Hey guys, so I had this whole chapter typed up and everything, I just needed internet to post. So, I went to my mom and she started playing with it a bit, trying to get internet. Turns out she couldn't so she gave it back. Well, she restarted the entire computer and I hadn't saved it yet. I needed internet to save it. I entire chapter was gone so I had to retype all of it. The first way I wrote it was way better but I tried to do my best on what I wrote.

I hope It's all right. Sorry for not updating in a sooner.

Oh and, I don't own any of the places mentioned in this Chapter. They are all real.

Two years ago (13 years old)

"Hey Fang, what's seven times eight?" I ask turning to Fang who lays next to me on my bed. He glances at the Math homework that I'm attempting to do. He is a foot away from me, silently doing his World Geography.

His dark eyes dart to me, then back to his paper. "You're in the eighth grade and you still don't know your times tables?"

I scoff. "That's what I have you for." I barely catch the roll of his eyes.

"Do the circle thingy to figure it out."

"You don't know do you?"

Now it's his turn to scoff. "I don't want to be your human calculator for the rest of my life."

"But at least I know you'll be there for the rest of my life."

He continues working in silence. I frown. "Poke." I say poking his cheek. He doesn't react.

"Faaaaaaang." I wine rolling into his side, making his pencil jerk across the answer sheet. He growls and busies himself with erasing. I stare at him from my place on my back.

"Hey, hey, hey. Hey Fang I bet I can make you angry with just one word." He turns to me propped up on one elbow.

"You're on. I've put up with you for thirteen years, what's one word."

I grin up at him with my head tilted to the side and poke him in the nose. "Boop!"

He blinks.

"Gaaaah, that's so freaking annoying!" He shoves me and I roll away giggling. After a moment he lets out a half-hearted huff and turns back to his homework.

I roll back into his side and shift to where I hug him around the waist, forcing his body to turn toward me. I bury my face in his chest and breath in his familiar scent of freshly peeled oranges. He's kind of going through a stage right now. One that he loves oranges.

He tries to shove me away by the shoulders but my grip on him only tightens.

"Faaaaaang." I wine.

He goes limp. "Fine. Seven times eight is fifty-six. Learn your times tables."

"Thank you!" I grin brightly as I roll away and back to my awaiting math problem.

I work my way through the numbers easily until I reach the end.

"Hey Fang-"

"I'm not giving you another answer."

I close my text-book and push it onto the floor. Fang looks at me oddly and I roll into him once more. I fist my hands into his black shirt and curl into him. My legs pull to my chest.

"I just wanted to say 'I love you'." I yawn.

He huffs and ignores my senseless affections as he continues to flip through his book.

Now

Everything, as in me, is normal when Iggy and Nudge get home. Janie comes later with Gazzy and we go to bed. Janie starts the bus to drive to the next state. We say goodnight and I fall into bed with Fang who has long since fallen asleep.

Like always, I awake from a nightmare and I stare at the top bunk. This time it was a pole falling from the sky that killed him. A shiver runs down my spine. I'm so used to the night terrors that they don't affect my waking hours anymore. I don't get bags under my eyes any longer so no one worries.

It's good that way.

I feel the gentle sway of the bus and I let myself be rocked to sleep.

I wake again to someone tickling my nose. By instinct, I smash my palm upward and it connects with someones face. Something wet squashes out from between my finger tips and I hear laughter to my right.

"You should have known that wouldn't work." Someone says from a distance, sounding suspiciously like Gazzy.

I pry one eye open curiously and grin. Fang crouches in front of me with a blank expression on his face.

He blinks and a blob of Whipped Cream drops from his chin to the bus floor. Iggy sits on the carpet beside him laughing his guts out, clutching a feather in his hand.

I bring my hand to my face and lick between my fingers.

"Mmm." I hum, then reach out to Fang and swipe the sweet foam off his cheek and bring it to my lips once more.

The bus hits a pot hole and Iggy lifts into the air for a split second before his ass slams into the ground. I wince in sympathy as he clutches his lower back from the jar it just took.

To tired to stand, I roll out from the covers and onto the ugly carpet. My flock move out-of-the-way as I start to crawl through the useless curtain and toward the mini fridge.

I have trouble opening it because it catches on my head before the door slams as far as it can on its hinges. After concluding that what I want is not there I turn to the four people on the couch.

Nudge wordlessly tosses me the can of Whipped Cream, which I then continue to spray in my mouth.

I look at them from my propped up position on the floor. I also notice that I'm only in underwear and one of Fangs old shirts that I stole from him. Oops.

"So wa's on de ahenda." I say around my bloating mouth.

"Well, first we have to get to California which is still an hour and a half away, then we have time for a practice round at the stage, then Janie said we can just hang out for a while til we have to go to bed. The concert is at 1:30 but we still have to be back stage for sound check, wardrobe change, and all that crap. Hey Max, can we go to the mall after practice? Please?"

"Ah..." I fill my mouth with more sweetie goodness to keep from answering.

"Come on, please Maxie?" Iggy pipes in from between Nudge and Gazzy.

"Pwease?" Gazzy joins just to annoy me.

I look to Fang helplessly but he's no help. He just shrugs from his spot on the arm rest.

I grit my teeth and tell myself to toughen up. "Fine. But only for a few hours."

They cheer in triumph and Janie gives me a sympathetic look in the mirror, yet it also says 'suck it up'.

Four hours later, I am literally dragged into the gigantic Arden Fair Mall. The butt of my jeans almost rips from road burn. Like I said, dragged.

"Pleeeeeaaaase." I almost beg as the concrete turns to cold tile and I'm finally jerked to my feet. I whimper as I'm dragged into the first store, courtesy of none other than Nudge. Iggy and Gazzy immediately split off to do their own thing and Fang lingers in front of the store, not wanting to go in.

