he dreamed about. Guess what I found? Everything was dark. In shades of black and grey. Typical. I grinned internally when I deciphered what was happening. He was on a cliff with Max. they were holding hands and talking. Then they were silent, and he started leaning down towards her, and she started leaning up towards him. I waited until their lips were almost touching, and then I yelled as loud as I could in his head.

HI FANG!!!!!!! SWEET DREAMS!!!!!!

Then I left before he could figure out what happened and yell at me. I thought about who next to go to, and picked Madysyn.

Her dream was even more vivid and frightening than Natalca's. Something horribkle was happening. She was in panther form, and sprinting. From something? Nope, after something. But she wasn't feeling the bliss of a hunter's chase. Her head was an open chasm of negative emotions. Fright. Betrayal. Desperation. Grief. Shame. And burning, raging self-hatred.

Uhhh….I didn't know what to make of it. But I didn't have much time to think, because stuff was happening, and I didn't want to miss anything.

Madysyn was trying to slow her paws, to sheath her claws, to stop chasing. But when she was in panther form, some of her humanity disappeared. Actually, quite a bit. She became more animalistic, more ruled by instincts. And her instincts were screaming at her to give chase, to hunt, to corner, to frighten, to stalk, to kill.

Ahead of her, I could hear pounding footsteps, and then silence, except for the occasional leaf rustling. And of course, Madysyn's pounding heart and thudding footsteps. And her chaotic thoughts. But she kept running, like she was certain her prey was still there. Suddenly the scenery changed. The forest disappeared, replaced by a canyon. I changed my view, trying to see what she was chasing. Instead, I found Regan, running almost parallel to her. That's when I figured out a bit more. Or at least the shape of the canyon. The grand plan of the master hunters.

The canyon was deep, with huge walls on either side, and getting deeper the farther they went in. It was like a huge bowl, but with two exits parallel to each other, with a slab of rock about a half mile wide separating the two roof-less tunnels. They were running towards the bowl part, and chasing something else into it. Cornering it. The paths were not straight, of course. Madysyn turned a corner onto a straight away, and I didn't immediately register what I was seeing. Probably because I refused to believe it. There were three shapes ahead, fleeing quickly. Three shapes that could fly and had roughly thirteen foot wingspans. And wore clothes and sneakers.

One turned around, the biggest one. Her face was contorted with anger, fear, betrayal, and sadness. And a whole lot of hurt.

Even with all that, I recognized Max's face. The second one glanced back, and I gasped internally. It was the unmistakable mocha-coloured face of Nudge. And the tiny blonde girl could only be Angel.

Not believing it, I shifted to look into Regan's tunnel and choked. Ahead of the wolf, Fang was beating his wings furiously and hustling one other along. Gazzy, with tears going down his face.

What was going on? Why were Madysyn and Regan chasing us? In Regan I found the same emotions as Madysyn. And where was I? Natalca? Iggy? J.J? Abandoning the horrible, sickening hunt, I went back along the route, looking for any clues as to what was happening. Unfortunately, I could only see what Madysyn had. But with panther eyes that was bound to be enough.

But when I turned a corner, I wished it wasn't. I didn't want to see what I knew was on the ground up there. It was the shape of a human, with wings. Limp, motionless. Bloody.

The wings were stone grey. Cautiously, swallowing my fear, I went farther. And wanted to scream and run away. It was a body. Stone dead. And it was covered in claw marks, ripped to shreds. That wasn't the worst part. The worst part is that I recognized the mangled body.

J.J.

It's just a dream it's just a dream it's just a dream! I thought to myself.

But it was horrifying. Farther up the path, I found another form on the ground, in a very painful looking and awkward position. The neck was bent at a very, very, wrong angle. Definitely snapped. The fingers were bent into claws, and there was blood under the nails. The clothes were ripped apart, and so was the flesh underneath. Blood was still seeping out. The face was cut and gashed with teeth and claws, but I would never mistake this face. My eyes scanned the ground around, anything to get away from the gruesome image in front of me. In the dirt, there was tufts of black fur caked with blood.

Well, at least I knew Natalca had fought.

Next time, I was sort of prepared, knowing who else was missing. But nothing could have prepared me for it. It wasn't this that got me, but it was what I saw first.

My legs, twisted in ways impossible for intact bones. Broken, both of them. My chest, with a rib poking out of the flesh. My stomach was completely slashed open, many different organs I never, ever needed to see on display. My gaze travelled up to my neck, and I flinched. I only knew it was neck because I knew that's where it should be. But what I saw was a total mess of shredded flesh, blood and gore. I think I even saw a few vertebrae mixed in there. And that was not just the work of claws, although claws had definitely gone crazy there. Only teeth could rip chunks of flesh off like that. Around my dead-for-the-second-time body was a pool of blood that looked quite deep. If I hadn't died from having my throat slashed out, or the rib through the chest, or the broken bones, I would have bled to death in no time.

Jesus Christ.

