A/N: Hai.

Nifty: -stops in tracks- Wait, where the hell am I?

Mr. Gartland: That's kind of what I'm wondering.

Me: I'll tell you when you give me back the damn hat, Nifty.

Nifty: Then I guess I'll never know! –cackles-

Me: NOOO

Mr. Gartland: -checking awesomely beast pocket watch that, yes, dangles from a chain on his belt loop- Uh, Schne, I need to plan for SAC.

Me: I'm sure that Ms. Crowley will manage on her own. And so will Nick and Joe- I mean Peeta.

Mr. Gartland: Aren't you forgetting something?

Me: Oh, yeah. The disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER: Neither me nor the second graders own Maximum Ride.

Mr. Gartland: You're right. And the second graders are mine.

Me: WAIT WHERE'S NIFTY? SHE STOLE THE CATHAT! T-T DX

Mr. Gartland: -sighs-

I wake early the next morning. My wing feels stiff and a little sore from covering Nudge all night, so I pull it back in and fold it loosely. Aah.

Gingerly, I peel the wrapping back from the wound on my arm, shaking out the remote. The wound is red and swollen, and the bullet hole is surrounded by pus. Infected. The second I take out the remote, it starts throbbing like I've dunked the whole thing in salt. Amazing what a little support can do, huh? I cup my hand under it and look closer at it.

Well, shoot. I'd say it needs stitches. And a lot of stitches. A pair of nice, sterile tweezers would help as well, 'cause the bullet is still in there. There's nothing like an infected hole in your arm to wake you up in the morning.

I rummage in the backpack, propping my arm on my knee. I pull out the gauze and wind it around my arm, this time putting in a fairly straight stick instead of the remote. This way it won't be as clunky.

My heart leaps to my throat when I see how quickly the discharge soaks through the wrapping. I calm myself. It isn't that big a deal, I might just have to get my arm removed if I let it fester. And getting an arm removed? Psh.

I layer more and more gauze on until there is no trace of yellow on it. Then I stand up, stretch, and unfold my wings. They spring out from behind me, filling my peripheral vision, before they fall back at attention. I run off the cliff and extend my wings slowly, letting them fill with air like huge black balloons. I soar downward for a moment before I loop back up and around to the hawks.

I wonder if this is all they do all day – just soar around. I wouldn't mind it. As soon as I approach them, they move over and make space for me and my huge wingspan, which is about three times the size of theirs. We wheel in formation. I feel like a spoke on a wheel, and suddenly, I feel almost every worry fall off my shoulders. My face relaxes, and we loop around as one being.

Suddenly, Nudge is sailing toward us, her wings slicing the sky. We sift our position again so that she's let in.

"Morning," I say.

"I'm hungry," she says, predictably.

I nod. "Town about three minutes away. Follow me."

I tilt my body to the side and peel off easily from the hawks like a sticker from its backing. Nudge attempts to imitate me, but it doesn't work as well for her. She mutters something under her breath. Okay, Nudge, I won't tell Max what you just said. But you owe me.

We soar together, guardian angels looking over this tiny city. I scan the ground for Max. Walking, running, flying to meet us, or even curled up somewhere, injured. Anything. But I don't see her. I sigh and point to a fast-food restaurant with a huge Dumpster out back. The last thing I want to do is eat trash, but so it goes.

Someone is throwing stuff in there, so we circle above the town, practicing our new tricks. Or at least that's what I'm doing. Nudge is just kind of hovering there, her eyes glued to the food, her wings pushing air at me every two seconds until it's like my own personal A/C.

When the worker goes inside and doesn't come out for ten minutes, I signal Nudge. We pull our wings in and drop like rocks, shoving them back out hard when we're thirty feet above the Dumpster.

"Nirvana," I say, pawing through the Dumpster. I swear, with all the wasted food in this thing you could feed a starving village in Africa. I hold out a thin patty to Nudge. "Burger?"I say, the same way some people might say "Pickled pig's foot?"

Nudge hesitates, then says, "I don't know, after seeing the hawks shredding little animals – oh, but look, here's a couple salads. And some apple pies! Bonus!"

I stare at her as she tightens the drawstring of her jacket, half expecting her to take one look at the salad and go, "Oh, there's no feta cheese, forget it." We can't be going all vegetarian, here, Nudge. She ignores me, happily stuffing down three salads and about six apple pies. I shrug and follow her lead. I almost grab a carton of French fries before I remember that they'll probably all spill down my jacket, so I grab another burger instead.

A few seconds later we're airborne, with a few decidedly odd lumps in our jackets. We head back to the cave and pounce on the food like starving piggies. Yeah, Fang the piggy. Great mental image, no?

