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The next morning Fang woke alone, despite Angel having conned him into letting her stay and subsequently commandeering eighty percent of the bed. He sat up rubbing his neck and stretched big enough that several muscles popped in quite a painful way. That little monster was going to get it, he thought and shook his head.
Laying back down, he stared at the ceiling as he contemplated the promise she had extracted from him last night. His gut roiled at the very thought of talking to the man that had essentially ripped Max from his arms. He wanted nothing more than to punch a hole through the man's chest, rip out his heart and crush it before Jeb's eyes. Jeb had practically done that to them, to Max on multiple occasions and it was no less than the man deserved. He had no idea why Angel would be so adamant about him talking to the traitorous scientist, but he had promised her.
He punched his pillows with a snarl and finally rolled to his feet to join the rest of the group in their morning sparring. Pulling on a set of sweats, he took a moment to touch the feather that was his last connection to the only woman he had ever loved. The only woman for whom he would live and die.
Sound of shouting echoed down the hall and Fang shook his head with a sigh. He had no idea how she had managed to keep the flock in line at their current age, much less when they had been younger.
He could hear Gazzy and Iggy, and Nudge and Star getting into it at increasingly higher volumes as the seconds wore on and he was certain that it had to do with some kind of sabatoge to the girls' daily beauty routine. He had already had to break up quite a few brawls and he was so not in the mood to deal with it. He rapped on the door of his old room, now Dylan and Ratchet's, and pushed it open.
Ratchet was chilling on the bed, headphones and sunglasses firmly in place. Dylan was MIA.
"Ready for sparring?" Fang asked, his tone heavy with thoughts of what might happen.
The other boy shrugged. "As long as I get to eat first. Iggy's up, yeah?"
Fang nodded.
Ratchet grinned. "Thank god. That thing Gazzy tried to make yesterday was deadly."
Fang rolled his eyes. Gazzy had tried to make breakfast, like, make breakfast and it definitely hadn't gone so well. It really hadn't been that bad, but the kid had tried to use his improvised flamethrower to cook the toast and it really hadn't gone over well, for the toast or the house. "His toys are officially banned from the kitchen, so you should be safe there, at least."
"Good," Ratchet said and got up to follow him down the hall.
The morning passed without much incident and Fang was getting wound tighter with every minute that passed as he anticipated the call Angel had warned him about. It was mid-afternoon by the time the phone rang and Fang had to clench his fists tight to keep from throwing the phone across the room. Instead, he picked it up and said, "What do you want?"
"Hello, Fang."
Fang's stomach twisted in awful knots as the familiar voice of his former savior drifted across the line. "What do you want?" he said again.
"I'm guessing Angel told you I would call?" Jeb said, his voice even and unsurprised.
"Good job. Now, what-"
Jeb sighed and cut Fang off. "I want to see you, have a sit down of sorts."
Fang was practically vibrating with anger, but his voice remained cool. "And why would I want to do that?" He jerked as a small, cool hand slipped into his and he glanced down at Angel's disapproving expression. He shook his head, but the furrows in her brow only got deeper.
"We need to speak urgently, Fang. This is a matter of life and death and it can't wait because you're not man enough to face me. I expected more from you, Fang."
Fang's hand tightened convulsively around Angel's and she poked him hard in the side. He unlocked his fingers and tried to shake her off. She wouldn't let go.
"So I'm not man enough because I don't want to see you ever again after all you've done? You abandoned us, you betrayed us, you tried to kill us."
Jeb almost growled at that. "I did no such thing."
Fang swallowed and snapped, "You killed Max."
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. "No I didn't. She killed herself. If she hadn't been so reckless, so stupid to take on a facility with the rest of you just to save Angel…"
"You knew she would. There is nothing Max was more than loyal. You knew perfectly well she would come after Angel the second she realized that she was alive. You knew what she would do to keep the rest of them, the rest of us, safe."
Another silence. Then, "Be that as it may, it is of great importance that I see you very soon. The fate of the world hangs in the balance."
"What, Max is gone, so Plan B? I don't think so." Fang tried to ignore the determined poking of the girl beside him and fixed a glare on her face when that didn't work. "Stop, Angel."
"You have to go, Fang. You have to meet him," her blue eyes were wide and earnest. "You have to go."
He could feel his resolve crumbling and broke his gaze from hers.
"This is important, Fang," Jeb said again.
"One hour. Just me," he agreed almost against his will. Something was nagging in the back of his mind and he knew that there would be no peace until he had the confrontation his more animalistic side was craving.
Jeb exhaled loudly. "Excellent." He rattled off his location and said, "I shall see you soon, Fang."
Fang replaced the handset in the charging cradle and stood very still for some time. Angel still stood by his side, but she could probably see very well that he wasn't in the mood for any more prodding. That didn't stop her.
"I'm glad you're going. You need to see him," she said, her voice quiet and confident.
