A/N: /jaw drops to floor

200 reviews? My life can officially begin…/dies of happiness And a shout out to my 200th reviewer… *le grumpy* m4tigers.

Disclaimer: Again…?

"Owowowowowowowow…"

Ig's eyes are squeezed shut in pain, and his nails are carving half-moons into my palms. I roll my eyes at him, standing faithfully next to the stool he's perched on while the lady quickly and precisely squeezes the gun tight. There's a loud chink, and Ig draws in his breath tightly.

"You," I say flatly, "are the biggest baby to walk this earth. Ever."

"Ha…tatatatata." He lets out a large breath, then releases my hand and glares up at me. "You aren't the one getting a needle through your earlobe," he says, reaching up to finger the new thin gold hoop earring there. "It hurts more than you'd think."

"You were the one who wanted the needle through your earlobe, you didn't have to do it. Plus, it's not like you haven't gotten a million shots before."

Ig glares again. "Whatever." He slides agilely down from the stool and flips his hair out of his face, not that it matters because it's not like it's obstructing his vision. His new hair, now layered and spiky and tipped with black, just flops right into place.

"You know, they put gel in your hair to make it stay in place."

"Whatever," he says again.

I gesture in the direction of the lady, who's wringing her hands nervously by the chair. "Well, thank the lady for helping you put it in."

"That's what she said."

Since rolling my eyes isn't a large enough movement to show my exasperation, I just sigh and flip my own hair out of my eyes. It's a little shorter, and the stylist had bleached the tips and then colored them brown. I'd spent the first five minutes after having it done pulling it out as long as it would go, trying to see the effect and get it in my line of vision. Now it won't stay out of my eyes.

Despite his crude joke, Ig turns to the now mortified stylist. Pressing his palms together, he brings them to his chest and bows samurai-style. I almost expect him to say "ichi-nee-san" as he doubles over. "Thank you, kind madam," he says reverently, so I drag him away before he decides he needs to kiss her hand.

Gaz stomps over. "Max won't let me get 'bite me' shaved into the side of my head," he pouts.

"Quelle surprise," I mutter.

"We ready?" Ig huffs impatiently at Max. "Not that I don't adore shopping."

I feel my eyes land on Max again; truthfully, they can't stay off her. I don't think she's ever worn makeup in her entire life, and her hair is shorter now, streaked with pink and more flyaway, but out of her face. With her new clothes, I have to admit – she looks sexy. Like she's at least twenty, instead of fourteen.

"You look like you stuck your finger in a light socket," Gaz tells Ig admiringly.

"Really?" Ig asks, impressed, his faux glasses flashing. "Cool!"

We walk out of the store and into the evening. Nudge, who has had her hair straightened and now barely resembles her old self, skips ahead with Angel, whose hair has been pinned back and is lovingly carrying her bear, and Gaz, who is outfitted in camouflage from head to toe and has a haircut resembling Ig's. The three older ones linger behind, searching for a place to take off.

"There's a park up here." I point, and Max nods.

When we reach the small park, we each unfurl our wings and soar up into the stars, heading away from the glimmering city below us.

After we've been flying for about an hour and a half, I spy with my little eye a stretch of land with almost no lights. Since no lights = no flying-kid hating people, I nod at Max, and she nods back and we tilt into a dive. Minutes later, we land on a soft beach that's closed in by boulders and has a natural outcropping shelter out of reach from the high tide.

"Looks good," I say, reaching down to unbuckle my new boots. I'm not missing this chance to curl my toes in the sand. The feeling of the cool grains slipping between my phalanges is even better than what I had imagined.

"Home, sweet home," Max says drily, slinging her new backpack into the sand. She quickly yanks down the zipper and hands out the food that we have, and we eat speedily, feeling the occasional crunch between our molars when a grain of sand slips in there.

When we're all finished – which takes about twenty minutes – we all stack fists and then tap them with a familiar ease before curling up on the beach. It takes about one minute for me to fall drowsily into sleep.

"A crab!"

Angel scurries over to where Gaz is pointing excitedly into the sand, holding her little bear – god, Celeste, okay? – high enough off of the ground so that its tiny paws don't get dirty. They squat down and poke the poor armored creature with a handy stick until it gives up and skitters away in toothpick-thin legs.

