The new chapter is up and on time! Yay! I only got one review for my last chapter. Sad day. Some of you are not very nice…. Ha! I'm just kiddinngggg! I love you all no matter what but more reviews would be amazing! I most of you probably don't care and are sick of me going on about my basketball, but I just have to say that my team is headed to the championship tomorrow after an extremely hard game today! It was super intense and we even went into overtime. I ended up scoring the winning points and I am just so proud of my team. Anywho…. I am done rambling about myself! Lol… uhh yeah that's all. Read and REVIEW if you wanna find out what's wrong with Max!

KarleeRay

Beep. Beep. Beep. That noise. That awful noise. What was it? God, my head hurts. Correction…everything hurts. My body is aching. My limbs feel like they each weight their own separate ton. My eyes. They feel glued shut. What's wrong with me? What's going on? I feel as if I should panic, but I can't find the strength. I lie limply, and sink back into unawareness.

My eyes flutter open, struggling against the brightness of the lights.

"Max?" Fang's head snaps up from where he was resting it on the side of my bed. I try to answer but find that there's something going down my throat. I begin to splutter and gag. My hands come up to yank it out, but Fang stops them mid air. "Shhh. Max, sweetie, it's okay. They're gonna take it out." He strokes my hair lovingly, but it does nothing to soothe me. I gag uncontrollably and my hands come up again on reflex. Fang catches them again and looks up. "Nudge go get the doctor. Hurry."

She jumps up and flees the room, shouting for the doctor. Oh yes. Please hurry. The doctor comes running into the room a mere few seconds later.

"Max," He says, calmly. "You have a tube down your throat. I'm going to take it out and it's going to feel uncomfortable for a few moments, but you just hang in there sweetheart."

I nod, miserably, and the doctor slowly pulls the tube from my throat. The second it comes out, the nurse who came in with the doctor reaches for a tiny trash bin and holds it under my chin. She knows I am going to throw up before I do. My stomach lurches violently and I try to hold it down, but quickly give up, retching awfully into the trash can. Fang rubs my back comfortingly, and I cringe at the thought of him seeing me like this.

Finally, I lie back on the bed, breathing heavily. I survey the room for the first time. My entire family is here. I smile weakly at them, feeling like death. My mom comes towards me, brushing sweaty hair back off of my forehead.

"Max," She murmurs, as if my name is a lifeboat that she is clinging too.

"I'm fine," I croak, having no idea if I really was. My brow furrows in confusion. I'm in a hospital, that much I've gathered, but why? I clear my throat. "What happened?" I am pleased to hear that my voice comes out sounding stronger than before.

"We don't know, sweetie, we don't know," Mom murmurs.

"That's helpful," I snap sarcastically before I can remind myself that this is my mom I'm talking to.

My mom, however, doesn't look surprised at all. Fang steps forward. "You had one of your brain explosions at the school… it lasted longer than normal. You blacked out. You've been out for a while. Doc said it was your body's way of trying to protect your brain."

I swallow hard, a tiny tendril of fear working itself into my stomach. I dismiss the feeling quickly, though. I'm Maximum Ride. I can handle anything.

"I think you gave your family quite the scare," The doctor says to me. My eyes roam the room and grow wide when I see the IV in my arm. Instantly, I am flooded with memories, memories of growing up in a dog crate, memories of being poked and prodded, beaten and bloodied… memories of the school. My breathing begins to pick up as my eyes zero in on the sharp object. I have to get out of here. They're going to do tests on me. I have to get out. I have to-

Two fingers under my chin, pulls my attention away from my arm. Fang looks me dead in the eye. "It's okay. You're fine. Things aren't the way they used to be. You know that." I nod shakily, but looking into his eyes I can tell he's having a hard time not whisking me away and out of this hospital himself.

"We're just going to do some blood work and then we'll send you on your way. We should have the results back in a few weeks so we'll give you a call. Though, if you have any… complications, don't hesitate to come back in," The doctor explains and then exits the room, leaving the nurse to take my blood. I put on a stoic emotionless mask while she takes my blood, but on the inside, I am screaming. My heart says run while my head tells me that everything is fine. I even out my breathing, taking comfort in my flock's faces and Fang's hand in mine.

"Alright Max. You're all set," The nurse tells me sometime later.

I thank her and when she offers me a wheelchair I give her a freaking death glare. Right, like I can't walk. My mother and Fang also try to help me up, but I flash them my middle finger. Mom chastises me but it was worth it to get them to back off.

I get out of my bed with ease. I feel fine, great actually, rejuvenated. Everyone looks at me as if I am about to keel over and die right where I stand. "Are we going to go home or would you all rather just stand there like idiots?" I snap, stomping out of the room. I hear a low chuckle behind me. Dang Fang. rhymed! Hey I'm a poet and I didn't even know it! Okay, that was cheesy. I sincerely apologize. I'll blame it on the brain explosions.

The car ride home is a little tense, like everyone is walking on eggshells, until Nudge finally breaks down. She's worried about me… really worried. I console her the whole way home, my heart breaking even more when Gazzy and Angel shed a few tears. I really had scared them and the worst thing was… I couldn't tell them that I was fine without lying to them because…. Well, what if I'm not fine? Gotta die somehow right?

Mom tries to get me to go straight up to bed when we walk in the house, but I won't hear of it. I don't want to sleep, or even lie down. I feel like I've been doing that for days.

