Does anyone else have finals this week? And if you do, are you stressing out as much as I am? Cause I know that if I have even a sip of coffee, my nerves will overload and I'll collapse in a comatose state the cold, hard floor. And that is not fun.

Enjoy the Fax!

MPOV

When I woke up, there was a long moment where I refused to open my eyes. There, snuggled up against Fang's chest and wrapped up in the plush comforters, I was floating on Cloud Nine. And I was not ready to come down yet.

Eventually, though, I felt a change in the pace of Fang's chest rising against mine, and I knew he must be awake. Forcing my eyes open, I was instantly captured in his fierce gaze. His eyes burned through me, jumpstarting my heart as he raised his hand to thread it through my tangled mess of hair. The curve of his palm fit perfect against the shape of my head, making it all too easy to guide my lips towards his own.

The second our lips brushed, I felt a jolt of electricity sprinkle through my veins. Smiling against his lips, I tilted my head to the side, trying to get closer to him yet. Any space between the two of us was too much space, and I was determined to get rid of every inch of it.

Dragging my leg up to lock around his hips, Fang rolled us over so that I was straddling him, looking down on his beautiful face. Taking a quick breath, I launched forward, eager to continue where we had left off, but Fang's hands at my shoulders grappled me to a stop. Frowning, I stared at him with questions in my eyes.

"Max," Fang whispered, tracing the outline of my face with feather-light fingers. "I love you."

I sucked in a sharp breath, shocked that the words fell past his lips. The last time Fang had said those words was back in our very first life. Ever since then, it had been an implied statement. Neither of us had to say it—we just knew.

And yet, hearing them now just washed away all my fears. My heart swelled, my entire body melting under the way his lips danced when he said it. There was no doubt in my mind now that this was real; that he wouldn't just disappear. Fang was mine. Forever.

"I mean it," he continued resolutely. "I love you more than what can possibly be described. I have loved you for two hundred fifty nine thousand, eight hundred and ninety seven days, and I will never stop."

My mouth fell open in a little 'o'. "You counted?" I asked, incredulous.

Cheeks tingeing with a small blush, he nodded. "It's my favorite part of getting my memories back: remembering what day I left off on."

There was a beat where my head was spinning so fast, I wasn't sure if my heart was even still beating. Tunnel vision clouded up my line of sight until all I could focus on was Fang. All I wanted to focused on was Fang' Fang's smile, Fang's eyes, Fang's mussed, boyish sleep hair. A thousand memories of us carouselled through my mind in a whirlwind.

"I love you, too," I pronounced.

As his inexplicably soft lips quirked up in a smile, I leaned in and began peppering every inch of his face with tender kisses. My lips spun the consonants and vowels of those three words over and over again. I couldn't get enough of the feeling they gave me.

Chuckling beneath me, Fang tightened his arms around the generous curve of my waist, and his lips captured mine. My heart stuttered violently against my ribcage, my skin was on fire, but neither of us had the intentions to pull away any time soon.

Though it seemed like eternity before we broke apart, I had to pull out of my trance when I happened to glance at the clock beaming on Fang's nightstand. We had a serious job to do today, and as it stood we were already two hours late to school. Rolling apart from each other, we paused a moment to catch our breath before having to float back down to reality.

After a beat, I flipped back the blankets—ignoring the blast of cold air that hugged me like an annoying relative—and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. "I've got to get dressed," I announced, moving to stand.

The second my feet touched the floor, Fang's hand snaked out and hooked into the back of my shirt, tugging me back onto the bed beside him.

"I'm not sure if that's necessary." His lips nestled in next to my ear. "My clothes are definitely a sexy look on you."

Giggling, I gave him a quick peck on the lips, then squirmed out of his arms. All the way out the door, I could feel his smirk messing with my heart.

As I got dressed, I couldn't help but replay the past couple hours. Everything that had occurred since arriving to Fang's house had been simply amazing. A grin was permanently stamped on my face; my skin was practically radiating pure, un-emasculated joy. And pretty much all of it was due to one crazy boy.

I knew, though, that I would have to float back down to earth sooner than I would have liked. The other Archangels were waiting for us at school, and to abandon them would be to abandon Our Lady—which was something completely out of the question.