"Cookie?" Ig offers, handing Max the bag that she acquired on her and Nudge's little jaunt into town that morning. Max grins and shoves her hand into the bag.

"Don't mind if I do." She pushes the cookie into her mouth and chews thoughtfully. Since yesterday, she's toned down her makeup a tad, so not half a cookie's crumbs stick to her glossy lips. But I still can't take my eyes off of her face.

"Hmm," she spews, sending crumbs airborne. "Clear vanilla notes, too-sweet chocolate chips, distinct flavor of brown sugar. A decent cookie, not spectacular. Still, a good-hearted cookie, not pretentious. What say you?" She directs the last part at me, and I roll my eyes at her expectation that I'll actually judge a cookie in this way. A cookie's a cookie. Plus, how can anything be too chocolaty? It's like an oxymoron.

"It's fine."

"I give them a seven out of ten," Max continues, undeterred. "Though still warm from the oven, they lack a certain je ne sais quoi. My mission will continue."

Ig laughs, rummaging in the bag for another snack while Nudge comes running up, her pants rolled up to her knees and bits of sand sticking to her bare legs. Truth be told, I hadn't had my own shoes on myself since last night, and had only not rolled up my pants because I was sure it would only provoke more hairy beast jokes.

"This place is so cool," she gushes. "I love the ocean! I want to be a scientist who studies the ocean when I grow up. I would go out to sea, and National Geographic will hire me."

With that, she turns excitedly and all but sprints back to the water. Ig ambles after her, a Fuji apple hanging from his mouth like a pig, his hands pushed contentedly into his pockets.

"They're happy here," I say quietly to Max, watching as Nudge pulls the apple away from Ig and tosses it into the waves. The older boy looks disgruntled, but not too angry since he was almost finished with it, anyway.

"What's not to like? Fresh air, peace and quiet, the ocean. Too bad we can't stay here."

I'm quiet for a moment, building up my courage. Then, "What if we were safe here?" I ask, glancing at her. "Like, we just knew that no one would come hassle us. Would you want to stay?"

Surprise flits across her features. "We have to find the Institute," she says like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "And if we find out anything, the others will want to track down their parents. And then, do we find Jeb and confront him? And who's the Director? Why did they do this to us? Why do they keep telling me I'm supposed to save the world?"

Her voice gets steadily louder as her speech goes on, and I hold up a hand, stopping her barrage. She looks abashes for a second.

"What if," I say quietly, "what if we just forgot about all of that?"

Max's jaw drops.

"What are you - ?" she begins, but then Gaz runs up with a crab, and Angel wants lunch, so I decide to drop it.

For now.

I go to town the next morning bright and early on Max's command and bring back a fresh paper with some spare change. I don't read it at all on the way back, figuring that the fact that our faces aren't in the front cover anymore is a good enough sign for me. I plop the paper at Max's feet, and the six pages it takes her to pause and skim and read an article are six more floods of relief in my system.

She purses her lips and tosses the paper aside. "Well, good for us. We've gone two days without causing a huge commotion in a public place and getting our faces splashed all over the news."

"We're going swimming!" Nudge cries happily, and the four of them splash into the water. I pop the lid off of a can of Planter's peanuts, and grab a handful, spidering the newspaper over the sand with my fingertips. I flip it open, shoving the peanuts into my mouth and shaking the sand from the paper off at the same time, I roll my eyes at the new front page article. Silly humans and their silly little human problems.

I shove another handful of peanuts into my mouth and start to become aware of the tension rolling off of Max sitting next to me like waves. I glance over at her, not having to work hard to rip my eyes from the annoying newspaper. Her eyes flick from the kids and Ig playing in the water to me, and opens her mouth to say something, but then stops as my gaze turns curious. Something fills her gaze that I've never seen before when she's looking at me.

Distrust.

The expression hits me like a physical slap in the face. My head jerks away from her and I almost fall over in the sand. Not that she notices; her gaze has returned to the rest of the flock in the water.

I half-lay, half-sit, frozen under the boiling sun, as an icy wave of fear crashes over me. Did I misread her expression? It had never happened to me before. Max's face is as easy for me to read as an open book, as cliché as that sounds.

