Hey you guys!!! Sorry i take so long to update, but at least my chapters have gotten longer! i think! Well, enjoy, and review!
"Fang?!" Nudge asked, shock and horror in her voice. What's wrong with Max? Why is she crying?"
Jeb was hidden from her view and Max was on the ground, crying.
"I don't know, Nudge," I said honestly. I rubbed her back as she joined me to look out the window, tears starting to form in her own eyes.
Angel was frowning as she stomped up the stairs to where we were.
"Why does Max have to be so good at hiding her thoughts," she huffed, "I have a right to know what she's thinking!"
Then a confused expression replaced her scowl as she thought about what she had just said.
I turned my attention back to the window.
Behind me, Gazzy gasped when he saw Jeb there, a cold, hard look on his face, glaring down at Max.
A shiver traveled down my back and my fist curled around the windowsill for the second time today. Had he done this to her?
"What did he do?" Gazzy wailed, frightened for his leader and mother, "Why did he make Max cry like that?"
Gazzy grabbed my leg on the other side of me from Nudge. Tears started to flow down Nudge's face as she bit her lip to keep from crying out. I had to do something about these guys.
"Shhh, Gazzy! I'm trying to listen! Why did she have to pick a spot so far back?" Iggy was suddenly behind me.
What was this, a party?
Can't I watch Max be miserable in peace…
But honestly, I was really worried about Max. What had happened at breakfast? Why had she suddenly broken down like that? Was it because of what Gazzy and Iggy did this morning? But she had hardly been mad about that.
I though hard while trying to block out Nudge's loud, though perfectly reasonable whining.
Was it something that had happened before today? Yesterday? Last week? Last month?
Last month we had been saving the world, and Max had been in Germany…
I thought harder. Last month we had buried Ari back in that sad little forest. She had cried then, but she was better after that.
Last month we had met Max's mom for the first time as the seven of us.
I sighed. There was too much to sort out. It could be anything, really.
But why would she go to Jeb? I was offended, actually. I was her best friend for crying out loud. Maybe I had sent her the message that I wanted more that just that, but… I was still the one that she trusted most, especially over a cretin like Jeb. Why didn't she tell me first? Was she even going to tell me at all?
Max stood up. Jeb turned around, a sad look in his eyes. I turned my gaze towards Max. But not before I saw Jeb mouth, out of the corner of my eye, "8 o'clock, meet me at the gas station."
I saw Max huddled there, behind the tree, so hopeless and lost.
"Fang?" Angel said in a shaky, young voice, "I'm scared." Two words I had never heard out of her mouth. It didn't take the horrors of the School to make her say it, it had been the sad glimpse at her crying mother, her lost sister, her broken everything.
Angel clung to my hand, and with a look over my shoulder; I found that Gazzy had done the same to Iggy. Nudge just looked lost. I grasped Angel's hand firmly, offering what little support I had to give her.
I just wanted to go out there and give Max a much needed hug and tell her everything was going to be alright, that she could smile again and I'll take her out to get ice cream. A double scoop of chocolate fudge, her favorite since she was a kid. Instead, I forced myself to look away and turned to the others, all staring broken-heartedly at a broken Max.
"Why don't you guys go out to get lunch or something? I'll talk to Max and see what's going on. Ig, you're in charge."
Gazzy glanced out the window hesitantly and bit his lip. Angel did almost and exact imitation of her brother. Nudge frowned, concern in her deep, brown eyes. Iggy ran a hand through his hair, no doubt worried as well. We all were.
"… okay, Fang. We can, like, go out for a few hours of something. Max will be okay, right?" Nudge stared straight into my eyes.
"Yeah, Nudge, she'll be okay. She always is." With that, I turned my gaze back to Max as everyone else files solemnly out the door.
I watched Max visibly force herself off the ground. She turned around, looking everywhere but my little window. Finally, she me t my gaze and my heart melted.
Such desperation in her eyes, but yet, a defiant look of determination. That very look that she always held proud, in the hardest days at the School to the terrifying days on the run. Everyday.
Right now, it shone like a bright light.
I was so confused.
I watched Max as she slowly made her way towards the back door. I saw her silver ring flash in the sunlight from its lifetime position on her thumb. She never took it off, hadn't since the day she finished making it when we were eight years old.
In the back of my mind, I saw the young, care free Max trapped in the cold, hard prison that the School was. That awful place that made her grow up too quickly.
I remembered her proud smile, her cute, freckled face beaming with accomplishment as she showed us the ring she had taken three years to make.
Jeb had given her such a great smile, and he had swung Max around, telling her how amazing it was, how beautiful the ring was, how spectacular she was.
She giggled her bubbly, bell-like laughter as he put her down.
"I'm gonna give it to Angel! As a gift!" Angel had just moved in with us a few weeks before, still a fledgling, still sleeping for most of the day.