Pinning the last button on my cardigan, I quickly exited what had become my dressing room and gracefully descended the stairs to the kitchen. Thankfully, it appeared Fang enjoyed buying food more than he did furniture because the entire fridge was stocked. After a quick rummage through it, I opted on pulling out a package of strawberries and gave them a quick rinse. It wasn't nearly enough to have it be labeled as a meal, so I popped a couple slices of bread into the toaster. That, at least, I could make without burning. If only Blooming came with the abilities of a master chef.

Fang clomped down the stairs mere seconds after I finished buttering the toast, his nose skeptically sniffing about. "Do I smell…food?" he asked. Worry tinged the edges of his tone, but I didn't blame him. Not once in all the lives we've lived did I pick up the skills to cook. Something told me that would never change.

"It's not much," I responded apologetically. "Just toast and berries for the road."

Taking a piece of toast from my outstretched hand, Fang smothered a laugh and pecked me on the lips. "It's perfect."

I rolled my eyes at his attempt to cover up my horrendous cooking and bit into a strawberry. "Just hurry and finish your toast. There're Archangels on the loose."

In minutes we were climbing into Fang's truck and driving off to the school. The temperature seemed to continue to drop with each passing day lately, and today was no exception. Even with the heat blasting in the interior, the windows of the car were refusing to lose all of its frost.

By the time we reached the high school, we were three hours late. All things considered, we had actually made pretty good timing. Since the school was so small, everyone had lunch at the same hour, in the same contained room. That was in thirty minutes. Once it began, all Fang and I would have to do is sit and look for the obvious signs: jittery actions, haphazard glances, rushed words, perspiration, itching. That's how Blooming always started.

Fang and I spent the next thirty minutes coming up with an elaborate story to tell the secretary sitting lazily at her desk in the front office. When we walked in, I immediately pushed aside Fang and all but collapsed over the wretched secretary's desk. As I cried out, thanking the Lord for Fang and I safely arriving at school, I proceeded to launch into vivid, gruesome detail about how Fang's ill mother collapsed last night and, in a frenzy to see her well again, the two of us drove off to Wyoming for a rare medicine. We had thought we made it back in time, but then—out of nowhere!—our car's tire explodes and we go veering off into a forest! Squirrels began attacking us from every direction, and I had no idea what to do. Fang grappled onto me and tugged me from the car and told me to run as he unsheathed his sword and plunged for the nearest squirrel—

It was at that point that the secretary blinked her beady, bagged-down eyes and shooed us out of the office to class. I wasn't sure if she had believed a word that I spewed to her, but either way she didn't care enough to reprimand us. Knowing her, she probably wouldn't even mark us late.

The bell for lunch rang just as we breezed out of the office. Fang and I joined hands as crowds of students gushed out of the doors that continued to pop open down the hall. My eyes scanned the crowd, searching about for any signs of suspicious people. So far, everything seemed fairly normal. Kids were shouting, throwing jeers around like daggers, and pushing the freshman into nearby lockers as laughter rang out into the atmosphere.

"I'm not seeing anything suspicious," I whispered to Fang. "What about you?"

He shook his head slowly, a crease wrinkling the area between his brows. His lips parted in preparation to speak, but before he could, someone called out behind us.

"Max!"

I instantly turned, recognizing the paralyzing fear gripping the edges of her tone. Ella's tone. MY eyes frantically searched the throngs of people, trying to locate her familiar brown eyes; fear that something had happened to her while I was with Fang clutched me with suffocating hands.

A touch at my shoulder made me jump with a shrewd gasp. Spinning, I caught gazes with Ella. Gripping her shoulders, I checked all over her body for signs blood or harm. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"I think I'm sick." Her voice trembled enough to make me force myself to calm down and truly inspect her.

Ella was sweating something mad, her hair matted against her face with the perspiration. Shaking hands gripped at the denim of her jeans in a frail attempt to calm them. A vein was popping out on her forehead, revealing signs of some serious internal strain.

Something in my mind clicked as I shot my hand out behind me, tapping against Fang's back to get his attention. "Fang. Fang, look at Ella."

Turning around, Fang came to stand beside me, regarding Ella in a much calmer manner than I had previously just done. After a moment of silence between the three of us, Fang huffed out a breath. "Well that's peculiar."

"I'm not seeing things, right?" I confirmed.

He shook his head, eyes narrowing. "No, but I never would have guessed it'd be your sister."

Ella took a vice-like grip to my arm, begging me to look at her again. "Max, what's happening to me?"