I finish my fifth "burger" – if you can call it that – and wipe my hands on my jeans. "You know, I think the way they swoop and stuff is a message to the other hawks," I say. "Like they're telling them where there's a game or where they'll be or something. I haven't figured it out yet. But I will."

"Oh," says Nudge. Cue the loud, climactic music! Fang said more than the Nudge Channel!

We sit in silence for a minute. The feel of the air slowly changes from comfortable and nice to tense and nervous and cranky and panicky.

"Fang?" Nudge says, her voice trembling. "We've just got to go find Max. Or should we go on and try to find Angel?"

I look away from the hawks. "We're going to circle back, look for Max," I state calmly. Inside, anger is roiling again at the mention of Max. "She might have – run into something."

Nudge nods. I shake my anger away. It's not Nudge's fault that Max has abandoned us. In fact, Nudge has no idea what's going on.

I stand up, not bothering to brush off the dust from my jeans. "You ready?" I ask her. She squints and holds up her hands in front of her eyes, squinting at me through her fingers.

"Absolutely," she says, jumping to her feet. Well, she takes the time to brush sand from her sequined butt. I jump off the cliff before she can ask her next question, my wings lifting me up from the rocky edge like I'm sliding belly-first on a track.

"Tarzan!" I hear her yell from behind me. I smile.

**!**

Hours later, we are still circling above the area where Max had left us. A growing cloud of frustration is building in my stomach. I don't want to go back to exactly where Max had left us because someone might be looking out for mutant flying bird kids. And they would see us, and possibly hurt us the same way as they possibly hurt her.

"…Fang?"
Oh, jeez.

"Do you remember where we left Max?"

"Yes."
"…Are we going there?"

I pause. "Not if we can help it."

I sense her confusion. "But why? Maybe Max is hurt and needs help. Maybe we need to save her before we save Angel." I can sense her sorting her thoughts around in her head.

I pull in one wing and extend the other, using the first trick the hawks had taught us. Nudge follows me, waiting for an answer. Her hairpin bank is still a bit sloppy, and so I do it again while I ponder an answer, letting her practice it. We wheel in slow, tight circles, around and around and around and around.

"I don't think Max would have gotten hurt by herself," I say slowly. "She's not going to fly into a tree or crash-land. So if she's late because she's hurt, it probably means that someone, a person, has hurt her. Which means that someone knows about her. We don't want that someone to know about us, too. Which they would if we went to where Max is."

Nudge's jaw drops. I continue, feeling self-conscious.

"And if Max is late because she's busy, then our going to her won't speed things up – she'll come when she's good and ready. So for right now, we do a general look-see. But we're not going all the way back."

I look down at an intersection. A sign catches my eye. It says, Tipisco, Arizona, 3 miles.
My heart leaps into my throat. Oh, no. That's where Nudge says she's from. If she sees that sign…

I try to gently lead her in another direction, but she refuses to. She's eyeing me out of the corner of her eye, so I eye her right back.

Nudge is a good kid. Sure, she talks a lot, and she eats as much food as Gazzy and Angel combined, but she's got a kind heart. And she's actually really pretty. Her hair is a few shades lighter than her skin, her wings somewhere in between, the color of a faun. Her eyes are big and brown, framed with long lashes, and right now they're filling with tears.

Oh, no, not now.

She averts her gaze and then goes still, dropping a few feet.

"Fang!" she shouts. "It's Tipisco, down below! I'm going there!"

Oh, no. She'd seen the sign.

"No way, Nudge," I say. I purposely let a touch of my anger into my voice. "Don't get sidetracked now. Stay with me."

"No!" she says. Jeez, just what we need now – a rebellious preteen. She hunches her shoulders and begins her dive. "I have to go find my parents! If Max is gone, I'm going to need someone."

My eyes widen of their own volition. "What? Nudge, you're crazy," I tell her. "Come on, let's talk about it. Let's find a place, take a break."

"No!" says Nudge again, her voice breaking. "I'm going down – and you can't stop me!"

Now for a real A/N:

On the last chapter, I had a whole bunch of things that the site edited out. I had about a bajillion "A"s that they took out, right before the (continues off into infinity like parallel lines) bit. So. And I also had three exclamation points on the sentence before "I think that's the first time I've ever written a sentence with three exclamation points."

I would go back and edit it, but I want to see who catches it.

Also: ME NEED BETA! And I need someone to explain just exactly what I do when I have a beta. –smiles-

Sorry, I know this chapter was a filler. But I have approximately 5 minutes to post this until Project PULL decides to kill me. So here goes.