"Your head hurt?" I ask, my voice dangerously wobbly. She sighs and shakes her head no, but I don't know anymore. Is she lying to me because she doesn't trust me anymore? And what did I do to earn that mistrust? I open my mouth to tell her that she can trust me, to ask her what's wrong, but suddenly she propels herself off of the ground at superspeed and is sprinting towards the water. I do a quick head count and feel my blood freeze solid in my veins.

Angel's missing.

I am in the water so fast I don't even remember running there.

"Angel!" Max nearly screams, and grabs Gaz's shoulder. "Where did she go down?"

"Right here!" Gaz cries. "She dove that way! I saw her go under."

We spread out, and the search commences. I notice Max noticing the convenient ever-strengthening riptide, and a panicked expression settles over her face.

I lean over and sweep my hands below the surface, nose inches from the waves. In case any of you were wondering, the water is not clear. In fact, we can only see a couple of inches down.

Cries of "Angel!" follow me as I spread out. Methodically, we search, covering a large circle of water again and again, panic rising as minutes tick by and there's still no sign of her.

Suddenly Max surges forward. I look in the direction that she's moving, barely daring to hope. But there she is. Angel, her blond head poking from the waves, waving cheerfully. I see Max embrace her, hear Angel's voice carry over the water.

"Guess what? I can breathe underwater!"

Max hugs her tighter, then steers the slightly confused girl toward shore. The rest of us follow as Max and Angel collapse on the beach, and Gaz grips my hand, his body trembling.

"I was just swimming," Angel explains, "and I accidentally swallowed some water and started to choke. But I didn't want Gazzy to find me. We were playing hide-and-seek, underwater. So I just stayed under and then I realized that I could sort of swallow water and stay under and not choke."

"What do you mean, swallow water?" Max asks.

"I just swallow it and then go like this." Angel scrunches up her face and exhales violently through her nose. I frown.

"It comes out your nose?" I ask.

"No," says Angel. "I don't know where the water goes. But air comes out my nose."

Max looks at me. "She's extracting oxygen from the water."

"Can you show us?" I ask.

Angel gets up obligingly and trots to the water, Max following protectively behind. The former kneels down and takes a big mouthful of water, then seems to swallow it and exhale again through her nose. Shock crosses our faces; water is seeping from invisible pores on Angel's neck.

"Holy moly," Gaz breathes, releasing my hand to go closer. Nudge explains the scene to Ig, and he whistles, impressed.

"And I can do it and stay under and just keep swimming," Angel adds for a grand finale. She unfolds her wings to let them dry, already bored with the topic.

"I bet I can do it too!" Gaz predicts eagerly. "'Cos we're siblings."

He kneels down, gulps some water, and swallows fast. His face twists, and water streams from his nose. Gagging, he bends double and almost loses his lunch.

"You okay?" Max asks when he's finished. He nods, looking completely miserable.

"Iggy," Max says, a thought striking her, "touch Angel's neck and see if you can feel anything, those pores that water comes through."

Ig reaches for Angel, skimming his fingers over her neck. "I can't feel a thing," he says, which surprises all of us.

So we all have to try it. A couple of minutes later, we discover that no one but Angel can do it, and what it looks like when six birdkids are sick into the ocean. Let's say I'm not going to be swimming there for a while.

We all climb out and flop onto the beach, letting the sun dry our bodies and wings until night. And that's when we all fall asleep.

"Look who's come to the seashore."

My eyes snap open, and the first thing I see is a huge, hulking form, bent over Max. Its feral face is glowing, and my stomach drops sickeningly as I realize it's Ari.

All of us are instantly awake. Angel is in the air so fast it's almost like she was already there when she woke, and her bear is clutched protectively tight to her chest. Max gasps, and I look around: we're literally surrounded by Erasers. Hundreds and hundreds.

It's the stuff nightmares are made of.

Ari bends closer to Max, his boot pinned to her throat. "You're so pretty when you're sleeping – and your mouth is shut. But what a shame to cut your hair."

"When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it," Max gasps, struggling against his boot.

He laughs and stokes her face with one claw. "I like 'em feisty."

Folks, I'd like to remind you that he's seven.

Blood vessels pop behind my eyes, and my blood boils. Before I can even stop to think, stop to realize that he hopelessly outmatches me, before I can remember how badly he beat me last time, I launch myself off of the ground, desperate to get him away from Max. My hands connect with his chest.

