New chapter yay! It's really fun writing in Fang's POV. And I'm enjoying this... Hope you are too.
"Max? I'm starving."
I was happy that Nudge had finally had enough courage to say it loud enough Max could hear. She had spent the last five minutes whispering the same sentence over and over next to me. Hopefully, Max would swallow her pride enough to at least stop for food. But thats the thing with Max, she has multiple personalities so you never know what you're going to get.
"Okay, okay. We need food. Fang! We need to refuel. Ideas?" Yes, Max, ask me. I must know everything! Even though I wanted to say every hurtful thing I knew I bit my tongue because I didn't mean it and was just scared, pushed to my limit, and worried- all against my religion of cool, calm, and collected. I needed to be cool. I needed to be calm. I needed to be collected. Of course it was not only my religion but also my job to be all those things. This was what everyone needed, someone who would just be stable and calm, someone to lean on. More importantly, this was what Max needed. I had accepted over the years as my job to Max. So for the time being, I swallowed up my response and looked for a place to stop for food.
We were flying over the San Francisco Peaks, home of the only wild animals of California (except the zoo), a perfect place to ski in the winter and a perfect place to steal food from winter houses in the summer. I locked eyes with Max telling her with my eyes what my idea was, not yet ready to open my mouth in case a complaint threw itself out.
"Ski slopes," Max said, and I nodded. "Summertime. Empty vacation houses."
"Would they have food?" Nudge asked obviously more bold since Max had already agreed with the hunger/food idea.
"Let's go find out," Max said. Max turned in a big circle looking for something- probably an isolated home of some sorts. Max seemed to find what she wanted so we all landed in the about 100 feet from a- hopefully- empty house. As we crept to the house behind the shrubs and trees I took a deep breathe and just smelled nature. When we had escaped from the School I was used to the same smell everyday- a sickly antiseptic smell that made even Max cringe- the first thing I smelled when we first escaped the School was nature. For me, nature would be the smell of freedom. It would be the smell of love. It would be the smell of happiness.
I returned to reality right when Max was cutting the window screen with the pocket knife I got her when (we think) she turned thirteen. Although I have no idea why I gave it to her, every time she uses it I have a panic attack and have to stop myself from snatching it out of her hands so she won't hurt herself. All I could do was get as close to her as I could- without her killing me- so if she hurt herself I would be right there to help. You can call me SuperFang.
After she took the screen off the window I helped her shake the wooded frame until the lock on top jiggled open. With out waiting for Max to give the order I climbed through the window first, then Nudge, finally Max came through the window. Then with a silent command (maybe instincts?) we took off in different directions looking for food. "Oh, yeah, pay dirt, woo-hoo! We're golden!" Nudge said in the next room while I tripped- not that I'd admit it- over a some dusty bottles of orange soda.
After we had stuffed ourselves to the max- speaking of Max, while she was stuffing her face I couldn't but realize that she resembled a chipmunk. A very cute chipmunk- Nudge moaned, "Uhnhnhnhnnnnhh," or something to that effect. "I feel like, like concrete."
"Let's take ten, rest a bit," I proposed, feeling my eyes getting heavier, until I finally closed them and got in a semi-relaxing position. "Digest a minute, we'll feel better."
"I second that emotion," Max whispered. If I hadn't been half-way asleep I would have smiled.