He glared down at her again and she finally released his hand. "I swear, Angel. If that was you…"
She shook her head violently. "It wasn't."
With a quiet sigh, he rubbed a hand across his face. "Bring them in, okay?"
Angel nodded and took off skipping, her mood oddly buoyant. She had been nearly as bad off as he in the first few weeks following Max's death. He knew that she felt responsible for it all and it was hard to watch their youngest carry so much on her narrow shoulders.
Fang moved woodenly down the hallway, contemplating standing the bastard up, but he couldn't quite shake the feeling that it was actually incredibly important that he meet Jeb for some reason. He slipped into his room to throw a few things into his old backpack and headed back to the living room, stopping to knock on the door of his old room on the off chance that Ratchet and/or Dylan was in the room. Not expecting anything out of the ordinary, he didn't wait after the knock to stick his head in. Big mistake.
"Hey guys, meeting in the-" he started, and then his brain went completely blank, except for, "What. The. Shit?"
Dylan and Maya were sitting on the bed in what could only be described as a passionate embrace. His one-time enemy-turned-teammate and current-enemy-turned, well, -enemy broke apart at his words. Maya quickly jumped off of Dylan's lap and ran her fingers through her hair, her cheeks flaming red. Dylan simply leaned back and glared at Fang.
He could barely believe what he had walked in on and he for sure wasn't ready to deal with it, so he just said, "Huh," and walked back out. He had always prided himself on his observational abilities, one tended to see much more when they lurked in the shadows, but this thing between the two appeared to have been going on for a little while. He shook his head at his blindness. He continued on down the hall, passing by the other doors just in case there was something else going on that he hadn't noticed. How could he have not seen it?
Kate glanced up from the laptop as he wandered back into the kitchen and her eyebrows immediately shot up. "What happened to you?" she asked.
Irritation flashed through him that he was so obviously thrown. Immediately, he schooled his features into their normal mask and dropped his bag on the table. The faint sounds of a heated discussion drifted down the hallway.
"Saw something I really didn't want to," he muttered as he pulled a can of Coke from the fridge.
Comprehension smoothed her face and a smirk twisted her mouth. "Finally noticed, yeah?" she snickered as her attention moved back to the screen.
A shudder ran through him and he just pushed it all to the back of his brain. "Don't even want to know."
She looked up at him again with sympathy in her sharp gaze. "You've been a little preoccupied. I think you're allowed some off time."
Fang just drained the soda and tossed the can in the trash. Grabbing a couple more from the pantry, he shoved them into his pack alongside several energy bars. "Hey, can you look up this address?" He gave her the information that Jeb had passed along and waited as she worked her magic on the internet.
"Taking a trip?" she asked.
He nodded. "Something like that."
Just then, Maya slipped into the kitchen. Dylan was not far behind. Maya had a look on her face that made Fang's heart ache. He couldn't remember how many times he had seen that look on Max after she had caught one member of the flock or another doing something that they clearly shouldn't be. Dylan looked exactly like a member of the flock after Max got that face.
"Fang," Maya started, but he shook his head.
"Don't want to know, don't care," he said. "I'm taking off for a day or so. Jeb wants to talk."
All of their expressions shifted to downright murderous. "And you're actually going?" Dylan snapped.
Fang felt his gaze harden. "Yes. We have unfinished business."
"I want to go with you," Dylan said immediately, his hands curling into fists.
Seeing the hurt creep across Maya's face, Fang shook his head. "No. You're staying here. I'm not putting anyone else in his way. There's just too much risk." Though he hated to admit it, he and Dylan had reached some unspoken truce after they each had calmed down. It was definitely true that there was no way he was going to allow the irritant to accompany him to murder Jeb, but he also didn't want to see Maya hurt the same way he was hurting. All in all, he was glad that they each had found someone else to focus on, someone that could return the affection.
Just then, the rest of the group filtered in, Nudge and Iggy both covered in a thick layer of mud. She was looking positively livid beneath the muck, but Iggy looked perfectly content. The rest of them were alternately snickering and rolling their eyes.
Fang sighed and once again lamented that Iggy could not see the glare that was directed at him. "Seriously? Not even one day, Ig?"
Gazzy flopped into a seat at the table and eyed Fang's backpack. "What's going on?"
The eldest scowled internally at the cautiously casual question from the nine year old. The nervousness wasn't entirely noticeable, but Fang had spent years listening to the changes in the boy's voice. "Jeb called and he wants me to meet him. Says it's important."
The contentment vanished from Iggy's face. "He can go to hell. That's what you told him, right?"
"Of course not," Angel chimed in. "It is important that he go see Jeb." She ignored the look that Fang gave her.
Iggy shook his head. "I highly doubt that." He shook his head, sending drops of mud flying everywhere and the girls screeching out of the way.
"I'm only going to be gone a day or two," Fang said as he scanned the directions Kate handed him. "I'll call before I meet and after I get out. If it's more than two hours and you don't hear from me, you'll know something's happened." He tried not to see Dylan and Maya's hands twine together between their bodies. However, he did smile a little when Gazzy made a gagging noise behind his hand.