Angel was too little, Jeb had said in reply. So Max had kept it herself to give to Angel when she was older. Angel knew it, too.
But over the years, it had become Max's comfort, like a security blanket in the shape of a little silver loop that can fit on your finger. Even if she never told anyone, Max really loved that ring, and we all knew it.
So when Max had offered it to Angel for her fifth birthday, Angel told her that Max just wouldn't be Max without her favorite ring.
Max said it was just a ring, but secretly, we could all see she wasn't disappointed to keep it.
I heard Max walk quietly into the house, her haunting giggle echoing in my mind.
By the time she got to the kitchen, I was waiting for her, I almost gasped when I saw her face. Her eyes were red and her piercing brown irises were sort of glazed over.
She didn't see me.
"Yo."
I didn't realize that one word could make Max jump so high. She looked away from me immediately.
I raised an eyebrow at her. I decided to play it innocent.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. You just startled me, that's all." I could see the lie right there in her eyes and in the way she bit her lip. Plus, you know, it's pretty hard to startle someone like Max.
"Yeah, I just 'startled' you." I crossed my arms and leaned on the doorframe. She still wasn't meeting my gaze.
"Yup. That's my story and I'm sticking to it." She gave a small smile, which ultimately turned into a grimace. Her voice was forced, though it could've fooled anyone. Her eyes still held misery.
Max turned away from me and walked to the refrigerator, bending down to see what was inside the cluttered doors.
I sighed. She was impossible. I made my way over to where she stooped and leaned on the counter.
"Seriously, Max, what's up?" I could get just about anything out of Max, and I did, no matter what it took to make her tell me. I was not going to back down now.
I looked at Max. She had a spaced out look on her face, her hands had stopped their rummaging and there was a sad, distant look on her face. It reminded me of New York, back at the sewer tunnels…
I stood up from the counter and came to stand next to her, staring into her eyes as well as I could. I hoped that she wouldn't have another brain attack; they had really scared and worried me. I still wasn't completely sure that they would never come back.
Max sighed, shaking her head. She looked exhausted and worn out, ready to fall asleep in an instant.
I frowned.
"Max," I put a hand on her back, about to suggest that maybe she should sit down or something.
Instead, she hissed in a sharp breath, and her hand clench around the door. I could almost hear the cry of pain that was resting on her lips.
A sense of dread tingled my senses. What had she been doing after breakfast?
Wordlessly, I lifted up the back of her shirt, and gasped out loud.
Her back was a burned mess, bright red and half healed, bleeding a little near the center. How could I have not noticed when she came home? Max had
been gone for hours; who knew where she had been and what she had done?
Max herself did, for sure.
Max, what happened? Why didn't you tell me you were hurt?!" She never told me anything anymore. Okay, not true, but I was still a little miffed about the episode with Jeb and her trust issues. Didn't she know better than to trust Jeb, and that she could trust me waaaayyyy more than that traitor?
"Come on, let's go upstairs and get you cleaned up." There was an edge to my voice that made Max flinch almost invisibly. I instantly felt bad, but come on,what was she thinking on that one?
I didn't wait for the protest I knew that was coming and, well, half shoved her up the stairs, careful to avoid the spots where the burn was worst.
I pushed her into the bathroom and began getting out the cleaning supplies and bandages.
"Counter."
"Fang, I'm fine really, I don't- "
"Counter," I said a little more forcefully.
She sighed and climbed onto the sink, letting me pin the bottom of her shirt up. I started with the antiseptic.
"Max, quit fidgeting."
"Kinda hard not to." And whose fault is that?
"What happened, Max? What did Jeb say to you? What made you…cry?" I was going to get the information out of her if it cost me my life. Which, well, with Max, it just might.
I started to wrap the bandage around her stomach and back.
"It was an exploding arrow. A man with a black hood." Finally! Some answers! Wait-what? Someone had tried to kill Max, and I hadn't been there to make sure he didn't. If she had gotten killed…
I didn't finish that thought, but I mentally added Blackhood to my list of people/whatevers to hunt down and take care of myself.
"Ow, Fang, not so tight! I gotta breathe!" Oops, I had started yanking at the bandages. Maybe now's not the best time…
I focused my attention back onto what I was doing, rebandaging the part that had gotten too tight.
I worked in silence for a few minutes before I pulled the pin from Max's shirt and she got off the counter.
I grabbed her arm before she could run off without telling me things again. Finally, she let me catch her eye.
"Jeb?"
She bit her lip hard, uncertainty in her eyes. She tapped her fingers nervously on her thigh. If she was going to disappear again-
Max slipped off her beautiful, silver rind and slipped it into my hand. There was a thin, pale line on her thumb where the skin hadn't gotten any sun in years.
"I promise, Fang, I will tell you." She looked straight into my eyes, the only promise she had ever made to me.
Then she turned around, and walked away, leaving me in the bathroom alone.
Just not today. But soon, right?