"Can't we do something? Something fun? Mom!"

"Hmm?" She murmurs, distracted.

"I'm talking to you!" I complain.

"I heard you, Max," She says, calmly, searching through fridge.

My head comes up as I hear the front door open and then slam shut. "Oh thank God!" Carter gushes, wrapping me in a bear hug. She pulls back and then hits me playfully in the arm. "I should hate you for scaring me like that!"

"But you don't," I say simply, shrugging. "You couldn't hate me."

She sighs, giving up. "So what's up?"

"Well, I asked mom if we could do something but she's ignoring me because apparently I should be upstairs resting."

Carter's eyes light up with an idea. "You know you can always go dress shopping…"

I stare at her blankly.

"Please!" She begs. "Austin is making me go with him so you have to go too! It wouldn't be fair if you didn't."

"I'm not the one with the wack boyfriend who wants to go to some stupid high school dance," I explain, seriously.

"Max! You don't even have to dance…. Just do it for me please? If you do this then we'll be even for you scaring the crap out of me!" She pins me with puppy dog eyes. Well. Crap.

Why am I here? Someone please explain this to me.

"Max your figure would look amazing in this!" Nudge gushes, holding up a hot pink knee length dress. I make a gagging motion and Nudge begins to pout. "We've been here for two and a half hours! We've been to nine stores and you haven't tried on one dress! You're impossible Max!"

I shrug, unaffected by her outburst. "Find me something reasonable and I'll try it on." I plop down on a bench by the dressing room, letting Nudge and Carter pick out options. Carter had found her dress about an hour ago. It was navy blue. The top was made of loose flowy material and there was a tight band of fabric right under her boobs where the fabric grew tight, clinging to her slender body. The dress was stunning on her and stood out against her ivory skin and stark black hair. She wasn't sure about it, but I was, and when she finally purchased it after staring in the mirror for thirty minutes, I told her that we should just head on home since we found what we came for. She wouldn't even listen to me! She insisted that now all the focus could be on finding me a dress. My plan of distracting her into leaving after she had found her own dress had failed. Now I'm screwed.

"Max! Max! Max!" Carter cries out, running toward me. She shoves a garment behind her back and looks at me very seriously. "Please. Please. Please actually look at it before you reject it. I think this is the one."

I hold my breath as she brings a black dress out from behind her back. I look over it carefully. It looks tight and a little on the short side. It's simple, yet sexy and dangerous. When I don't immediately protest, Carter throws the dress at me. She squeals loudly. "We did it Nudge!"

Grumbling under my breath I head into the dressing room and put on the dress. I'd love to say that it looks awful, but the weird thing was, it doesn't. The dress is amazing, hugging my small yet defined curves. I survey myself in the mirror and realize that I hardly recognize the girl looking back. I look….. do I look pretty? Maybe even sexy? I shudder at the thought and hold my breath while I walk out to show Nudge and Carter. I swear they carried on about that dress for at least thirty minutes. I gave feeble protests as we walked to the counter to check out, but I knew it was a lost cause.

"I got my dress today…" I tell Fang. He merely looks at me.

"What's it like?"

"Wouldn't you like to know!" I tease. "You don't get to see it until the day of the dance…. Which I'm dreading by the way."

Fang sighs. "You and me both. This is all your fault anyways. If you hadn't agreed, we wouldn't have gotten roped into this."

I shrug. "Maybe…"

Silence fills the air around us, the only sound coming from the TV whose volume is turned down really low.

"Are you scared?" Fang finally asks, looking down at me where my head is resting in his lap.

I don't pretend not to know what he's talking about. Fang and I never had a discussion about my recent brain explosions.

I consider my answer carefully and then shake my head. "Nah… I'm Maximum Ride remember? I don't get scared," I joke trying to lighten the mood, but my effort is only halfhearted. Fang is all serious. I know how worried is, and I just wish I could do something to reassure him.

"Hey," I murmur, cupping his face with my hands and forcing him to look at me. "I'm okay." I kiss his forehead. "We're okay."

He sighs heavily and rubs closed fists over his eyes. It's then that I see how messed up he really is about all of this. Fang looks ready to explode.

"Could be nothing," I say, softly.

"Nothing?" He scoffs. "I watched you scream in agony, knowing there was nothing I could do about it, nothing that I could scare away or fight off and you think that's nothing? For as long as I can remember I've been fighting battles right alongside of you and now I have to stand back and watch you fight this battle alone. I just…. God you know how much I love you." He rakes a frustrated hand through his hair.

"You just what?" I ask, gently, referring to his unfinished sentence.

He looks at me. "I just wish it was me instead of you."

"Don't say that," I murmur, reaching up to push hair out of his eyes. He shrugs. "I'm glad it's me and not you. I couldn't stand it if it was you."

He swallows hard and I lean up and kiss his neck. "You know I'm a fighter," I say between kisses, working my way up his neck and jaw. "And you know I can handle this."

He nods quickly, and roughly grabs my chin, jerking my face up and slamming his lips into mine. He kisses me as if this will be our last kiss, with force and hunger and love and urgency. It kind of frightens me, to see him so frantic and uncontrolled. I would do anything to take his pain away…. because I know just as good as anybody that emotional pain sometimes hurts worse than physical pain.