"Get off her!"

It's a roar; it pierces the night. Coldly furious, desperate for blood, I attack the wolf boy, my blood singing with intent to kill. The two of us scrabble for purchase, throwing wild punches and kicks. I can hear someone screaming, but I can't focus on it as I see Ari's lethal talon headed for my eye. I jerk my head to the side and he rakes my cheek, gouging out parallel lines of fire.

Wildly, I chop at Ari's collarbone, but it doesn't even split his skin. He yelps and pulls back his arm. His fist connects with the upside of my head, and my head snaps sideways. A loud tearing echoes through my ears and I bite my tongue hard, tasting blood as pain arcs through me. My whole body drops to the ground, crumpling in shock.

Next thing I know, fingers close around my skull, and it's lifted from the cold sand and brought down hard on a rock. Fireworks explode inside my head, and I struggle to stay conscious. The my head is lifted again and brought down on the same rock. I feel my skin split; blood gushes into my hair. The sharp pain makes me lose consciousness for about five seconds for about five seconds, but Max's tear-choked screams bring me back to it.

"Leave him alone! Stop it! Please stop!"

I haven't heard her beg for anything since the School. Looks like she's doing it now. The agony in her voice makes me briefly forget my own, and my eyes open weakly. Seeing Ari above me, I grab a handful of sand, damp with my blood, and fling it into his eyes. Using his distraction to my advantage, I stagger to my feet, desperately trying to ignore the screaming in my skull, desperately trying to hold on to consciousness. I lift one leg, and with all the might I can muster, slam it into Ari's chest.

It's not enough. He recoils with a roar and cracks me across the chest, hard enough to snap ribs. I feel the liquid in my throat; blood sprays from between my lips, arcing away from me across the sand. My body crumples once more, limbs bent awkwardly.

The last thing I see is Max's face, dripping with tears. Her mouth is open in a scream, her eyes wide. My last thought is, I'm sorry. I love you, Max.

Then the darkness pulls me under, leaving the image of her horrified, terrified, agonized eyes lingering in my brain.

"And a clip here. Make sure his hair stays all the way back. I don't want him to be able to see a single strand of black."

"His wings?"

"Tie them. He can't be allowed to see a single feather."

"And what, exactly, is the point of all this?"

"We want to see how he reacts to pure white."

Stripped of his clothes, dressed in a paper-thin, paper-white suit that covered every inch of his body – from his bony toes, to his knobby knees, to jutting hipbones and ribs he could easily count, up to his neck, Fang shivered. It was surprisingly cold in the suit. His black wings were forcefully tied behind his back, making his shoulders throb, and his hair was yanked back from his forehead by rough hands. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see any black on his body.

A door opened. Fang was pushed inside, toppling over awkward nine-year-old gangly limbs. He lay still on the floor, in case there was any sort of motion-detecting device in the room that would shoot lasers or something, but there didn't seem to be. He caught his breath from the rough manhandling. When he was ready, he sat and looked around.

He was in a small room, eight feet by eight feet. There were no furnishings in the room whatsoever. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all pure white; there was not a speck of any other color. White lights shone from all angles, so there wasn't even a shadow on the floor. The door was sealed perfectly in its frame, not letting a single crack of any other color in.

Okay, Fang thought, so this isn't going to be so bad. He laid back, bored. His wings hurt, but at least this test didn't seem to be physically taxing.

An hour passed before Fang's eyes started to get irritated. The pure white was kind of annoying.

Another hour passed. Fang was starting to get mad.

It took another hour for him to lose it.

He twisted around. Couldn't see his wings at all, no matter how hard he strained. He felt for his hair; the clamps were like steel traps on his skull. He couldn't even see his eyelashes.

There was no black.

Fang's hand scrabbled for his wings, tremors wracking his body. It was to no avail. His breath was coming short and his arms ached, but he wouldn't give up. He had to see black. There had to be black.

He tried to rip the paper from his skin, but found he couldn't.

He shook his head madly, violently, trying to dislodge even a single strand of hair. But the whitecoats had covered everything. All he did was give himself a headache.

