Hey! I must have forgotten that I already wrote this chapter, because I wrote up to fifteen and never put this up for you guys. Sorry, you can take my fingers or something.
-Z
14:
In a flurry of slashes and dodges, Nudge manages to slip her blade between Al Mualims collarbone and shoulder, and he goes down with a hiss. Max freezes, and Fang pushes past her to cradle his head. He lifts Al Mualims face to his ear, listening to his last words like he was just another kill.
"Altair…" Is all she hears Al Mualim murmur before Fang turns over his shoulder.
"Get out!" He barks, and Nudge takes Max's cold hand and drags her away.
"No." Max whimpers, when she sees Al Mualim cough up blood and his lips move in whispered speech to Fang. Her eyes fill with tears when Nudge pushes her towards the ladder. The guards...why hadn't Al Mualims guards done anything? There had to have been at least twelve of them.
"Why didn't the guards do anything? Why didn't they help him?" She whimpers, and Nudge frowns, pushing at the back of her calf to keep her moving. When Max gets to the floor of the hallway, she weakly pushes herself up and moves to make room for Nudge.
"Because they wanted him gone too, Maria. he was going to drive the guild into the ground, too many of my brothers and sisters have died on his suicide missions." Nudge hisses, and Max recoils like she's been slapped. Nudge pulls on her boot and stands up.
"You wanted him dead too?" Max asks, her voice quivering. Nudge stoops and picks her up off the ground, letting her get her knees under her body to stand on her own.
"Of course." Nudge tells her, guiding Max to her bedroom and shutting the door behind them.
"Why?" She all but wails, unbuckling her heavy belt and letting it fall to the floor. Her white tunic falls open when she yanks open the clasp at her throat and Nudge takes it from her shoulders, leaving her in her white, knee length shirt and white sash.
"He's hurt more people than you know. He kept you in the dark so you would be willing to keep working as an extension of him." Nudge says, shrugging off her tunic as well. Max get's to work on unlacing her boots.
"And you never thought to enlighten me?" Max snaps, hurling her right boot at Nudge, who blocks it and stays in a defensive position, snarling.
"Cam down! I couldn't because you would have blown everything we worked so hard to keep hidden! You wouldn't have been able to keep calm and keep functioning as you were, as his closest asset. Fang knew you would try something rash so he chose not to tell you." Nudge told her, dropping her fists, and turning back to the wardrobe, fingering through the various dresses. Max freezes, her heart dropping.
"Fang told you that?" She asks, lip quivering. Who even was Fang anymore? No, he was Altair to her now, he was nothing like the mysterious hooded man that she conjured the memory of under the sheets of her huge bed in her father's castle in Damascus. She missed him.
"Yeah. He only did it to protect you." Nudge says, pulling a worn green dress over her head and clumsily tying the laces. Max scoffs and sits back on the straw mattress, batting at the woven blankets to check for dust.
"He wants to protect who I used to be. Neither of us are the same now." Max grumbles, and Nudge takes a basket from the corner and stuffs her white cloak and gear into it.
"No, you just grew into yourself." Nudge contradicts, smirking before standing up with her basket on her hip.
"Where are you going?" Max asks, she'd desperate for Nudge to stay, for them to sleep in the same bed and for Max to snuggle into her side and just...be close to someone. She feels so alone, now especially with Al Mualim gone.
"Headed to Abstergo. I'm gathering information on your next target." Nudge turns to leave.
"What? Nudge, what does that even mean?" She scrambles forward and into the hall, but Nudge is already down the ladder and gone. Max falls into a frenzy, she opens all four of the hallway doors, calling for Iggy, but they're all silent. She stumbles back into Nudges room, avoiding Fangs room. She's scared of the memories there, cooking with him and catching his knife. Falling asleep in the warm, firelit room.
Max chokes a sob and sinks to her knees in the middle of the floor. Squeezing her eyes shut, she inhales sharply and cries softly, curling into a ball and clutching at her chest. Things are happening too fast, she's so lost. Fingering the design on her hidden blade gauntlet, she cries, gritting her teeth together and letting the tears fall.
She can't trust Fang, he's hidden everything from her that could have possibly made a difference in her actions. He abandoned her in those torturous months of training, he withheld information from her, his glare when he told her to "get out", was feral, furious. She misses him so bad, when they walked in the garden and when he got her flowers.
