My friend is obsessed with lip butter. Not balm, not gloss… butter. She says it's the best (?)… I WANT SOME! Ha-ha-ha.

Thank you for all of your reviews! They were much appreciated!

Disclaimer: These pretty much say the same thing again and again. I wonder how many people actually read these. Okay, if you are reading this disclaimer that I do not own Maximum Ride, please leave a comment saying so….

Lip butter. Ha-ha. Cracks me up!

Max POV

I sat on a chair. A pretty comfy one, as chairs go. I was sitting in the living room of dorm building one, which had party decorations hanging, literally hanging, from the walls and ceiling, empty plastic cups that once contained drinks all over the floor, and pieces of chips, pretzels, popcorn, and deviled eggs dropped and broken on the small square tables placed randomly around the room (some of which were knocked over).

On my right stood Angel. Being that I was sitting down and she was standing up, we were almost at eye level. Sitting on the floor on my left was a bruised Dylan, applying Band-Aids and ice packs all over him.

In front of me lay the love of my life, Fang, who was being fixed up by paramedics. I refused to let them helicopter him to a hospital, being that he would heal pretty quickly anyway. They wrapped an Ace bandage around his head where he was bleeding, and were now trying to stop his neck from bleeding as well. They gave him some medicine that would make him go numb so that he wouldn't feel any pain.

I think I was feeling all of his pain for him. Every time they moved him, dabbed him with cloth, or even touched him, I felt an immense amount of unbearable pain. I couldn't stand to see how close he'd been to being murdered. Sure, he'd been in plenty of conditions far worse than this. He'd been beaten to a pulp, knocked unconscious, and smacked upside the head plenty of times (that last one probably caused by me). But never, ever, in a million years had I seen, nor ever wanted to see, someone put a knife to Fang's neck and draw blood from it. We could take bullet wounds and beatings any day. But a knife to the throat meant about as much as it did to any normal human: imminent death.

And he'd been so close to it.

And I was being held back by a freakish superhuman whom I still didn't have any explanation for. If Dylan hadn't been there, Fang could be dead.

I really didn't know if I owed him, or should repay in some way, or should just thank him. But Dylan did save one of us, so he deserved more than to just be treated like he's been treated since he came.

As the paramedics finished up Fang's neck, I absently stroked Angel's hair while she sat on the arm of the chair. By this time (it was probably around nine o'clock by now), Fang was fully awake, breathing, and functional.

He looked up at me with sorrowful eyes. "You okay?" I asked him. "You've had quite a night."

"Yeah. Damage isn't too bad. But my neck is throbbing." He said. He stood up, a little off balance at first, then found his center. Angel left my side and hugged him tightly.

"I'm really sorry this happened to you Fang." she said, her voice cracking with sobs. "It was my fault, too. I should have been more cautious and alert instead of trying to ignore people's thoughts when someone was planning to kill you!"

"Hey, hey," Fang said with a small smile in his voice, hugging her back. "It's okay Angel, it wasn't your fault. Just same old, same old. People trying to kill us. Nothing really different."

Fang got away from Angel's tight grasp and approached Dylan, who was fumbling with his ice packs trying to get up. Fang helped him up, then said, "Hey, man, I want to… thank you… for what you did back there. You really saved my neck. Literally."

Dylan shrugged it off. "Your apart of the flock. You've been part of the flock. And like Max once told me, Flock Rule number one: the safety of the flock always comes first." He looked over and winked at me.

I tried to smile, but I don't think it was very convincing.

The DJ was still there, claiming he was suppose to stay until 10 or later or else he didn't get paid for the night. So he decided to play soft music in the background of all the commotion.

The song he played next was one of Fang and my favorites. It had a slow, soft melody that made you sway a little whenever you heard it.

Fang looked at me, and offered his hand. "Would you like to dance?" He asked, smiling that smile he knew I could never resist. I graciously took his hand, and he lead me to the center of the room. The DJ turned it up a little, and we danced.

Fang put his hands on my hips, and I placed my arms gently around his neck. Neither of us really knew how to dance, much less ever did dance, so we just swayed, moving slowly in circles. We let the music sink into us, as I stared into his dark, mysterious, beautiful eyes, and he looked into my brown eyes.

The piano in the beginning was always my favorite part, then the words came in.

From the moment I saw you,

From the moment I looked into your eyes,

There is something about you,

I knew, I knew.

That you were once in a lifetime,

A treasure near impossible to find,

And I know how lucky I am to have you,

'cause I've seen the rainbows that could take your breath away,

The beauty of the setting sun that ends a perfect day.

And when it comes to shooting stars, I've seen a few

At this point, Fang started to lip-sing the song, just like we use to when we lived in our house.

But I've never seen anything…

As beautiful as you.

As I looked around, I could see others dancing too. Some of them were people from the party who decided to come back (although I couldn't possibly see why). We stayed like this for a few minutes, letting all the love and emotions soak in. I also saw Angel and Dylan dancing together, like brother and sister.

Which reminded me of something.

"Hey Fang," I said, just barely over the music so that no one else could hear us. "Where are the Gasman and Iggy?"

He hesitated, looking confused, as if the answer should be really obvious.

"There back in our dorm, sleeping."

"Yeah, but if Miriam kidnapped you, she would have had to have gotten into your room. How did she not wake those two up? How did she not wake you up?" I asked.

Fang looked puzzled. I shouldn't have brought it up. I probably ruined our entire evening.

