A/N: Sorry it's a little later than I hoped to upload but a friend of mine needed help painting fake bear claws and it was a lot of fun!

Disclaimer: I'm not JP…but I'm seeing him in two weeks!

Chapter Fourteen: Murphy's Law

Fang POV

The subtle beeping of the heart monitor, the dripping of an IV bag, and the steady rise and fall of the oxygen machine as I inhaled and exhaled confirmed my fears that I was indeed back in another hospital.

Or a lab.

Or a dingy basement with genetic experiments in it.

You know the usual.

Max.

Ohmygod. Where's Max.

My eyes bolted awake and I immediately regretted the decision, the bright lights around the room were like looking directly into an LED flashlight and turning it on. Or one of Gasman's cherry bombs.

Crap, is he okay? Iggy, Nudge, and Angel too?

Dylan.

Now it's all clear. That worthless experiment is the reason I'm here. I'm going to kill him. He tried and failed on me, now I'm going to show him how it's really done.

I lifted my right arm to yank the IV out of my left elbow joint; only to realize seconds later that the IV I decided to yank was the one with the morphine…should've left that in a little longer probably. I reached up to remove the oxygen mask and in the process peered across the room, a mere ten feet ahead of me:

Dylan.

You have got to be kidding me. Of all the people to be stuck in a room with it just has to be him, doesn't it? Anything that can go wrong will go wrong I assume.

His face was still mangled and looked like someone had shoved his head in a blender and put it on pulse. I briefly remember floating in and out of consciousness as Max's battle cries echoed around me and Dylan's pathetic whimpers resonated even louder. Then I woke up here, strapped to an IV, bandages covering my entire left side of my torso, tight stitches above an incision just the further part of my ribcage…

Wait.

What have they done? Why are there the beginnings of a scar near my heart?

Panic mode envelopes me as I thrust the sheets off of me to be sure the rest of me is intact—luckily it all is. Hesitantly, with my right hand I reach over my shoulder to assure myself my wings are still there and in one piece. A miniscule heart attack overcomes me when I don't immediately feel my wings, but shortly realize that they were tightly retracted, not from my own accord either.

My cold sweat was subsiding, but with more questions than answers and no obvious way to assess them. To my best knowledge the only other being in the room with me was pretty boy over there (who's honestly not-so-pretty anymore).

I let out a chest-full of air that I hadn't realized I was holding and calmly leaned back against the bed, panicking wasn't going to help solve anything any time soon.

Let's start with what we know:

I'm stuck in some lair with the one person in the world that I hate deep into my being.

I have weird bandages all over my body.

I'm thirsty.

There's an incision around my heart and tight, important stitches around it.

I want to kill Dylan.

I want to find Max.

I'm strapped to a bed…

Okay, now on to what I don't know…

I don't know where Max is.

I don't remember getting here.

I don't know where here is.

I don't know why I have stitches.

I don't remember even ever getting stitches recently.

I don't know why I'm in a room with Dylan.

I don't know how I'm alive after being shot point-blank.

I don't know how I'm going to get out of here.

I don't know where Max is….still.

I don't know who tied my wings together.

I don't know what time it is.

What day it is.

How long I've been here.

I don't remember eating or drinking, but I don't feel hungry, just thirsty.

I don't know if everyone else is okay.

I don't know if I'm even okay.

I don't know where Max is.

Sometimes I hate making lists… now I feel like I know less than I thought I did.

But the most important answer I need is to find out where Max is.

Then I can take care of everything and anything else that comes my way.

"Hello, Fang, I'm glad to see that you have come out of your coma rather quickly. Don't worry, you're in good hands now."

That voice. It sounds so familiar.

A door that was disguised as part of the wall opened up to reveal a man with two nurses behind him. My eyes adjusted to the light in time to see the man look up over wide-rimmed glasses.

Jeb.

My jaw tightened and my eyes narrowed, he was never to be trusted.

"It's been quite a while hasn't it, Fang?"

No response, don't give him the satisfaction.

"Quiet as ever I see, honestly I'm surprised that you've made it this long. The surgeon removed so many bone fragments from underneath your skin we were afraid you had shattered your entire left rib-cage."

"It's not like I planned on it."

"No, you just got in the way of what is meant to happen. You see, Fang, we were gracious in saving you, now you must do your part and get out of the picture."

"Good luck with that, I'm not leaving Max's side ever again."

"Like you did before, hmm Fang? You left Max and didn't even say goodbye. She went without eating, sleeping, socializing with the outside world at all. She fell asleep in your room to feel closer to you when she knew you weren't there. She turned into a shell of a person, her eyes grew shallow, she quit eating for weeks at a time, she wasn't herself. Until Dylan began helping her. He was there for her; he helped her to cope with your abandonment."

"You're a liar! She despises him!"

Jeb made a tsk-tsk noise with his tongue and shook his head disapprovingly.

"You see, Fang, she hasn't told you the whole story."

"Where is she Jeb?"

"She didn't fare as well as you did Fang."

"What do you mean?"

"Dylan shot you, you fell, Max proceeded to give it her all to beat the life out of Dylan. In a pure act of self-defense Dylan blindly shot the pistol."

"No. You're a liar Jeb. Why would you tell me to get out of the way and to leave if Max is gone?"

"You seem to have forgotten about Max's clone, who, while not entirely as capable and advanced as Max was, can learn because she is made of Max's DNA."

This can't be true. I felt as if anything and everything that I had hoped for was a waste now. My chest was burning and felt like there was an eighteen-wheeler parked on my lungs. But I couldn't let Jeb see this. I know he's lying, he has to be lying right now, there's no other explanation.

"Why did you put me in the same room as him?"

"The same room as who Fang? You're in here alone."

I look across my bed where Dylan used to be visible on the other side of the room…

But he was gone.

"Let's take a rest, Fang, this has been quite enough excitement for one sitting."

Jeb detached my morphine bag from the stand as the two nurses who were unnaturally strong for their size did the damndest to detain me while Jeb continued to re-attach my IV and drip a neon-orange liquid in a small IV bag into my veins.

In a matter of seconds I had passed out.

Nurse POV

"Sir? So what do we have to gain by Fang believing now that Max has died and that what he has thought to be real, nothing but an illusion?"

"We will have his fear. Next session we will re-introduce Dylan and make him question whether or not the last conference occurred. The more we continue this the more he will be irresolute and dependent on what we have to say. We will keep modules of our stories the same, and let him come-up with whatever he wants, we either simply agree or disagree and either fuel or disarm his assumptions."

"And Max has no idea that they are in the same unit?"

"And he has no idea Max is even alive."

A/N: Wow, that's a lot longer than expected…thanks for reading!

~hawkstar2