Four today? God! Someone give me something to do with my life! I'm so boring! TT_TT I love that you guys enjoyed chapter...eleven. A lot of the reviews I got on that were like "Yes! Dylan is dead! Huzzah!" So I hope you guys keep reading and enjoying and stuff.

Chapter Thirteen

Max

Jeb had always told us that you can't win them all. I knew it was true, but I didn't quite understand why we didn't seem to win any of them. Just when things were starting to get back to normal in the flock, Dylan drops dead in the living room. I only wished that something good could happen in our life. Just one time.

I suddenly felt a hand touch my arm.

"Max?" said Gazzy voice from beside me. "Why is it always the bad things that happen to us?" Mixed feelings passed through me. I was sad because I didn't want the rest of the flock worrying about what was going to happen next. I did enough of that for all of us. And I was also frustrated because it was true. Barely anything good ever happened to this family.

"That's not true," I told him while wracking my mind for something good that had happened recently. I was coming up blank.

"Of course not," Iggy said from across the room. For a second I thought he might be saving me, but then I noticed the heavy bitterness in his tone. He slowly stepped toward us. "Just because we're winged freak shows, there are thousands of evil scientists trying to capture and dissect us, and people have recently started to enjoy ditching or dying on us, that doesn't make everything bad." He flopped down on his back on the couch, covering his eyes with his arm. "Oh, wait," he added. "Yes it does."

I scowled at him. His bitter depression was really starting to get on my nerves. I mean, it's okay for a little while, but two and a half years? It was getting ridiculous.

"At least we still have the five of us!" I all but screamed at him. "That should be enough!"

I stormed out of the room and down the hall to my room, slamming the door behind me. I flopped face-down on my bed. Almost instantly, there was a light tap on my door.

"Go 'way!" I shouted directly into my mattress. I heard the door click open anyway and someone sat down on my bed.

"Max?" Nudge's voice said gently. I rolled over and sat up.

"He can't be like this forever," I told her. She bit her full lip.

"I know," she said solemnly. "I think, though, that it's his way of dealing with it."

"What?" I asked. She'd lost me there.

"I mean, Fang was, like, his best friend," Nudge continued. "He's probably feeling so…messed up inside that all his mind can do is try to release some of the emotion by being mad at everyone."

I raised an eyebrow at Nudge. "Since when did you get into psychology?" I asked her. She smiled and turned away from me, her cheeks flushing slightly. She recovered quickly and looked back at me.

"You know, it's kind of the opposite of what you're doing about it," she added. "Instead of letting out your emotion, you're ignoring it, acting like there's nothing wrong around here at all."

I bit down on my cheek. "That's not true," I said. "I know something's wrong, I just try to make sure everyone else around here feels differently about it. Gazzy thinks that only bad stuff happens to us! That's the last thing I need! I don't want the younger kids to feel like—"

"That's another problem," Nudge interjected. I was unhappy that she'd interrupted me, but I let her continued. "You keep treating us—Gazzy, Angel…even Iggy and me sometimes—like we're little kids! That's not true anymore! Iggy's eighteen now, Max. And I'm fifteen! And as much as I know you refuse to believe it, even Gazzy and Angel are old enough to deal with the things that we've been dealing with for our whole lives without the protection you've always given them." She took a breath and stared me straight in the eyes. "Face it, Max. We're independent now."

I had nothing to say to that. I was honestly shocked silent. Nudge never talked back to me like that. She'd always been my Nudge. The one I could always count on to take my side. Maybe it was just proof that what she was saying was true. The flock really was growing up and making their own decisions. That was a lot to take in for one day. Almost like she was reading my mind, Nudge stood up and walked out of the room. I rolled over on my side and fell asleep.