A/N My sister's sleeping in my room tonight and jeez, she snores something chronic sometimes. -.- This breaks the record for my longest chapter so far. Enjoy!

'So what's Reno like, exactly?' Nudge called to me over the wind. 'Is it like New York, with all the street performers and the food stalls with hot dogs and ice cream and a big park with lots of trees and those huge skyscrapers, which actually aren't that huge if you think about how high we can fly and all, but still pretty huge just for buildings-'

I sighed and rubbed at my forehead, letting her ramble on as I shot a long-suffering look over at Fang, then caught myself as I remembered that this wasn't six months ago; it was crazy how easy it was to fall back into the old habits of treating him as my go-to person. I fixed my gaze resolutely ahead as Nudge came out of her verbal essay on the awesomeness of modern-day architecture.

'-but yeah, what's Reno like, Max?' She fell silent, watching me with big eyes as she waited for a response, the wind tugging at her dark hair.

'I can't really say, Nudge. I wouldn't say it's nearly as big as New York, but apart from that I don't know.'

'So it's like a mystery, then. Flying to some unfamiliar place with no idea what we'll find there or what's lying in wait. Ooh! We're like those sailors in the olden days, before planes and stuff, when they just had to set out in a boat if they wanted to find any new land, and they didn't know if there would be people there already, or new animals that might tear them apart, or diseases or poisonous plants or quicksand or whirlpools. What are whirlpools, exactly? How do they start? Are they, like, twisters that got dropped into the sea or…'

And she was off again.

Thankfully she stopped after a while – with two more hours of flying left, I don't think the rest of us would've let her make it to Reno alive if she'd kept talking.

At just past one in the afternoon we arrived in the outskirts of what was, according to the billboards which had started to appear along the highway, the 'biggest little city in the world'. Those of us who were flying swooped down to join the other four, and somehow we managed to cram the ten of us into the van, ending up with most of us piled in the back whilst Ratchet and Star sat up front.

'So,' I said once we were back on the road heading into the city. 'We get there, get food and drinks and whatnot – ow, Iggy, that's my foot! – and then see if we can find a place to crash for tonight.'

'Thanks for the update, Einstein,' Iggy deadpanned, pushing down on my foot harder before letting up, earning himself a scowl made absolutely pointless by the fact that he couldn't see it. Whatever, it made me feel better.

As it happened, it turned out that finding a place was easier said than done. In a city it can get pretty difficult to know where to look for the best unoccupied houses and all, and I kind of got the impression that sleeping rough tonight wouldn't go down well. We hit the streets of downtown Reno – which did, to Nudge's delight, have hot dog stalls – to stock up again, then headed out to the more residential areas to see if we could hit on anything decent. By half three everyone was starting to get cranky, but we stuck to it and about a quarter of an hour later we struck mutant real-estate gold: a street of newly-constructed houses, sitting off one of the main roads that eventually led southwards out of the city. Parking the van on a street around the corner, we clambered out and moved up the road, examining the houses.

'Nothing inside them,' Ratchet commented, sending a sweeping look along all the windows.

'Who cares?' Fang said. 'They've got roofs, right?'

'You know,' Kate piped up thoughtfully, 'there'll probably be a show house or something. Like, the one the company uses to advertise what their homes could look like once they're fully-furnished and everything.'

As if Kate's words had been a cue, a woman in a white blouse and black skirt promptly appeared on the doorstep of one of the houses, her hair pinned up in a neat bun and her name badge catching the sun as she walked towards us. She slowed when she reached about halfway, taking in the fact that none of us were adults, how big the group was, how scruffy we all looked.

'Can I help you kids?' she asked, caution edging her words.

Dylan stepped forwards. He had his hands out in front of him as if to show that he didn't mean any harm, but the woman still cringed a little.

'We were just having a wander around,' he said, and I could practically feel the persuasion in his voice, reminding me of the time he sang in that restaurant in Paris. His words now seemed to have a similar effect on the woman – Sarah, according to her badge – as they had on everyone then; she seemed to relax all of a sudden, the tension going out of her face.

'Oh, well, that's fine, then. So long as you're not entering any of the houses.' She straightened up, as if remembering that she was in the business of selling. 'And if any of your parents are looking to purchase a new property, let them know that tours around our show house can be scheduled through our website.' Her hand lifted to gesture towards the large billboard advertising the new houses.

Dylan cocked his head, as if interesting in her words.

'I actually think my parents might be looking to buy at the moment. What time are tours available until?'

'The show house is open from nine until five.'

'Great. Thank you very much, ma'am,' Dylan replied, shooting an adult-appeasing smile in her direction. Sarah looked a little startled at his politeness, but recovered quickly, nodding once before walking briskly away from us back to the house.

'That was some smooth talking,' Ratchet hooted as the door closed behind her. He clapped Dylan on the shoulder. 'I'm liking you more and more.'