In that moment she would have given anything to go back to being princess Maximum who's biggest concern was her unhappy engagement to Dylan of Florence.
Max rolls onto her back and screams with her mouth closed. She hammers her heels into the floor and arches her back, pounding the back of her head into the ground. Grief takes it's hold on her body and she can't stop her body from flailing. She does her best to muffle her crying, but sobs still escaped her clenched teeth.
She doesn't know, but Fang is leaning against the wall next to the open door, concealed from her. He just listens to her to to stifle her crying, with his head hung, the knuckle of his thumb between his teeth. He regrets killing his master, but not Al Mualim the tyrant. He's going to miss the man who replaced his dead parents, who made him great, but he won't miss being beaten, treated like a dog. No, he'd never sink that low.
The dull thuds of Max's fits subside and now she's just crying in the middle of the floor, not caring about who hears her, wiping her tears and snot from her face with her sleeve. Fang feels like a string is tied to his sternum, and it's pulling him into the room where she is.
"Max…" He trails off, turning to stand in the doorway, and she instantly quiets, sitting up slowly and turning to face away from him. Her shoulders are shaking, and he crosses the room like a ghost.
"I'm sorry." He says, painfully awkward. He has no idea what to say to her, or what she could be crying about. He's given her plenty of reasons to cry, or maybe she just feels like she can let out the feelings she hasn't been allowed to share since she came to train with Al Mualim. He doesn't know.
A silence passes between them, and he does the only thing he can think of. He crosses the room, crouching down and wrapping one arm around her shoulders.
Until she turns and swipes. He jumps out of the way of her hidden blade just barely. Shock barely has time to register on his face before she's attacked again, bladed arm raised and slashing downward. Once again, he barely dodges to the left and crashes into the corner of the wardrobe.
"Don't touch me!" She screams like a banshee, and he dodges her next few cuts, before intercepting her and shoulder throwing her onto the bed. He relaxes, expecting her to stay down, but she's up faster than lightning and she goes for his kees, he jumps just in time. they dance around the room in a flurry of fists, feet and knees. Knocking into furniture and throwing anything remotely resembling a weapon they can grab.
"Max! Listen to me!" He snaps, bending backwards under a series of punches and shoulder rolling behind her. She whirls to face him, hands poised to strike.
"Why? So you can lie to me again? Tell me a half truth because I can only handle that much?" She asks, in hysterics. She's still shaking, but now she's turned her sorrow into anger. Fang lowers his hands. Nudge must have told her about his plan to keep her in the dark. And she did a shit job of explaining from what Max was saying.
"No, I had to do that, I couldn't risk anyone getting hurt.." He tries, keeping his voice as calm as he can. He's watching her like he'd watch a lion. She's got teary eyes and she's shining with sweat, her skin grey and her hair damp with sweat and tangled with worry. He has a thorn in the heart seeing how much he's hurting her.
"You hurt me." She whimpers, her chin quivering again, her eyes filling up with tears, but she doesn't lower her hands.
"You hurt me from the beginning." She sobs, the sound tearing at his heart. She's in ruins and she's taking him down with her. He want's to take those three steps between them and hold onto her. He wants to take all her troubles, let her get sleep, let her go back to being as carefree as she was when he first met her.
"You're poison." She cries, dropping her hands, and he takes swift steps to her. She lets him gather her into his chest, lets his solid arm encircle her shoulders, one hand behind her head and the other holding her too him.
"I'm so sorry." He whimpers, and she raises her arms and wraps them around his waist, her fingers clinging to his tunic above his heavy belt. She cries again, hiccuping and choking. It's almost enough to make Fang cry along with her.
Neither of them know how long they stay like that, but at some point they move, still holding onto each other into Fangs room. In familiar silence, he cooks another soup for her, and she stares into the fire, wiping the salt from below her eyes. They eat like puppets, letting the soup scald their tongues and she chokes on her wine twice. He carries her to his bed and she lies like a corpse among his pillows and blankets, the mattress smelling sweet and fresh with hay. He undresses for bed and climbs in next to her, and they pull each other closer. His fingers comb through her cropped hair and she breathes steadily against his chest.
"I missed you so much." They breathe the phrase in between passing and whenever their skin brushes. This is him, this is the Fang who made her want to be free, not the Altair who burned and murdered.
"I missed you so much."