Star hopped up onto the counter and caught the soda that Holden tossed her. "What if something happens?"
"Wait two more hours to be sure and come get me," Fang said dryly.
Angel shook her head. "That won't be necessary. You'll be just fine."
"What are you, psychic now?" Kate asked with an eye roll.
The youngest member of the team crossed her arms and stuck out her bottom lip. Her large blue eyes narrowed dangerously and Fang immediately shifted directly into her line of sight. "If anything happens while I'm gone, there's going to be hell to pay."
Angel kept her stance for a moment, obviously considering whether she was going to challenge him. He immediately thought of all the times she had tried to assume control of the flock and the disastrous results. Her eyes went wide again and dropped to the floor. "Yes, Fang."
She wasn't a bad kid, just a little full of herself sometimes. Fang slung his backpack over his shoulder and held out a fist. The flock stacked their own on top without any hesitation. The others were a little slower, but they had been through it before and followed suit. Tapping the back of each hand (even Dylan's), he tightened the straps a little and nodded decisively.
"See you in a couple of days."
Most of the group followed him up to the roof and right before he leapt off into open air, he turned and reminded them, "The house had better be standing and in good working order when I get back. No holes in the walls or anything." He fixed his gaze on Gazzy, Iggy (who remained blissfully ignorant) and their new partner in crime, Holden. Both Gazzy and Holden nodded, Iggy only doing so when Gazzy punched him in the side.
Fang waved one last time and launched himself off the roof. Snapping his wings open, he almost smiled with the rush of air through his feathers as the draft caught them and pulled him up to greater heights. No matter what was going to happen, he was always content for the first brief moments of flight. There was nothing to compare with the sense of power and the feeling of freedom that flowed through him as his wings cut through the open space and carried him ever higher. Maybe love. Love was the one thing he had deemed better than flying, but it was also the one thing that had brought him the most pain of all.
There had been quite a lot of events in his life that had scarred him in one way or another, each new twist seeming to carve deeper lines than the last. The first ten years of his life had certainly been less than ideal, living at the School and participating in whatever testing the whitecoats had deemed necessary to "learn." His skin still bore the faint outlines of the electrodes they had stuck to him at every possible opportunity. He still woke in the middle of the night drenched in sweat as his subconscious remembered the terrifying scenarios they had forced him to watch and analyze.
Then Jeb had broken them out and things had stabilized for a while. He had nearly two years of regular scars earned by falling out of trees and getting punched for stealing all the towels while certain younger siblings were in the shower. And Jeb had disappeared right before his twelfth birthday. That month had been hard, watching Max try to keep herself together for the sake of the rest of them.
The assignment of Max's mission to save the world hadn't done the flock much good as they soon found themselves hungry and dirty and beaten at every turn. Fang himself had come close to dying several times, had actually died once, and the rest of the flock hadn't been in much better shape.
Leaving Max after he had finally broken through her resistance had been the hardest thing of all, to have found the perfection of being that was standing at her side and then tearing all of it to shreds to save her had nearly killed him. Instead, it had killed her.
Those were the worst of his scars. The ones that he couldn't see, but felt as though they were still raw and open and filled with shards of glass that stabbed deep each time he took a breath. He would make Jeb pay.
Some time later, he spotted the facility that Jeb had directed him to and dropped down low to land right in front of the door. He flipped his phone open and typed out a quick text to the others and slipped it back in his pocket. His practiced eyes took in the security cameras and the small square plates that would probably shift and reveal laser guns or something should the facility feel threatened. They probably should have activated their defense systems for his arrival, but he wasn't going to make a move until he was certain that it would have the maximum impact. After all, there was no point on starting the search and destroy mission if nothing important got destroyed.
He swung his pack off of his shoulder and pulled out a Coke to sip on as he waved to the main security camera. He flipped it off, too, just for good measure.
"I raised you with better manners, Fang."
Fang carefully kept his expression neutral, which seemed to be getting harder and harder by the day, and took a big gulp of his soda as he watched the man he had once trusted above all others move through the blast doors and step out to greet him. "You didn't raise me at all," he retorted.
Jeb's mouth pressed into a thin line, but he didn't rise to the bait. "I'm glad you're here. There's something important I need to show you." He watched Fang for a moment then turned to walk back inside.
"How do I know I'll leave under my own power and in the same condition in which I arrived?"
The scientist shook his head. "I was never out to hurt you, any of you. All I wanted was-"
"To make the world a better place through genetic manipulation?" Fang snapped. "Too bad we ended up being real people." Just seeing the man sent his anger soaring right past hot and into ice cold, the range in which he was at his most dangerous.
"I promise that you will leave whenever and however you want. We-I will do nothing to you but talk," Jeb swore as he held out his hand for Fang to shake. At the boy's hesitation, he said, "I swear it on Max's life."