Fang rolled onto his side, curling into a ball. Until now, all of the flock members besides himself had a weakness, that one test that, when threatened with it, would make them do whatever the whitecoats asked, would make them endure all others. He was the only one who hadn't had that.

Now he knew that if the whitecoats ever threatened him with the White Room again, he'd do whatever they wanted. Anything to never have to go back here.

Fang cried.

He heaved himself onto his hands and knees and crawled to the door, tears streaming down his face. He pounded on the door, sobbing loudly, begging to be let out. To get away from the white.

After another hour, they opened the door. Fang fell into the hall, exhausted, silent tears still pouring down his cheeks.

There he lay, broken.

When they unpinned his hair and untied his wings, he finally moved, shifting the feathery muscles around himself until he lost himself in the black. That was when he decided he'd never wear white again. Any white. Ever.

Black was bliss. Black was home. Black mended what white had broken. It was that simple.

He was done with white. His new life, his new world, was black.

"…We could carry him, you and me."

Ig's voice, paired with his butterfly fingers skimming over my skin, is what accompanies my return to the world of the living.

"Where to?" It's Max's voice, bitter. "It's not like we can check him into a hospital."

I feel my lips move. "No hospi'l," I mumble, stumbling over the 't'.

"Fang!" Max cries, and I crack my eyes open to see her and Ig, bent over me, faces flooded with relief. "How bad?"

Her eyes are puffy, like she's been crying, and hard. I glance around, but don't see any Erasers. Either they had a kick-butt battle or something happened to make them all leave and not massacre us. Gaz, Nudge, and Angel hover nearby, and Nudge motions for Angel to go get water, which she does.

"Pre'y bad," I say, my words garbled. Feeling like I'm lying on a broken rib, I attempt to move, but stop when I explode with pain.

"Don't move!" Max says. My teeth crunch, so I disobey her and raise my head enough to spit in the sand. Something hard falls into my hand, and I groan.

"Tooth," I say blearily, letting my hand fall. Licking my lips provides me with the information that my mouth is covered in blood. "Feel like crap," I add, touching my head gingerly where Ari bashed me into the rock.

Max smiles, but her expression is laced with pain. "You look like a kitty cat," she says, indicating the stripes on my face. I look at her sourly, and all the amusement slides off of her face like melted butter.

"Fang," she says, and her voice breaks. A shining tear slips down her cheek, carving a path down to her chin. "Just live,okay? Live and be okay."

In the next second, she leans down and kisses me.

I'd like to say that I can see fireworks. That she tastes like the chocolate-chip cookies she suddenly loves so much. That it's the best first kiss anyone could ever hope for.

Truthfully, I'm too shocked to so much as close my eyes, and all I can taste is the metallic twang of my own blood. She moves away too fast, her cheeks turning tomato red.

"Ow," is all my stunned brain can think of to say. My hand rises to brush my split and swollen lip, and my eyes meet hers. She holds my gaze for a moment that stretches into a thousand years before looking up, mortified, to see Nudge and Gaz's surprised face.

A million thoughts run through my mind at once. Like, what the heck? I replay the scene in my head. Yep, she'd definitely kissed me. No, I'm not delusional. It had happened, and right on the kisser, too, if you'll pardon the pun. Was it just because I'm injured? Would she have done the same thing to Ig?

I stop my thought processes as the image of Max and Ig kissing flashes through my brain. I'm pretty sure that left a few scars in the tissue up there. Even just levering myself into a sitting position makes me have to clench my jaw, making pain race up and down my mouth, but it's nothing compared to my (I think) cracked ribs and smashed-feeling skull. Sweat breaks out over my skin as I accept the water from Angel.

"Man," I say, and cough. This sends fire up my chest, and I wince and bite my tongue. "This feels pretty bad."

Nudge comes over to help me stand, and I lean heavily on her, my legs shaking almost too hard to support me. My back and face are drenched with sweat from the effort. I take a swig of water, swish it around in my mouth, and spit onto the sand. Blood stains the ground where I'd been lying, and anger darkens my face.

"I'm going to kill Ari," I say.

FAX!

The scene in the White Room is something that I had planned out since the beginning of the story. I don't know how many of you remember all those times he says something about him wearing all black and then says something like, I'll tell you about that later. Well, that's why. :D

Review for FAX! YEAH!