Grasping her hand, I looked her earnestly in the eyes. "Listen to me very carefully, Ells. You're going to take Fang's car keys, get in the truck, and don't leave. Okay? I know you're in pain and confused beyond belief, but you're going to have to hang in there." I plucked the key from Fang's back pocket and shoved it in her hand. "Here. Do exactly what I said, and we'll be back to help you in a minute."

Without waiting for her reply, I grasped Fang by the hand and started tugging him through the wave of students clogging the halls. My eyes scanned the crowd frantically, trying to find the others that were coming down with symptoms like Ella's. If they were anything like her, they were getting worse by the second, which meant our time to find them was running out.

When we burst into the lunch room, I turned to Fang. "Split up?"

"Exactly what I was thinking."

Parting ways, we scoured the lunch room, inconspicuously inspecting every student. But after each table, I receive the same results as the last: odd glances, and normal health. The further I traveled down the line of tables, the more I became convinced that the others had resorted to the school nurse, or calling home to their parents. What would happen if they had an episode in the doctor's office? Or while their mother was trying to take their temperature? With no one there to restrain them, I didn't even want to think about what the consequences would be.

After the eighth table or so, I threw my hands up in a huff, frustrated out of my mind. Time was ticking faster, faster, faster, and with each second came more danger of these Archangels Blooming without someone there to keep a watchful eye over them. I needed—

Not thinking, I accidentally spun around using my inhuman speed, and ended up running into an unsuspecting person trying to walk past me. We ended up in a heap on the floor, my victim moaning beneath me. Apologizing profusely, I untangled myself from them and picked myself up, ready to help the other person if necessary.

Lying on the ground in with anger coursing through their glassy eyes was Iggy. He sprung up with surprising speed and came to loom over me.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

I squinted, taking in the glistening sweat beads dewing up on his forehead. His cheeks had taken up a feverish pallor, and by the way he was hopping from foot to foot, I'd say he picked up a serious case of jitters.

"Iggy, are you feeling okay?"

Relaxing from his threatening pose, Iggy scrunched his brows together. "Max?"

"Yeah, I didn't see you when I turned around and…anyway, are you sick?"

"I think so," he responded, scratching the back of his head in a quick flurry of motion. "Pretty sure I picked it up from Angel and Nudge. The two of them came to school this morning acting all funny, then they started saying they felt sick. Didn't understand what they meant until last period. I was going down to the nurse's office right now."

"No!" I exclaimed, grasping onto his shoulders. "Where are Angel and Nudge? Did they go to the nurse, too?"

"Woah, Max, calm the pants here for a second." Pushing me off of him none-too-gently, he took a step or two back. "The girls are in the bathroom. What are you getting so freaked out about?"

I didn't respond; I needed Fang to get over here now to keep watch of Iggy while I went to get Angel and Nudge. Peeling back my walls, I nudged at the web, reaching out for Fang as I located him in the crowd. His head snapped around to look at me, forcing a wedge into the conversation he seemed to be having with Gazzy. The moment we locked eyes, he took Gazzy by the hand and sped over to Iggy and I in a blink.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Great question, Fang," Iggy interrupted. "Your girlfriend here has begun to go all military-interrogation on me, so if you don't mind, like, restraining her like you did the other day, I'll just be on my way to the nurse."

I gave Iggy a meaningful look, and Fang instantly got what I was trying to communicate. Taking Iggy by the wrist in a stone-hard grip, he nodded his head once, curtly, to tell me to go.

You know those cliché nightmares people get where they're running down a never ending black abyss of a hall, feeling the weight of time digging into their shoulders? That's how I imagined myself then, hear flying backwards as I tried not to seem too conspicuous in my haste for the bathroom. I had to reach the girls before they decided to go anywhere to take care of their "illness".

Bursting into the bathroom, I nearly bashed a girl's nose in as she tried to leave. I ignored her, though eyes soaking in the innards of the room. Angel and Nudge were leaning into the mirror, a blush palatte and brush in hand. They had to stop every few moments to blot sweat from their foreheads, but it didn't appear their jitters had set in yet.

"You don't have any powder on you, do you?" Nudge asked as she pressed a paper towel into her hairline.

"No. Wish I had thought to bring it today—it could have helped this disgusting sweat."

"Angel. Nudge," I breathed, hurrying over to them.

