DISCLAIMER: I do not own Maximum Ride.

Chapter Seventeen – Revealing Revelations

Iggy's POV

"It's really quite gross," Nudge whispered to him as they sat at their usual lunch table. Fang and Max were sitting close together, talking.

"Nah, they deserve to finally be together," Iggy replied.

"Yeah, but look at them."

"Nudge, if you think that's gross then there's something wrong with you. They're just talking. It's not like they're making out or whatever," Iggy replied, without looking up at her.

"Iggy." Her voice was serious. "I just want you to look at something. You haven't met my eyes since you announced that you broke up with Ella."

"Don't," Iggy said as he played with his fork. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Iggy, please."

He stood up so quickly that his chair fell over. People looked over at him curiously, but quickly lost interest.

"Iggy, what's up?" Max asked.

Iggy ignored her and started walking towards the door.

"Nudge, what's going on?" Max asked, confused.

"I don't know," Nudge replied. He heard her stand up and knew she was following him. Couldn't she understand that he didn't want to face her?

"Leave me alone," he said over his shoulder.

She was still following.

Once he was out of the lunchroom, he started looking for a place he could hide. He spotted the cleaners' room and ducked inside. Nudge was too quick, however, and squeezed herself into the closet-sized room with him.

"Iggy, please look at me!" Nudge demanded.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because when I look at you I want to kiss you. But I can't kiss you because I just broke up with Ella and that would be wrong to her. I told her that there was no one else. I lied. So I have to make my lie true. There can't be anyone else. Not at the moment, anyway. It's too soon."

"I don't think I really understood what you just said," Nudge said softly.

"It's too soon to suddenly be with another girl! Ella would be crushed."

"Iggy, do you like me?"

"What kind of question is that? Of course I do," he replied with an exhaled breath.

"Then who cares? You could just talk to her and tell her what's going on. You've already hurt her feelings, maybe this will help her understand better."

"I can't do that."

"Fine. But I can't wait forever, Iggy. She's probably going to live in this town for a long time. You might see her every day – who knows? So how long do I have to wait until we can be together? Because I'm an impatient person, Ig."

He didn't reply.

Her cool hands touched his face and he flinched. She wasn't deterred, however. She angled his face so that he was looking at her. He instinctively shut his eyes, but immediately felt silly afterwards. He slowly opened them again and looked at her for the first time in days.

"I want to be with you now," she whispered.

He took in her beautiful face. Her eyes were begging him for something. He would give anything in the world to know what she was begging for.

"What do you want from me?"

"Do you really have to ask?" she said as she wet her lips.

He groaned, and then kissed her with all the passion he could muster. He'd been longing to kiss her since before he'd broken it off with Ella. It was better than he remembered.

She pushed up against him until their bodies were flush with each other. His hands wanted to touch her everywhere, but he settled for her beautiful hair. Her hands clutched his shirt, as if she would fall away from him at any moment.

He moved his hands to her sides and clutched her tightly. Then he spun her around so that she was against the wall. Their kiss grew even more passionate (if such a thing was possible).

"Iggy?"

They both froze in their spots and pulled away from each other. Iggy looked towards the now open door and his heart nearly fell out of his chest.

The person in the door turned and ran off.

Nudge burst into giggles, but Iggy just stepped away from her. His face was frozen in a look of despair.

"Iggy? What's wrong? Who was it?"

"It was Ella," he said in barely a whisper.

Nudge sobered up immediately. "Oh."

Iggy couldn't look at her anymore. Instead, he straightened out his clothes and left Nudge in the cleaners' closet. He had to find Ella.

Max's POV

"Max, is that you?" Val called from the kitchen.

Who else would it be?

"Yeah, it's me," Max called back. She couldn't imagine what her mother was doing in the kitchen. She didn't have a domestic bone in her body. Unless she was trying to suck up to someone (i.e Jeb).

Val walked out of the kitchen holding a bottle of wine. Of course her mother would be in the kitchen getting intoxicated.

"Your father was home earlier. He told me that he was going to give a job to a young man. A young man named Fang."

Oh, shit.

"So Fang got the job?" Max asked, putting on a brave face. She had to remind herself that she didn't care what Val said anymore. Val wasn't going to be manipulating her any longer.

"Yes, Fang got the job," Val hissed, obviously pissed off. "I want to know why you organized a job interview in the first place. Are you and Fang…" Val shuddered, as if the mere thought of Fang and Max together would make her sick.

"Fang's my boyfriend," she replied boldly.