That probably having to do with that this store just happens to be Victoria's Secret.

Groooaaaan.

I dig my heels into the now carpeted ground but all the good that does is wear out the rubber on my shoes. Nudge is apparently really really strong. Even I wouldn't be able to stop her when she goes on a rampage shopping spree.

She shoves me into a dressing room and five pieces of clothing hits me in the face, one after another.

I whimper. "Why do you like to torture me?" She answers with another bra slapping me in the face.

A good twenty minutes later, I finally burst out of the store with five bags in hand and shove them into Fang's empty arms. He shoots me a glare, which I ignore, and skip away.

I stop in my tracks a few feet away and my nose twitches.

"Foooood." I moan. "I didn't know there was a food court." I whine and step in its direction when a hand clamps down on the back on my shirt collar and starts dragging me in Forever 21, away from all the wonderful food.

I whimper and reach hopelessly at my receding heaven as I'm dragged into hell instead. I turn my pouting eyes to Fang, but he just raises a bag in kudos.

My arms drop and I let my butt get rug burn across the carpet.

Another twenty minutes later, I sprint from the store, toss the bags at Fang's head, and dart toward the food court before Nudge can catch me again for more torture in hell.

I get in line at a Steak Escape and am ordering my food in seconds. I'm squirting ketchup beside my fries when my dear ol' friends walk up, Fang struggling with the fifteen bags.

"Sup." I nod at them and shove some food in my mouth. I walk past them and to an empty table, them following with a synchronized roll of the eyes. Hmm, they must have practice or something.

I shove one end of the sandwich into my mouth. Iggy and Gazzy show up sometime ginning like crazy people, which of course they are but still. I decide that I don't want to know what they were up to. Knowing them, it was probably illegal.

Fang grabs a hand full of fries and shoves them in his mouth, but when Iggy reaches for my plate, I slap his hand away.

"Oh, yeah, sure. Fang can have them but not me."

"I didn't see a thing." I reply.

Fang gloats by grabbing another hand full off my plate. There is a snorted laugh around the table.

When Nudge finally lets us leave, the sun is just starting to set. All of us are carrying at least six bags, except Nudge. The only person who bought something doesn't carry a thing. We walk through a playground and I jog to get ahead.

I smile when I see a mother and her daughter playing frisbee. Well, trying. The little girl is so small, she drops in every time, and she can't throw it straight.

The mother throws it and I know immediately that it is going to go too far. I sails over the child's head and into the street.

To my horror, the little girl steps off the curb to get it.

In the back of my mind, I see another body and another park. I see blood on my hands.

"Ari." I whisper. Before I know what's happening, I drop the bags in my hands, and dart forward.

From the corner of my eye, I see a bus barrel around a bend in the road and I'm screaming, the mother is screaming. Fang is screaming. Why wont she stop?

I'm not going to make it.

The child has the frisbee in her hand and she finally looks up to see the oncoming truck.

I'm not going to make it.

The bus is only three feet away when I fling myself from the grass and into the path of the vehicle. The young girl just opens her mouth and a scream starts when I lift her in my arm as I continue my forward momentum.

I made it, just passes my mind when something hard slams into my shoulder at fifty miles and hour. I twist as I fall and hold the girls face into my chest so she doesn't get hurt.

My butt hits first, then my head slams into the concrete with a terrible crack that resonates the sound around the entire block.

I must have blacked out because the next thing I know, I'm being shaken and a small voice calls out. "Miss?"

I become aware of the constant pain in my head as I crack one eye open. The girl who can't be more than four crouches beside my head my pokes me in the cheek. I sit up slowly, holding back a moan, and I feels like a spike gets lodged in my head.

I feel something sticky matting my hair and dripping down the back of my neck. I look where my head previously was and there was a dark puddle spread out and it confused me.

Why is that there. What is it?

When I drag my heavy body to my fee, someone stomps on the spike that was still dug in the back of my skull. Spots dance across my vision.

My head hurts.

I reach out and the girl takes my hand.

Together, we cross the street when there is a beak in traffic. Amazingly, no one had stopped when I was hit. When we step onto the curb, the young girl releases my hand and runs into her mothers arms. The young woman is visibly shaking and tears leave wet streaks down her cheeks.

She shakes my hand a million times, thanking me over and over before she leaves but I hardly hear her because of that damn train that's ringing in my ears. I didn't even know there where trains in California.

I had to push past my friends on the way to get the child to her mother so they have been around me, trying to talk to me for a while.

My ears ring and I'm looking for that stupid train.

My head. It hurts.

"Max." Someone and everyone calls.

I'm getting frustrated now because I still can't find the damn train and it's getting closer. Of course my eyes sight being jacked up isn't helping.

It hurts.

I finally give in and decide to find out why there is a spike in the back of my skull and reach behind my head. It stings even more sharply when I press my fingers into a wet spot.

They come away sticky with that dark stuff that was on the pavement.

Suddenly my legs buckle and someone catches me before I hit the ground. Someone's arm hits the back of my knees and I being lifted up. My head feels way to heavy so I bury it and my fist in the person's shirt.

It leaves a crimson spot on the black fabric.

"Max stay awake." Someone says.

I am awake. I say, or I think I say, with my eye lids drooping.

"Max. Max, look at me. Stay awake Max. Don't go to sleep."

Why do they keep saying my name? I'm right here.

I lift my head and meet obsidian eyes for a few unfocused seconds, enough for something to pop into my head and I grin lazily. "Hey Fang, I remember what seven times eight is." Then my head lolls back, my eyes close and everything goes dark.

It doesn't hurt.

I hope that ending wasn't too much of a shock for you. I hope you liked it.

Leave a review and let me know what you think. I would really appreciate it.

Thanks guys.

-Fantasy