We hid out in the van for the next couple of hours, until eventually we saw a small car drive around the corner and away down the road; Sarah's bun was visible as a bump on the crown of her head as she passed. Making our way back to the house, we started towards the front door, Iggy pulling a small wrench and a picking key out of his bag.

'Iggy!'

He turned to grin at me, his pale eyes dancing.

'Always come prepared.'

Starting to insert the metal rods into the lock on the front door, he was stopped when Ratchet's voice rang out.

'Hold up! Nice place like this, they're gonna have some security about.' He threw a glance through the window, then nodded. 'Yep, motion detectors, up on the wall. Measure the reflection of ultrasonic waves off moving objects, then transform the detection into an electric signal. Probably link up to some transmitting alarm which reaches back to the main office. And it looks like they're fitted with red light cameras, too. Until those are disabled, we're not getting in there with getting caught.'

The rest of us stared at him, and he looked around, shrugging.

'What? People, I was in a gang. It was my job to scout places out for security and stuff.'

'So you think you can disable them, then?' Fang asked, moving forwards to peer in the window.

Ratchet shook his head ruefully.

'No can do, Boss Man. I mean, I was always the one on lookout, wasn't I? Never got the chance to do it myself.'

Nudge coughed tentatively.

'I might be able to. You know, if I could get close enough.'

Ratchet looked at her unbelievingly.

'You sure about that, kid? What do you know about wires and junk?'

She fidgeted with the hem of her shirt.

'Quite a lot, actually; I hacked the mainframe computer at the Itex headquarters in Virginia in under two minutes.' She seemed to be boosted by her own words, and lifted her head to look Ratchet in the eye, daring him to challenge her.

'Well damn, okay,' he said. 'But we'll have to kill the electricity first.' He looked upwards. 'Doesn't look as though they're wired up to the grid yet, so there's gotta be some kind of circuit breaker serving the house somewhere. Flip the switch, get in, disable the alarms, power back on and boom: we're golden.'

Turned out we were. Star did a split-second loop around the building, reappearing beside us having already cut out the power supply, which left Iggy free to break in through the front door. Five minutes later Nudge was standing up on a cabinet in the living room, fiddling with the circuits inside the second motion detector; the first one out in the hallway hung limply off the wall, having already been victim to her quick fingers picking up the movements of the people who made it, the people who installed it, rapidly reversing their actions.

'I think that's done,' she announced, springing down onto the floor and cracking her knuckles.

'Okay, so that means it's time to turn the power back on?' I looked at Ratchet, who nodded slowly.

'Yeah, power can go on again. But you oughta know that we might not be aware if it hasn't worked – the alarm might not sound out here, just in the offices or straight to the police or something, so be ready to run if I say I hear anything at any time.'

'Will do,' I replied, before nodding at Star. She was gone and back in a flash, and everyone stood for a moment, waiting to see if anything would happen. The house was quiet.

'Okay,' I said into the silence. 'Everybody stays in this room or in the hallway. No wandering around into other rooms – the detectors aren't disabled anywhere else. Great job, guys.' I grinned at Nudge, then over at Ratchet, who shrugged.

'Hey,' he said, 'don't look at me. Little Miss Black Hat over here did all the work.'

I had no idea what he meant, but Nudge looked affronted.

'I'm so not a Black Hat,' she stated emphatically. 'They're jerks who just hack to steal stuff and damage other people's data! I do it to survive.'

'Tell that to the guys whose systems you've infiltrated,' retorted Ratchet.

I tuned out after that; this was not the kind of conversation I belonged in.

We whiled away the afternoon in our temporary home, just glad to have somewhere to crash, then as the sky began to darken everyone started to pass out where they sat, one by one. I said I'd stay up to take first watch – it seemed fair, since I'd been the one who'd woken everyone up the night before and dragged them all out on a life-threatening mission – and I sat on the couch by the window, listening to the deep breathing and snores of the group.

There was a shuffling sound behind me and I turned quickly to see Dylan stepping through the maze of sleeping bodies towards where I sat. Lowering himself down next to me, he stayed quiet for a while before speaking:

'I'm sorry for getting angry back there. When we were flying, I mean. It wasn't fair of me to bring it all up; there's a lot going on and I shouldn't be giving you anything else to have to worry about.'

I nodded slightly, taking in what he'd said.

'I was harsh on you,' I replied. 'Saying that I didn't have feelings for you and all that.' I cringed inwardly, hating how sappy I sounded, hating the fact that I knew we had to have this talk. 'I guess the fact is that I really don't know what's going on, so I shouldn't have been spewing that stuff out when I wasn't even sure it was true.'

Dylan looked at me for a moment, then suddenly he was pulling me towards him. He kissed me softly, his hand gentle on the back of my neck, and I'll admit that my heart did speed up a bit.

