To all the people who faithfully read my fan fiction...I'm sorry. And I honestly have no excuse whatsoever for the massive delay between chapters. But you can forgive me right? Pretty please...

I'm kinda at a dilemma with my story... I sort of know what to do and I sort of don't, so any ideas would be very helpful. Oh and by the way, the next chapters might be a bit different, more angsty...

God... this chapter might be a bit short because my freaking little sister is Shrieking in my ear. I'm pretty sure she's actually half banshee but for some reason my parents won't let me sell her as a rare exhibit... think of all the books I could have bought.

Anyways in each chapter I'm going to recommend a book or series... so here's this one: Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly... Absolutely packed with action, good if you like action books and I learnt more history from one book then from a whole year of history at school. Figures.

Long author's note I know.

Disclaimer: Since I am still broke and James Patterson is probably pretty wealthy... I do not own Maximum Ride. Just this story... Kinda makes you feel crappy doesn't it?

Chapter 8: Life as we know it sucks...

Fang POV

I've learnt a lot about Jeb in the past hours. The fact that he works as a scientist and has to go on tons of business trips. That Ella was actually the result of a one night stand, although she doesn't know. He also had to take a second job for two years straight to support Ella, and the cheques he sent to Max's mom, although she always sent them back. Oh, and that he really didn't want to leave Max's mom, but his company made him, and the fact that he's always hated that Max doesn't like him.

So yeah, all it took to learn more about Max's past is to get her to collapse in the middle of school.

We hadn't taken her to the hospital, since Jeb had put a "If you put Max in a hospital she will kill anyone within a one kilometre radius, two if she breaks a bone" sticker on her file...

So instead we'd just taken her back to her house. Now we were all just sitting on various things in her room, waiting for her to wake up (I got the egg chair, not as comfy when Max isn't sitting in it). The strange thing is, Angel and Gazzy hadn't really seemed that fussed with Max fainting, which is kinda weird.

Jeb came back into her room, he'd walked out ten minutes before muttering something about a phone call.

"Well," he started. "Dr ter Borcht is coming over, he thinks the collapse may have had something to do with her mental condition." Yeh, that made me feel a whole lot better. The other's were sporting similar masks of confusion, apart from the twins. They just nodded like they'd heard it all before. Hmm...

Then we just sat in silence again. For your information, in the room were the twins, Ella, Jeb, Nudge and Iggy. And no, I don't know how those two got out of class but I suspect it might have something to do with the ominous black marks on his hands.

Once, Iggy got up and said something about getting a snack. He sat right back down when he saw Ella's face. Her evil eye could almost rival Max's. Well, not really.

A knock on the door startled us. Jeb got up to get it a moment later, murmuring voices were heard in the hall. Then Jeb came back up and he was followed by a man who I disliked immediately. I didn't really notice his appearance, all I saw was the hungry and predatorial look that dominated his face when he laid eyes on Max.

"Everyone, this is Dr ter Borcht, Max's therapist. Doctor, these are Max's friends," introduced Jeb.

Borcht just looked at us as if surveying interesting bugs, and once again I felt the urge to punch him.

"Interesting," he muttered and then walked over to Max. He and Jeb started discussing details and were soon theorising the cause of this. Suddenly, Gazzy looked up at Borcht, and nodded at Angel. They walked over and Gazzy tugged at Borcht's shirt, grabbing his attention. He leaned down and then the twins both whispered something in his ear. He answered them quietly and soon they were having a hushed discussion, to low to be able to hear. Jeb looked at them curiously then shrugged and walked over to a nearby chair. Pshh, and I though scientists were supposed to be curious people.

Borcht stood up. He then proceeded to walk over to Max, and 'examine' her. It didn't escape my attention that his hands lingered on some areas. I fought back the growl rising up in my throat.

He had a curious look on his face and then beckoned over to Jeb. Once again, a hushed, inaudible conversation took place in the room. I rolled my eyes.

Then my attention shifted away from them to Max, who had suddenly started to claw at her sheets, and cower away from something in her mind. We all looked over at her worriedly. She continued moving and then she started muttering, even in her dream it was obvious she was absolutely terrified.

"D-don't touch my family!" she muttered and other words soon followed, although they were undecipherable. Then suddenly, she started screaming. It was a terrible scream, the scream of someone scared beyond recognition. Ella walked over to her and tried to calm her down, but it was obviously not working.

"Max!" she shouted. "MAX!" This time it seemed to work and Max's eyes opened blinking in the bright light. She stopped screaming abruptly, and now I could hear Jeb and Borcht properly, who had raised their voices to be heard to one another.

"Max is obviously suffering from intense emotional trauma, and there's a chance there will be severe damage to her mental health. According to her siblings, Max was often taken to therapists and even collapsed just like this a couple of times. If the damage is to severe she might have to be admitted to a psychiatric ward."

I blinked a couple of times in shock, Max... Insane?

My attention was brought back to her body though when she sat up suddenly and turned green. I gently guided her back down, so she was on her back. She looked at me as if in a dream state and then her eyes filled with pure terror.

"Get away from me!" she shouted, and caught sight of Nudge and Iggy peering over my shoulder. "All of you get away!" Then she collapsed into sobs. She burrowed underneath her blankets and in seconds I could see she had fallen asleep.

I backed away from her and traded shocked looks with the others. I had never seen Max like this never so...broken. And the thing that saddened me the most was when she saw me, she looked at me as if I was the most terrifying thing on earth.

It was ten o'clock at night when Iggy, Nudge and I finally left. For hours Jeb and Borcht had discussed therapy for Max while we had just sat around their dinner table. I think we were all in shock. I was surprised that we had actually only known her for about a week, because it felt like forever.

That night I didn't sleep a wink. I just stared at the curtained glass door separating me from Max. We didn't go to school the next day either. Just kinda sat around the house, doing nothing and trying to mask our yawns. I know what you're thinking. What about our parents? Well, to put it simply... our parents were ass-holes. We basically lived on our own. I haven't actually seen them in over four months. I'm pretty sure they have another house somewhere. The only reason we know they're still alive is because they send massive cheques once a month and occasionally gifts, like my car.

But no matter what you think, living without parents sucks. Like when Nudge has a nightmare and wakes up in the middle of the night, we're the ones who have to comfort her. Iggy and I hate our parents. We ignore their rare letters and even rarer phone calls and the reason we haven't seen them in over four months is also because last time they visited, Iggy blew up their car.

Nudge on the other hand, still likes them. Occasionally, our mom will call her up and arrange a shopping trip with her, and I don't think she realises the truth about our parents. See they always told us the reason we never saw them was because they worked at this job where they only got back home at one at night and woke up at four in the morning. This of course was bull shit. But then again, telling Nudge the truth would probably crush her. So we don't.

So there we were sitting in the lounge watching a rerun of some old show but not really watching when suddenly the phone rang. Iggy went and got it and I could hear his voice coming from the kitchen. He hung up and ran back to the lounge.

"Max is awake!"

Don't hate me. I needed it to end there. Yet another filler. I know the last bit was crappy. But you got a bit of insight into Fang's and Max's background. Definitely Max in the next chapter. Oh and for the people who don't understand why Max acted the way she did in the last chapter, it's because the one thing that Max really fears is people hurting her family. She wasn't scared of dying, she was afraid she couldn't help them. Add the fact that she was being betrayed...

I think I explained that pretty well.

I'm not sure when I'll next update, hopefully soon.

Until Next time,

~BookNerd7~

P.S Ashara... finish Hell to Heaven!