That was all I thought before I subjected myself to possibly the worst thing ever.

Iggy. In pieces. Just as bad if not worse than me. There were a lot of holes and missing bits of flesh for the amount strewn on the ground. Someone had had a snack. His chest, his perfect, blemish-free, scar less chest that I had traced, and slept on so many times was laid open all the way through. I could see what I guessed was a lung, and what must have been a heart.

I stopped moving forward. I stopped breathing. I stopped thinking. I stopped registering anything at all. This was too much, too much…

Far away in the distance, from the bowl shaped canyon, I heard a high-pitched, agonized scream, and a roar of triumph. Someone else had just joined Natalca, J.J., Iggy and I.

Four more screams. Four more heart-ripping, ear-shattering, agonized, horrifying sounds that would forever be ingrained in my memory, even though they weren't real.

I glanced back down at 'Iggy'. Or the empty, shredded shell that used to be Iggy. Then I looked back at my own bloody body. A little ways off, Natalca and J.J. Far away in the canyon, Max, Angel, Nudge, Fang, and Gazzy were all just as destroyed.

I wrenched myself awake, and sprinted for the bathroom. I couldn't help it. I threw up. Then Iggy was there, and I comforted myself with the thought that Iggy was alive and well, and that horrible hunt had just been Madysyn's…nightmare.

It had been a nightmare, right?

She didn't dream about killing us, did she?

"Shannon? Are you okay? Do you feel all right? Are you sick?" Iggy asked frantically.

Sickened. That was me.

But I shook my head and said, "Food poisoning. Ate too much. I'm fine, Ig. Let's go back to bed."

Once Iggy was in bed and falling asleep, I let down my guard and let myself think. I had seen into Madysyn's mind early this morning. She hadn't given off any thoughts off killing anybody then. She couldn't be a traitor. I knew that. I was angry I'd even had the thought.

But then why had she and Regan killed us?

When I'd first come into the dream, I'd focused on her emotions for a moment. All I had felt was remorse, guilt, self-hatred, shame and desperation. She hadn't wanted to kill us. At least on the surface. But underneath, I'd picked up the panther half. Hunger. Predatory determination. And the age-old categories that any carnivore classified everything by.

Predator or prey. She had classified herself as predator, obviously.

Guess who was the prey? Us. The flock. The birds.

Now where's a brick wall when you need one? I slapped my forehead, and then went still, wondering if Iggy was even asleep yet. Thankfully, he was. I let out my breath, and then got angry all over again. How come no one had seen it? How come I hadn't seen it? How come Natalca hadn't seen it? We'd both seen into her mind, with absolutely no barriers. How come Madysyn hadn't seen it?

I threw the covers off and leapt out of the bed, making my footsteps silent but as fast as possible. I threw open the door violently and then caught it before it could hit the wall.

Madysyn and Regan were hunters. We were prey. We didn't belong together. We couldn't stay together, not if Madysyn's subconscious was that…sure of what it wanted. And Max…the way Max had flipped on them when they approached her…she was feeling it, too.

Someone was going to get hurt. Bad. And it could be anybody. I reached Madysyn and Regan's door, and viciously threw it open. I wasn't sure exactly what I was doing, or what I was going to say. But I couldn't let this go on.

"Madysyn. I know you're awake. Get the hell out here." I hissed into the room.

My mind was stuck in battle mode. But don't judge me on it, because you would be, too, if you'd looked at the very detailed dead bodies of your best friend and her boyfriend, and then yourself and your own boyfriend. I hoped to God that Regan was not awake. Not because I didn't want to talk to both of them. Because I wasn't sure I could take both of them if they attacked me.

"Shannon?" Madysyn's voice wavered slightly.

"Get over here."

I heard her get up, and then her silhouette was at the door, her eyes cautious.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Don't act innocent. I'm a dreamwalker, remember?" I growled.

She flinched.

"Oh…" she whispered, catching on.

"Yes, oh."

"Shannon, I didn't-"

"Don't talk here. Come out here, we'll go on the roof." I ordered.

Madysyn followed, knowing quite well that she had to do what I told her, or I would get the others and tell them about her dream. And she didn't want that.

On the roof, in the fresh, cool night air, some of my sense came back to me, and my anger faded a bit.

"I'm sorry, that was harsh." I said abruptly.

She looked at me, saying nothing.

"You can't control your dreams, I know that. And you're no traitor, either, I know that." I swallowed. "It just shook me, and scared me, seeing that."

She was silent for a moment, and then spoke, her voice quiet and gentle.

"I know it must have. It scared me, too. How much did you see?" she wondered.

"Enough." I said shortly. Then I elaborated. "You were running through a forest, and then it changed to the canyon. You went around a corner, and I saw Max, Nudge, and Angel. Then I looked at Regan, and saw Fang and Gaz. I couldn't stand watching, so I went back along the trail and found…" I swallowed.