Although, it was probably ruined anyway. As far as evenings go, this one didn't really make the top ten.

"I don't know." Fang said finally. "Usually they wake at the sound of a pin drop. I wonder if…"

He looked at me with realization in his eyes, I didn't really know exactly what he thought had happened, but I knew from my gut that something had happened to them.

We broke apart, and raced out the door. I heard someone calling our names behind us, but we ignored them. Something kept Gasman and Iggy from waking up. Miriam must have did something to them (or Silica made her do something to them). If Silica did anything to them, in person or not, the next time she goes to church she'll be in a box.

We stormed through our dorm building, tired party-goers lounging in the living room. All eyes turned on us as we raced to Fang's dorm room. My eyes were bugging out of my head with nervousness.

He smoothly slipped the room key in the lock, and swung the door open as it beeped. I was relieved to see that they were both in bed, but a nervous wreck to hear them not snoring, like they always do. I went straight to Gazzy, and Fang went to Iggy.

"Gazzy, Gazzy wake up!" I said, shaking his shoulder. "Gasman, please, WAKE UP!" I shook him harder, and he rolled right off the bed and plopped on the floor.

"Oh my god." I said, pushing my hair away from my face as I stared down at a crumbled Gazzy. Iggy didn't so much as flinch. "What the hell did she do to them?"

I looked behind me as Angel, Dylan, and Nudge burst through the door. Nudge screamed when she saw Gazzy.

"What happened?" Dylan asked.

"I don't know! We realized that there was no way Miriam could have kidnapped Fang without waking them up and figured out she must have did someth-"

I stopped abruptly when Miriam stepped through the doorway behind Angel. Her eyes were sad. Really sad. Almost… apologetic.

But I was not forgiving. I didn't care if it was her idea or not. I needed to punch something, and I wasn't the let-all-your-anger-out-on-a-pillow type.

"What the hell did you do to them?" I screamed at her, pointing to Iggy and Gazzy's lifeless bodies.

"Don't worry, they're not dead." She said simply.

"Oh well that's a relief!" I said sarcastically. "Why aren't they waking up?"

"I had to inject sleeping drugs into them. They won't wake up until tomorrow morning. I figured no one would notice because you all sleep in anyway."

"Yeah, well, we noticed. It turns out people don't snore when they're unconscious!"

She let out an "Oh" and I ran to Iggy's bed. I snapped my fingers next to his ear. Usually if I did this, he would pounce on me and complain for being so loud. His supersensitive ears weren't always advantageous for him. "C'mon Iggy." I said in frustration.

"He won't wake up until another, like, nine or ten hours. I told you, it's the drugs."

"Isn't there, like, an- an antidote or something?" I asked frantically.

"Max, calm down," Dylan said, "they'll wake up in the morning. No big deal."

I just stared at him like he was crazy. "Of coarse it's no big deal!" I snapped. "It's never a big deal with you. But guess what, it is a big deal. Just the thought of someone drugging my flock again makes me want to strangle someone. We spent our entire childhoods being drugged, experimented on, and being medicated. We spent the rest of our lives trying to get away from all that! We aren't going to let some stupid human girl," I looked at Miriam, "Silica I mean, do that to us again." My gaze sent shards into Dylan. He honestly looked shocked, and weak, compared to me. "Right now, and for the rest of the night, the Gasman and Iggy are completely vulnerable. What if we need to leave again? What if someone else finds us and attacks, or worse, kidnaps them and takes them away?"

"You don't know that any of that stuff is going to happen, Max." Dylan said, raising his voice so it matched mine. He must think he's the smartest guy in the world. He is so wrong it's laughable.

"The thing is, Dylan, all that stuff already had happened to us. It's happened to almost all of us. And do you know what I see when I look at Gazzy and Ig like that?" I waited.

Dylan shoved his bruised and bandaged hands into his pockets. "What do you see?"

"I see them in dog crates again. Unconscious. In pain. Every. Single. Day." The venom in my voice scared even me. But I didn't show it. Miriam was in tears.

Dylan might have saved Fang's life, but he still didn't deserve praise or thanks. Not if he kept talking like he knew it all.

Nudge, Angel and I left the boys to their room. I dropped Angel and Nudge off at our room, and walked Miriam back to hers.

"I'm really, really sorry about this, Max." She said for the eighteenth time. And yes, I have been counting.

"Yeah, yeah." I just said. I really couldn't say "No, it's okay" or "I forgive you" because it wasn't okay, and I couldn't forgive her.

"Miriam," I said. She was half a step into her dorm, where her room mates were waiting, eager to get every single little detail of whatever, "I just want to let you know, I know why you did it. If I were as close to my dad as you are to yours, I probably would have done the same thing. Besides, you didn't really know what was going to happen anyway. I guess it could have been a lot worse." I hoped that was reassuring. It was really hard to gush and share my feelings with someone outside the flock.

"Yeah, I guess." She said. I could see her roommates peeking over the edges of their beds. "Well, thanks. And if you guys ever need anything, don't hesitate to ask. I've got my connections." She said with a smile.

I smiled back, and headed straight to my room, where I plopped on my bed and immediately went to sleep.

In the morning, Gasman and Iggy will be conscious, Fang will be safe and unharmed, and it will be as if the past few days didn't happen.

I hope.

Okay, so this chapter wasn't as good. But I counted the pages and was like "How the hell do I have nine pages already? I just started!" L.O.L. I guess time flies. Review, review, review!

And BTW I found out where to get some lip butter! Ha-ha-ha-ha!