Okay, I planned to post this tomorrow, but I'm feeling nice today. It's the longest chapter in this story so far… and it's what you've all been waiting for.

So enjoy!

"No," I said, shaking my head. "No way."

"Max, come on!" said Nudge. "It'll be so much fun!"

"You should go, Max," Iggy put in. "Like, in all seriousness. You should."

I scowled at him, even though he couldn't see it. "No. You know the School is stopping at nothing to capture my kids. If we go into town, we'll be spotted."

"But Max," said Angel, looking up at me with wide, innocent blue eyes. "You're the one who told me you and Fang wanted Gracie and Devin to have the most normal life possible, and that's why you were raising them together even though you 'aren't in love.'" I blushed when she did finger quotes around the last three words, embarrassed that she was talking about this discussion while Fang was right there. "Having a family night, just the four of you, would help them having a more normal life, wouldn't it?"

"Well, yeah, but--" I sputtered, at a loss for words. That was true; I had wanted to do whatever was necessary to give these kids a normal experience, but I had to put their safety first. This argument, however, wasn't working on the four bird kids ganging up on me.

I looked over to Fang for help. He was standing off to the side, the kids playing at his feet, watching the conversation unfold. Instead of coming to my rescue, though, he said, "I think we should go."

I stared, my mouth dropping open, and then threw my hands in the air. "Am I the only one who's concerned with our safety here?"

"I don't think it'll hurt," Fang said. "And Angel's right. We do need to do something together. As a family."

"Why don't we stay here and play with them?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips. "They won't know the difference."

"That's all they ever do," he said, stepping closer and dropping his voice so he was only speaking to me. "Sit around and play in the house. Fly around outside. That's it. What if something really bad happens, and we never get this opportunity again? Don't you want them to have at least one happy memory of going someplace with their parents?"

I bit my lip while my logical side fought with my sentimental side. The sentimental side said he was right. The logical side said, What if you get caught?

"It's what we were deprived of, Max," Fang said quietly, and that was what pushed my sentimental side over my logical side: the thought of giving my children what I could never have.

Damn motherly instincts.

"Fine," I grumbled, and the flock cheered. "Nudge, did you write down the address of the play you found?"

"Yep!" she said happily, handing me a piece of paper. "There's all you need to know! It's Annie, it starts at seven, you and Fang pay five bucks each but the kids get in free."

"Great," I sighed, looking over her messy handwriting. "Fang, let's go, I guess."

I grabbed my windbreaker off the back of the couch and threw Fang's and the kids' to them. Gracie was reaching out for Fang, so he picked her up. I shoved the piece of paper in my back pocket and got Devin. We headed towards the front door, and I pulled it open. "Don't blow up the house," I called over my shoulder, and then I shut the door behind us.

I tilted my head back and looked at the sky. "Should we carry them?"

Fang thought for a moment, then said, "Yeah. Let them get used to the altitude before they start flying that high."

"Alright," I said, and took off running, leaping into the air and unfurling my wings, holding Devin tight in my arms. I heard Fang take off behind us and Gracie squeal with joyous laughter. I smiled to myself. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

We climbed and climbed, rising higher and higher into the sky. I took in deep breaths of the fresh air, feeling my heart fill with the freedom of flying. It didn't take long for Fang to catch up with me, and when I looked over there, I thought that this felt sort of right: me and him, high above the earth with the kids who were ours, pieces of us.

We arrived a couple miles outside Denver forty-five minutes later, with about an hour to spare before the play. Nobody had eaten since lunch, so I said, "Fang, let's find a place to eat."

He nodded as we walked toward the city. Both of us had put down the kid we were carrying, and now we were in a line holding hands. It was sort of sweet, Devin's hand in mine and Gracie's in Fang's and the kids' in each others'. "Not a crowded place," he said, looking at me over the kids' heads. I nodded, remembering losing Gracie and how frightening that had been. "I'm thinking fast food."

"Me too." We were passing through a park, and ahead of us were busy streets. I spotted a McDonalds' and pointed to it. "There?"

"Sure."

"Where we going?" asked Gracie, craning her neck.

"McDonald's," I told her. "You can have some chicken nuggets or something."

"Yay," she said, smiling, and I smiled back. Man, when had I ever felt like this? I mean, I definitely had felt maternally toward the flock, but not this much. It was like knowing the kids were mine made me feel more strongly, every one of their smiles making my heart squeeze joyfully.

We walked to the McDonald's, several people smiling at us but one or two glaring. It made me feel very uncomfortable, being under the radar like that, so as Fang held the door open for me and the kids, I hung back and said, "Did you see those people looking at us?"

He glanced back behind him. "No."

"That makes me nervous, Fang," I whispered, doing an automatic 360. "People looking at us. We shouldn't be here. We should go."

"Would you relax?" Fang whispered back, looking around again. "Did the people look suspicious?"

I thought, then slowly shook my head. "No," I admitted. "They looked like normal people. Except that they were giving us really dirty looks, Fang. Why else would they be looking at us like that?"

He stared at me, then started to laugh. I put my hands on my hips and glared at him. "Why are you laughing?" I demanded. "This isn't funny. We're in danger. Our kids are in danger. What is your issue?"

"That's not why they were looking at us," he said, trying to keep a straight face and failing. I furrowed my brow, confused, and Fang took my shoulders, gently turning me around to face the inside of the restaurant. My eyes fell on the twins, who had picked out a table and were crawling over the chairs. "That's why."

"What do you mean, that's why?" I asked irritably. "Don't give me that fortune cookie crap. I don't feel like talking to the Voice right now."