When he pulled back, I looked away from him, staring out of the window instead.

'You know what I can't understand?' I said. My voice came out unexpectedly loud and I shot a quick look over at the rest of the group before turning back to the window, speaking more quietly this time. 'You say that you love me, and you want me to love you, but you don't seem to mind how it happens.' I glanced at him, and his face looked perplexed. 'Like… Say I gave in. Say you broke me down and kept on and on with the subject until eventually I couldn't help but believe that there was no other option but to love you. Would you be happy with that?' My voice wasn't angry or sarcastic; the question was asked as a real one, genuinely looking for an answer in an attempt to understand what exactly was going on. 'Isn't there something kind of fake about it? If that were the case, wouldn't it be like I was loving you because you'd talked me into it, rather than just because I did all by myself?'

Dylan frowned, thinking over what I'd said.

'Would it really matter?' he asked after a moment. 'I mean, that's what I've been saying about what I feel for you this whole time – to me it doesn't mean anything that I was programmed to love you or whatever it was that they did. All I know is that it's how I feel, and I don't think that makes it fake. I just love you. Doesn't matter how it happened. To me, it's real.'

Damn, the boy knew how to use his words. But how often am I found without some kind of reply?

'You never did tell me why you loved me.'

'What?'

'In Paris, on the Arc de Triomphe. I asked why you wanted to be with me and you never actually answered.' I felt myself growing red as I remembered how he'd gotten away without giving me a response, but held his gaze, telling him silently that he wasn't getting out of it this time.

The corners of his mouth lifted, and he looked at me dead on.

'Well, you're strong, stronger than anyone I've met before. You love your family and fight to protect them from everything. You don't take any crap. You're smart, even though you might not know it.' He chuckled a little. 'You've always got an answer for everyone-'

'Dylan.' I cut him off, shaking my head. 'That's not it. Anyone can pick out a person's good points and reel them off in a list. That's easy. But you're saying that you love me.'

His face morphed into an expression of confusion, and I was reminded of Omega during the battle at Itex in Germany:

'I don't know how…to not.'

'Dig deep, Dylan,' I said quietly. 'Really think about it. And in the end, I get the feeling you'll realise that you have no idea. Because I don't think you do love me. I think you think you do; I'll believe that. But I reckon there's a difference between thinking something and actually feeling it.'

Looking at him, I could feel my forehead creasing up in sorrow – it wasn't a happy moment for me, wasn't a triumph. I didn't relish the fact that he didn't have a response for me because he was so busy having to think over everything he thought he knew. He looked lost, bewildered, like he couldn't understand what was happening.

Then he whipped his head around to look at me, and there was a strange kind of desperation in eyes, an agitation that I'd never seen in him before.

'Why did you love Fang?' he challenged in a loud whisper.

My eyes widened and I let out a startled laugh, my hands clasping together in discomfort. Would I ever get used to his bluntness? I suspected not. Then again, I'd set the question right up for him, and it seemed kind of gutless not to answer it. Besides, it felt like I owed him an honest answer after pushing him for one myself.

'Why did I love Fang?' I repeated under my breath, biting at the inside of my mouth as I thought it through. Dylan watched me unblinkingly. 'I loved him because he drove me totally insane. Sometimes it seemed like he was trying to be completely infuriating, more than anyone I'd ever met in my life. Not that I'd met that many people or anything, but…' I shook my head. 'Not the point. Anyway. He never hesitated to disagree with me or call me out, and he always knew just what to say to be frustrating. But then he always knew just what to say to cheer me up, or make me laugh, or… He knew me.'

Dylan twisted so that I couldn't avoid his gaze.

'I know you.'

I closed my eyes and rubbed both hands over my face, staying silent for a moment before replying.

'No, I mean… The way he knew me… No one told him anything, he didn't have any help, but… He learned me. Over a whole lot of time, he learned me. And he wasn't perfect, nowhere near. But I wasn't perfect either.' I paused, then corrected myself. 'I'm not perfect.' Laughing a little again, I lifted my arms and gestured towards myself like 'observe'. 'I mean, look at me, look at my life; I'm so used to things going wrong that when something starts to go even remotely right I completely freak out. Maybe I can't handle perfect. Maybe perfect is too much for me.' The words were said almost as I thought them for the first time, with absolutely no planning involved, but they seemed to hit Dylan hard. He was completely still for a moment, then he stood up abruptly.

'I'm not going to stop,' he said quietly, not looking at me. 'I'm not going to give up.'

I stared down at my hands clasped together in my lap.

'I know,' I whispered.

Then he walked away, picking over the others as they slept, finally settling himself down near the doorway leading into the hall.

I turned back to the window, pulling my knees up in front of me as I gazed out at the black sky. God, being a teenager sucked.

A/N Let me know what you think. :)