"Max," Angel voiced, turning her piercing baby blues on me. "I thought you were absent today."

I shook my head and locked onto their wrists. "You have to come with me." Surprised squeaks left them as I tugged with a slight amount of inhuman strength towards the door.

"What on earth are you doing?" Nudge exclaimed. Manicured nails trying to release me hold as she stumbled to keep up with my urgent pace.

"I'll explain later, don't worry," I soothed.

Angel shorted behind me, which was the most unattractive thing I've ever seen her do. "'Don't worry.'"

Ignoring her, I poured out into the parking lot, hoping that Fang's mind was on the same track as mine. Sure enough, I saw Fang leaning back against the passenger door of his car, arms crossed, brows hooded.

"We're being kidnapped!" Nudge wailed.

I rolled my eyes as we reached the truck. "Is Gazzy having the same symptoms?" I asked Fang.

"Yep," Fang responded. "Looks like we found our seven."

"And murdered, too!" continued Nudge.

Shooting her a quick glare, I walked past Fang, opened the door, and gently guided Angel and Nudge inside the truck. "I know this seems weird, but you two need to go along with it. Please."

Though the pair grumbled as they did, they packed themselves inside the truck with the rest of the gang just as I slammed the door shut. I got into the passenger seat next, and Fang followed to assume the driver's position.

The car lurched into drive seconds later, and I couldn't help but keep glancing in the rear view mirror to see what was going on in the back seat. Everyone was sweating buckets over the upholstery, and Ella and Iggy were shaking so much I was afraid they might spontaneously combust. Thankfully, Angel, Nudge, and Gazzy hadn't ventured too far into the Blooming process yet, but by the tension in their faces, I knew it could only be time before they started to slip on the control.

After a quick murmur of consent, Fang and I decided to bring the five back to his house. It was close enough to the edge of town to keep them protected should they have a major episode like the one I acquired during school not too long ago. Plus, with all the empty rooms engulfed in the house, we would be able to set up a personal confinement for each of them. The less people around Blooming Archangels, the better. Lesson be learned.

My gears of my mind were whirring the entire drive, trying to come up with some concrete way to explain what exactly is happening to them. I didn't have many options, though. I mean, how does one bring up 713 years of past lives up to someone lightly? At least I had memories for me to rely on when I started getting lost. But with these guys, I highly doubted they remembered even the tiniest sprinkling of their old lives.

I also couldn't get over the fact that my theater friends—and sister—were in on this with me. I suppose it should seem strange to me how this all worked out, but if I learned anything with my history it's that there are no accidents. All of this was pre-destined, and inexplicably right. Who was I to question it? Especially since I couldn't think of a better group of people to be with when faced with my impending doom.

Nerves ran in my stomach like a bee-hive. I squirmed in my seat as we pulled up to the house, half eager to just get this over with, rip the whole thing off like a band-aid; the other half of me wanted to rewind to this morning with Fang and just hit pause. Bask in the bliss. Forget who I was and that there was a Demon I was chasing to encase in the one place I hated most in the world: Hell.

Perhaps the five decide to go their separate ways. As far as I was aware, they had total and complete free will over this whole Archangel thing; and by the way they were acting with the situation so far, it seemed as though they would bolt at the first word that falls from my mouth regarding the subject. If they did run…Fang and I would truly be over with. There was no way we would be able to encase Michael without the others. He was just too strong after all these years of honing his talents, unconfined considering he kept continuously killing us the second we discovered our true identities. Should the others choose not to band together with us, we would all be killed. Again.

With my frantic thoughts, I must have lost the walls that usually guarded my thoughts because suddenly Fang was inside me head, whispered thoughts curing all my anxiety.

Fret no more, Gabrielle, my love. All is well.

Releasing a breath I hadn't been aware was being contained, I nodded my head to acknowledge the fact I heard him, and popped open my door to jump out of the truck. I straightened the hem of my shirt, took a deep breath of the severe winter air, then went to retrieve the others.

Time to go shatter some realities.

Alrighty, guys. My apologies for any grammatical mistakes made in this chapter. I only had time for an EXTREMELY quick scan over the chapter before posting. First day of finals tomorrow, so I need to get studying, but I didn't want to leave you guys hanging in suspense for another day over something as trivial as grammar. Cause you guys don't just like me for my grammar, right? :D

Happy holidays, and expect the next chapter soon!

*Shiver*