"Oh. I'm sorry, Shannon, I am. It's so…" She stopped, and swallowed again. When she spoke, her voice was strong, angry, and full of emotion. Not looking at me, she stared up at the moon and said, "Sometimes I wish so much that I could be normal. Of course, we all do. And other times, I'm happy. I love Regan so much, and I love being able to turn into a panther, and I love all you guys. But other times, it's all too much. When you were killed, that was one of those times. I couldn't take it. We've all been through way too much for our ages, and I wish so much things could be easier. But it's not, and we have to deal with it. Move on. Get over it.

This is one of those times. Regan and I…we fit in here, and we love you and all the others. You and Natalca are such good friends to me, which is something I haven't experienced since….ever. I never had friends, and I want so badly to stay here with you. Like I said, we fit in. But we don't belong. We might hurt somebody. Someone might hurt us."

She stopped, and I could see how much her next words hurt her. So I forced them out for her, wanting to make everything easier.

"You have to leave." I said it softly, a statement, not an order, not a demand.

She nodded slowly. "Regan and I…we'll be okay on our own. And we won't hurt anybody."

"You'll still….you'll still bring down the rest of Itex with us, right?" I asked.

I didn't think I could bear it if I had to say goodbye to her forever.

"Yes. We're involved now. Regan's father killed you, you killed Regan's father. We watched you die. You came back to life, and died with us, again. No way will I ever forget anything that happened with the flock, and never could I leave it behind completely. We'll see you again."

I swallowed and blinked. Just as I was about to talk, another voice broke the silence before I could.

"What are you doing out here?" Regan asked sharply.

Madysyn glanced at him and sighed. She explained the conclusion that we had come to, and he blinked, though he didn't seem that surprised.

"I was…yeah, I figured. I thought Max might figure it out first, but I guess it makes sense that it was Shannon, since she can see our dreams."

"Why would you say that? Have you been having dreams about killing us?" I asked none-too-gently.

His silence was answer enough.

"Jesus." I muttered.

Regan's bright electric blue eyes bored into mine and he said firmly, "You've got to understand, Shannon. Madysyn and I don't want to hurt anybody. It's our damn instincts, our animal sides, that are chomping at the bit to attack. I'm as horrified and sickened by it as you are, trust me. It disgusts me that I can't control myself. That I could possibly hurt my best friends. That I could lose control and kill my best friends. I can't live with that possibility. We'll leave."

Madysyn was about to say something, but she was interrupted by another familiar voice.

"We should have figured it out sooner, I suppose. But you didn't think you were having this discussion without me, did you?" Natalca asked, her eyes grim despite her tone as she stepped out of the shadows.

I sighed. "Is anyone else hiding that would like to come out?"

I didn't expect an answer, and I didn't get one. Natalca had probably only found us because of her radar gift.

"How much did you hear?" Madysyn asked Natalca.

"Just what Regan said. But that's enough for me to put it together."

"Then you understand that we have to leave. Right now." Regan said.

"Why right now? Can't you wait until morning?" I asked.

"I had a dream very similar to Madysyn's. Now that the animal in us has…had a taste of what it wants…only to have it ripped away again…" Regan worded it delicately. "It's much worse than it was before. It's hard enough to keep from charging you two."

"You could try." Natalca and I retorted, not appreciating being pinned as the prey.

He gave us a look. "Don't start. That doesn't make it any easier."

"All right." I agreed softly.

I stepped over to Madysyn and wrapped my arms around her, hugging her tightly. She returned my hug, and I had a horrible mental flash of the rib poking out of my chest. Yeah, that's how tightly she hugs.

"Don't get killed, okay?" I whispered.

"Like you can talk." She scoffed.

I grinned. "Okay, so I'm no expert on staying alive. But do it anyway, got it?"

"Got it."

The light banter seemed to erase some of the tension, and I released Madysyn and attacked Regan instead. No pun intended. I enveloped him in a hug, and remembered suddenly that he was my nephew.

"Promise me you'll stay alive." I ordered.

"Yes, Aunt Shannon." Regan retorted.

"Oh, don't start." I moaned, banging my head against his chest. He winced, and I hugged him hard before letting go.

I was irritated to find tears in my eyes. This whole damn thing since I joined the flock has elicited a lot of tears. Argh. Natalca reluctantly let Madysyn go, and they each gave a wave and a sad smile.

"Bye, Madysyn. Bye, Regan." I whispered.

"Bye." Then they both shifted, and leaped from the roof of the hotel to the next one, and the next, and so on.

Natalca and I stood there, watching the figures of the black panther and the chocolate brown wolf slowly get smaller and smaller and then disappear altogether. I smiled at Natalca, and said, "And so Panther Girl and Wolf Boy run off into the night."

She smiled, and then we both looked up at the moon. It was full.

Far off in the distance, a wolf howled. The final goodbye.

Well, did that ever make tears flow.

Aww. Lol. See what I mean? I had absolutely no inkling that Madysyn and Regan were going to leave. My characters literally have minds of their own. It's like they actually exist…. I wish.

Lol.

*SanraitaFang*