Here! Chapter twenty! It's eight-hundred-and-some words, so that's better, right? Good. Anyway, no more chapters today. I have to work on -shudder- homework, so you can just, like, re-read some or something. Whatever floats your boat. Enjoy!

Again, I'm, like, super lazy, so let me just throw out there that I still don't own Maximum Ride 'n' stuff, so, like, yeah. Read on!

Chapter Twenty

Fang

I'd been watching Max for almost six weeks, just like Allison had told me to. Nothing too weird had happened for maybe a month, then things went really strange. When Max passed out, the first thing I did was check her neck. You know, just in case. If Dylan went not too long ago, who's to say one of us wouldn't?

I let that one go, but then she started getting exhausted all the time. I thought maybe she was coming down with a cold or something. I tried to ignore all the things she was going through as much as I could.

But one thing I couldn't ignore was one morning after five or six weeks since I talked to Allison. I'd been lying in Max's bed next to her. She'd started letting me sleep there instead of the couch shortly after her fainting incident. I was awake, despite the fact that it was only seven in the morning. Max rolled over beside me and jumped to her feet. She raced out of the room. Confused, I followed her. Before I got to the bedroom door, I heard another door slam. I ran out into the hall. The bathroom door was shut, so I figured that's where she was.

"Max?" I said, pounding my fist against the wood. She didn't answer. I listened through the door. I couldn't hear much, but from what I did hear, it sounded like when Allison caught the stomach flu back when I was living with her. I turned the doorknob, but was stopped by Max's voice.

"No! Don't come in!" she pleaded. "Stay out! Please!"

"Max, what's wrong with you? Why can't I come in?" I demanded. There was more retching noises. The door next to me opened and Nudge stepped out.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said. "Max is sick."

"Max, are you alright?" Nudge called through the door.

"Yes, I'm fine," Max said. She didn't sound fine to me, though. "Just please go. I'll be okay."

I sighed. We were getting nowhere standing here and shouting through the door. I looked at Nudge, who copied me and walked back into her room. I headed down the hall for the kitchen. Max may have been chucking up her entire month's supply of food, but I was still starving.

Iggy was in the kitchen, no surprise. He still hadn't said a word to me in a month. I sat down at the table and sniffed the air. Eggs, bacon, toast, and orange juice wafted around the room.

"What's for breakfast?" I asked, more to see whether or not he'd answer than anything else.

Silence.

"You know," I said nonchalantly, "I understand being mad at me for a little while, but a month and a half is kind of ridiculous."

Iggy's shoulders pulled up toward his jaw. I was getting through to him. Good. "And isn't the silent treatment a little petty?" I continued. "I mean, you'd think that at eighteen you'd know that you can't solve your problems by ignoring them. I thought I'd left Max in better—"

"You abandoned us!" Iggy shouted, turning on me. "We trusted you with our lives and you just threw that aside like yesterday's trash!" I could see Iggy's eyes welling up with tears. If I knew Iggy, which I wasn't sure I did anymore, he would hold them in as long as he could.

"I did it for your own good," I explained calmly. Iggy scowled in my direction.

"Don't give me that bullshit! You did it because you didn't want us!"

"People were trying to kill me! I didn't want you or anyone else to get killed at my expense!" I got to my feet. "It's about time you grew up and learned to do what's best for the family before doing what you want."

Iggy opened his mouth to say more, then closed it again. "Hello, Max," he said. I whipped around. Max was standing in the doorway looking tired.

"Max? Are you okay?" I asked her. She pursed her lips.

"Yeah, I'm just fine," she said bitterly. I sat down and she sat beside me.

"Hungry, Max?" Iggy asked.

"No thanks," Max said. I turned to her and raised an eyebrow, adding my best You-Eat-Three-Thousand-Calories-A-Day-What-Do-You-Mean-You're-Not-Hungry? look. She bit her lower lip avoiding my gaze.

"Max, you can't not eat," I said. She turned and glared at me.

"You can't tell me what I can and can't do!" she shouted. "I'm just not hungry, okay? What's wrong with that?" She wiped at her eyes. "God, why does everyone expect me to be so perfect!" Tears ran down her face.

"Are you okay?" I asked. Max wiped more tears from her face with her hands.

"Yeah, I fine! God, how many times do I have to tell you?" Max stood up again and stormed out of the room. I rushed after her.

"Max?" I asked her when I got to her. I put my hand on her shoulder. "Max, what's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter. I'm totally okay."

I was going to say more, but she put a finger up. "Excuse me," she said before sprinting down the hall and into the bathroom.