Val stiffened and her eyes nearly popped out of her head. She composed herself after a long moment, but she couldn't hide her disgust.

"Come again?"

"Fang is my boyfriend. We love each other," Max said, making sure to enunciate each word slowly and carefully.

Val went pale.

"If you so much as spend one more second with that boy, I will take matters into my own hands."

"What are you going to do? Kill him?"

"…No. But I can make sure that he will never do well in life. He will be poor for as long as I live."

"Mother, it's a bit too late for that. Jeb has already hired him. Are you going to undermine your husband's authority? You don't own the company, Father does. And guess who is going to own it after Father? Me. You don't have any power over me. One day, I'll have all the power over you." Max smiled what was admittedly an evil smile.

"Get out of my house!" Val screeched.

Max smiled. "You don't own this house. You don't own anything. You're a pathetic gold-digger. You should be treating me nicely, because one day I will own this house. And if you want to keep living here…well, that'll be up to me, won't it?"

"It will be a long time before you own anything, missy." Val preened herself as she grinned in victory.

"Actually, father's been setting things up for me. As soon as I turn eighteen, I will be working with dad in the company. I will also own some of our smaller houses outside of town. I'll have enough money to be completely independent. I won't need you anymore."

Val opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

"My life is already set up for me. And we both know that Father doesn't let you interfere with his job. He doesn't trust your judgment when it comes to business. But he trusts mine. So what does that make me? Important. What does that make you? Redundant." Max felt like a complete bitch, but it was about time that her mother knew what the stakes were. Max was the powerful one.

She smiled.

"I say that Fang deserves his new job."

Iggy's POV

It was late and the school was deserted. Iggy had been moping around the science rooms, attempting to work on his assignment that was due next week. But he hadn't gotten much done. He was too busy being miserable.

He hated to think that Ella was really upset because of him. He hated hurting people. That's why he usually avoided people. The whole situation was so frustrating that he felt like making a bomb and blowing something up. He had always been a bit of a pyromaniac. Which he realised was a bit hypocritical since he didn't like hurting people. Not that he would ever blow anyone up…

Thinking about bombs made him feel a bit better.

Then he started to hear quiet sobbing. Great, now his subconscious was making him hear things just to make him feel guilty again.

Except it wasn't his subconscious.

He started to follow the sound until he came to an empty classroom. He peered through the window and ran a shaking hand through his hair. Ella was inside, sobbing on an empty desk.

To go in or not to go in? That seemed to be the question of the afternoon. He stood there deliberating for a moment before he decided to be a man about it. It's not like he could do anything worse to upset her today.

"Ella?" He slowly approached her desk so that he didn't scare her.

"Go away!" she sobbed.

He walked to the desk in front of her and pulled out the chair. He flipped it around and sat on it so that his arms were resting along the top of the seat. He felt cliché doing it, but he did it anyway.

"Can you just talk to me?"

"Fine, I'll talk to you!" she yelled, whipping her head up to look him in the eye. Her eyes were red and her hair was messy. She looked deranged. "You lied to me. You said that there wasn't another girl! I should have known that it was Nudge! Were you making out with her while we were still together?" She broke down into sobs again.

"Ella," he said soothingly. "Ella, it wasn't like that. If you let me, I can tell you everything that happened."

She sniffled a few times before she nodded at him. "Fine, but I want the truth."

So Iggy told her everything. He told her about how he'd liked Nudge for a long time, but thought that she didn't feel the same. He told her that when she had come into his life he thought he could finally forget about Nudge and be with a girl that actually cared about him. He assured her that he really did want to date her. Then he told her about finding Nudge upset and how he's confessed his feelings to her and that she'd kind of returned them. He told her everything.

She was crying again by the end of his story. But at least she seemed to feel a bit better.

"You should have just told me, you big idiot!" she said as she wiped her eyes on her shirt.

"I know."

"So you were planning to wait before you started seeing her?" she asked.

"Of course, but I didn't plan on her attacking me in a closet," he admitted with a sly smile.

Ella actually laughed.

"Well, I would still appreciate it if you waited a little bit before you went public. But you have my blessing. I just want you to be happy," Ella said with a small sigh.

Iggy felt terrible. This girl wanted him to be happy? He felt like a complete jerk.

"Ella, I want you to be happy as well. Okay? Our relationship wasn't a lie."

"Yeah, thanks Iggy," she said with a small smile.

He kissed her on the forehead before he left the classroom. He couldn't help feeling better about the whole thing. He should never have underestimated Ella.