Max's POV:

I looked at Fang with a little glare. He stayed motionless and gave no sign of his emotion. He was acting like nothing mattered and yet it all did. Why does he try and hide everything when he knows they're there? Why would he hide feelings that actually mean something? Why?

Why did he go out with brigid? Why did he never look me in the eye afterwards? Why did he ignore me? Why?

That was the only question running through my mind.

Why?

It's time to go Maximum. You'll see them soon enough. The voice said in my head.

"Really?" I thought back at it hopefully. There was no reply after ten seconds. The hope that had been in my heart turned to nothing more then sadness.

I looked at Fang in what would be annoyance. "I'm not going to say you should've paid attention to us, to me, because that would be a waist of my time. And my time is already up. I came to say goodbye and that's exactly what I'm going to do. Not tell you how much you were being a stupid jerk with no emotions, emo boy." His eye's held a little sadness in it but no one but me knew that. I can read him.

"So here it is. Goodbye. I hope you won't be in the same position I am, but I wouldn't be sad if you were and that's only because you never seemed to care what happens to me." My words were cold and malicious; he winced visibly at it. That gave me great pleasure and I smiled wickedly at him for a second before going into an emotionless state. "Farewell, Fang. I might actually see you in whatever hell that I'm in."

With that the voice started to make me disappear again.

This is was my last time seeing Fang…and everyone else… but somehow it didn't feel like it.

Come, your time is now finally up. I hated the way the voice said that. It was slightly anxious like it was happy that I would leave all my friends and the whole living world.

Yeah, yeah, voice. I'll be there soon enough. Just make me disappear already to get on with it. I replied to the voice.

I looked at Fang and everyone else. "Goodbye." I whispered loud enough for them, and I watched as their figures went away and the blackness covering me.

Now it's time for you to let yourself go. The voice thought in what, I think, was happiness. What the freak?

"Um…voice…I don't know how to break this to you…but um…I don't really 'let myself' go. And if I already did let myself go I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be talking to you. And I never knew you could speak fortune cookie? Did you go to a Chinese Restaurant nearby?" I swear if it could growl it did. "What did I do? I was just asking a simple question. No need to get all mad." I thought with a mental smirk in my head hoping he could see it.

Listen closely, in order for you to go to the other side you need to forget about your life on the living world. You have no reason to be on this earth, so why stay when you can go to a much better place? The voice said in a strained voice. But on the last sentence it became calm and relaxed, if that makes any sense to you.

It then left me to my own thoughts, and trust me, there were a lot. Did I really want to leave a place that I've been on for my whole life? I know that most of my life was a living hell with the abusive adoptive "parents" but the orphanage was where I found Ella. She was so good to me, not like all the others who treated me unfairly. She accepted the fact that I had wings, she accepted me.

I also found my mom. Would I want to leave her after finding her in such a short time? And everyone else-Iggy, Nudge, Angel, Kyle, Ari, and Matt-even Fang. I'll miss them all.

Do I want to leave the ones I've grown close to, to a place where I don't even know?

But I have no reason to live with them. I can't go back and hug them, or say hi or anything. I'll be stuck in this black hole, all the time, while trying to convince myself that I have to stay on the earth.

Why? What's my purpose on earth? Did I have to complete a mission? No. Did I have to live? No. Did I have to do anything besides die?

…

….

No.

…

Suddenly I felt very weak, powerless. I didn't know if it's because I was going to the other side or what but it made me feel very tired.

"Voice? Is this part of it?" I asked tiredly in my head. I mentally closed my eyes if they weren't already closed.

Instead of the voice I heard a sickening laugh.

"Yes, Maximum. You finally decided that you wanted to leave?" The voice said. Except this voice sounded like a cruel and evil person finally getting their way.

"What?" I asked, sounding slightly slurred. Everything was all fuzzy and everything felt so weird, like I was living in someone else's body.

"Well, Maximum it's time for your destiny to begin."

With that everything seemed to slip into the black abyss of what I think would be my heart.

Fang's POV: (A/N: Yeah, I know AWESOME!)

I can't believe it.

She's gone.

And her last words to me were, "I might actually see you in whatever hell that I'm in." Did she really think of me like that? Was I that much of an asshole to her? Actually, yes, I guess I was. What did I mean to her before of my episode with Brigid? Was I a friend or something more? What WAS I?

"Do you believe that she's dead?" Ella asked a few minutes after Max disappeared from view. I honestly didn't know, we could only hope for the best for her because we don't know for sure if she was actually in hell or not. Max said it was dark, and that's why Dr. M started to cry for a bit but she kept saying to herself how Max didn't do anything wrong, and why should she be in hell.

We all looked up from our spot on the floor and looked at each other. We don't know if she is truly dead. She told Ella about how her death went by so fast she didn't even know if it was real.

But don't all deaths go like that? Especially with a bullet, it goes so fast you can't see it and then it's all over. You're gone and there's nothing you can do. So why is it that Ella keeps on going on about this? Why can't she just get it through her thick skull?

"She said that it happened so fast she didn't even know if it was real, so that means it probably wasn't. I mean, with the School and all, anything could happen. I say we shouldn't give up hope…" She rambled on about how we shouldn't give in to the thought of Max actually being dead, but we all couldn't just ignore the facts.