"Those people were looking at us because we're teenagers and we were with two kids who look exactly like us," Fang said with exaggerated patience. "That's kind of less than socially acceptable."

Oh.

Feeling stupid, I gave him a glare of my own and snapped, "Well, why didn't you just say that?" Then I strode into the McDonald's, hearing him sigh heavily behind me, and headed for the kids.

"Mommy, I'm hungry," said Gracie, sticking her thumb in her mouth. "Can we eat now?"

"Yes," I said, gently taking her wrist and pulling it away from her face. "What do you want? Nuggets?"

"Lots of 'em," she said, holding up ten fingers.

I smiled at her, deciding I'd get three, and a couple sides of fries. "Okay. Devin?"

"Me too," he said. "With a toy."

I turned to Fang, who had walked up beside me with his hands shoved in his pockets. "You?"

"Just, like, three double cheeseburgers," he said, plopping down in one of the four chairs. Gracie immediately toddled over to him, climbing into his lap. "And fries. Apple pie."

"Got it." I backed away, toward the counter. "Be right back."

By the time I ordered our large amount of food, went through the usual argument with the cashier who was shocked by how much we were ordering, ate the food, and took Gracie to the bathroom, we had only half an hour to find this community center where the show was playing. Luckily, with our built-in sense of direction, we didn't have much trouble finding the play. In fact, we didn't really need it-- two blocks off, we saw a huge crowd gathering outside a building.

"Guess this means it's a good show?" I murmured to Fang as we got in the long line. Devin tugged on my sleeve, and I scooped him up. Gracie slipped her hand into Fang's.

"Hope so," he said. "Nudge said all the reviews on the website were really good."

I nodded, shifting Devin to my other hip so I could dig the Max Ride card out of my pocket. As somebody bumped me on one side, sending me barreling into Fang, I muttered, "I can't believe they talked us into this."

"It'll be good for us," he said, putting the hand that wasn't holding Gracie's on my back and gently pushing me upright. "For them."

"Yes, I heard," I said grumpily as we moved forward, the crowd growing thicker with every step. "That's what you said to convince me to come to this closed-in hellhole." Sweat was breaking out on my forehead, and I was growing slightly dizzy as I realized just how big this crowd was. I quickly glanced at both the kids to see if they were affected, but they didn't appear to be.

"Max." I felt Fang's gentle hand on my arm. "Max, come here. You're okay."

I shuffled closer to him, now squeezing my eyes shut. "Fang, get me out of here."

He knew when I was being serious. I felt him take Devin from me and say, "You hold Gracie's hand. Don't let go."

Someone else bumped into me, and tears started creeping out from under my closed eyelids. Gracie's scared voice: "What's wrong with Mommy?"

"Mommy's fine," Fang told her, wrapping an arm around me and starting to lead me away. I heard people moving, murmuring as we passed. "We're going to do something else, okay?"

"What we gonna do?" Devin asked.

Fang didn't say anything as he struggled to think of something to end the questions. Usually, I would be doing that job. "The park."

"The what?" asked Gracie, and I felt another wave of nausea, this one from the thought of my daughter being raised in a way where she didn't know what a park was.

"It's a place where you two can play," he explained quickly. Then, "Max? We're out of that crowd."

"Oh, is that the park?" asked Gracie. I opened my mouth to see we were alone on this stretch of sidewalk, and ahead of us was a park, different from the one we'd passed through earlier.

"Yeah," Fang told her. "You two can go. We'll be there in a minute."

Still hand-in-hand, the two of them took off, running to the park as fast as their little genetically enhanced legs could take them. I took in a deep, shuddering breath, feeling my heart rate slowly return to normal.

"You okay?" Fang asked, pulling me closer. I tried not to notice that he was running his hand up and down my arm, but it was hard, especially because everywhere he touched was tingling.

"Yeah," I murmured, wiping my hand across my forehead, hard, and tugging myself out of his embrace. "I'm good. Thanks."

We walked to the park in silence. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Fang was watching me carefully, but I ignored him. Once we were there, I plopped down on a bench beside the equipment, and Fang sat next to me.

"Mommy!" Gracie's face, one black curl hanging over her eye, poked over the side of the big slide. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, sweetie," I said, forcing myself to smile. "I'm fine. Go play, have fun."

She smiled back at me and proceeded down the slide, Devin behind her. As they turned to run back to the stairs, I noticed that both their wings were hanging out.

"Guys," I hissed, looking around to see if anyone was near. Nobody else was in this park, but the streets were pretty busy. Gracie and Devin looked at me, and I mouthed, "Wings." They nodded, understanding, and pulled them in like the good little mutant bird twins they were.

Fang casually put his arm over the back of the bench, behind me. I looked down at my shoulder as his fingers brushed it, but didn't say anything.

"Was that just claustrophobia?" he asked quietly, staring straight ahead. "Or a brain attack?"

"Just claustrophobia," I said, and he nodded.

As we sat there, the sky grew progressively darker until the sun was all the way down, dusk setting in. I looked up, watching the sky, thinking it was really kind of pretty.

"Max," said Fang a while later.

I turned to him. "Yeah."

Dimly, I heard Gracie and Devin laughing, but Fang's dark eyes were boring into mine, and that became the only thing I saw in the world. Slowly, quietly, he asked, "You okay now?"

"Yeah," I barely breathed.

"Glad we came?"

Was he getting closer? I gulped and leaned back a little, but Fang captured my chin in his hand, forcing me to look at him. "I guess so," I mumbled.

"Me too."

And then he kissed me.

Dun. Dun. Dun…

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