How could you not think someone's dead when his or her body is right in front of you? How could you ignore a bullet hole in someone's head?

Finally I had enough of Ella's stupid and wishful thoughts.

"SHUT UP!" I shouted menacingly. She shut her mouth and everyone looked at me in surprise, but I still went on. "Just SHUT UP. Get this through your thick skull. Max ISN'T. GOING. TO. COME. BACK. Get that? She died, end of story. Why can't you just ACCEPT that? Huh?" I shouted frantically. I was so livid it was scary, but I just hated the way she was so confident about Max being alive with the proof of that idea's faultiness was laid out right in front of her.

She held her head up defiantly. "Yeah? Then how do you explain the whole, coming back? Huh? How do you explain that Max was a ghost again and came back? She's not dead. Get that through YOUR thick skull." She was obviously angry.

I snarled at her. I knew this was so unlike me. I usually was so calm and controlled, never to show my feelings, but I absolutely HATED when people lied to me straight in my face. I stood up suddenly, her following my example. We walked towards each other, both holding our heads up high, showing that we meant business. This wasn't just a joke, a sick, cruel joke. We glared at each other for another moment after we were only a foot apart. Then she decided it was her turn to speak.

"Stop acting like she's dead." She hissed at me.

"I'll stop when you stop lying about her being alive." I responded. What happened next happened so fast, it was like when we first met Max and she pinned both me and Nudge up against the wall, so fast you had to blink and refocus your eyes.

My head went to the side and my cheek was on fire and I'm pretty sure that it was red. Everyone gasped and sucked in a breath…was there someone else in here? I heard a wry laugh, but it wasn't one of my friends.

What the hell is going on?

I made a snap decision and put a finger to Ella's lips. I looked around with one of my own fingers to my lips, telling everyone to be quiet.

But Ella was a defiant one.

"What is it, Fang? Finally decide I was right, and you don't want anyone to overhear?" She said snidely. "Well guess what! They already heard! So why don't you-" I cut her off with one of my own yells.

"Shut up! I was telling you to be quiet because I heard someone laugh, and it wasn't one of us!" I said without thinking. Great. Now I just blew the whole "I-know-you're-here-but-you-don't-know-that" act.

Her face turned to disbelief then fright as the seconds ticked by and no one heard anything.

After what seemed like forever I heard a machine make a clicking sound and then a sigh was heard. Everyone froze and started to slowly look around. No one dared to speak, so I guess I was the only who had the guts to ask who the heck was there.

"Who the hell are you?" I shouted and looked around with a mad expression that would make children go and run for their mommy's.

I wished this person would do the same.

"Well, if you must know." The person dragged on a bit. It was obviously a male by the sound of it and I saw Dr. M suck in a silent breath.

"I'm Jeb. And I know what happened to Max."

Meanwhile...(3rd person POV)

Lissa (A/N: I know it's been a while so I'm reminding you that this is Max's Agent) sat in her office sorting through some files when she got a call.

She picked up the phone with a frown. All she wanted to do was finish these files and go home. What did her boss want now?

"Hello?" She asked with fake cheerfulness into the phone even though she wore a frown.

"Is this Maximum Ride's Agent, um…Ms. Lissa Briar?" A feminine voice asked.

"Yes. May I ask who is speaking?" Lissa asked suddenly interested and annoyed. What has Max done now?

"This is Officer Amy Madison, from the police department. We got a call from one of the neighbors of Ms. Martinez, who said that the family has disappeared except for two children, who were left in the house alone. We asked their school about any students who have been absent the past few days and found out that 8 students had been absent for more than 3 days who had given any prior warning to future absences. This is not a coincidence, Ms. Briar. The students' names were, Fang Brochet, Iggy Martinez, Nudge Martinez, the students' peers say that Ms. Martinez's family, including Maximum Ride, were friends with these students. They are all missing and we think it's because of Ms. Martinez." Amy said and Lissa gasped.

"Really?" She asked forgetting about the files she was supposed to do. This is way more important. "Is that why you called me? To keep me updated?"

"That, and also if we find them, we think it would be best to take Max back under your custody, or rather all of them really."

"Yes, of course. I'll do that as soon as you find them. Thank you for informing me." Lissa said with relief. "I'll get the papers ready, for when you find them. You take care."

"You too. Good day." And with that Lissa hung up and put her head in her hands. Why is it that max always finds the bad people, the abusive people? Why couldn't she find someone that was actually caring and nice?

What's weird was that all of Ms. Martinez's neighbors obviously thought of the woman as a nice and caring person. Why would she go badly all of a sudden?

There was only one question Lissa had an answer to.

Is Max going to come back to the orphanage when she get's back? The answer to that was very simple.

Yes.

(A/N:

Things I wanted to say:

If you have any questions about the story just ask either in your review, or PM.

I'm going to start my other story for "Wind Blown" and update whenever I can.

READ & REVIEW, PLEASE!

Just to let you know I updated the chapter for "Wind Blown" and is going to be updated with this one so that means that the chapter for "Wind Blown" should be up by the time you read this! Yay!)