New chapter is up! And relatively on time if not a tad early! Oh well! I figured it would be cruel to keep you all waiting while our ole pal Carter hangs in the balance ;)… At this very moment, I should be participating in my last basketball game of the season. Instead, I am sitting on my computer, updating my fanfiction story because I'm a loser and my best friend gave me her strep throat. Thanks, love! Anywho I hope you enjoy this newest installment to my story! REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW! And tell me what you think! I was kind enough to give you an early update (And it's pretty freaking long), you can be kind enough to review. Kay thanks! Love yall :) REVIEW!

KarleeRay

"You're up early," Mom comments as I saunter in the kitchen at 8 am on a Saturday. Why yes. Yes I am, Mother. I could not seem to sleep through the ear splitting headache that has set up fort inside my poor, innocent skull.

"Headache," I mutter, opening the fridge and reaching inside for a bottle of water. I sit down at the bar, take refuge in my favorite smell on this planet. Bacon. Yeah baby. That's the stuff.

"Are you remembering to take your meds?" She asks, going all Momma Bear on me.

I sigh, dropping my head into my hands. "Yeah."

"You think you're getting sick?" She places a cool hand to my forehead and then to my stomach. "No fever… Maybe some breakfast is all you need."

"Maybe," I agree. "It's probably just stress."

I look up to see her pinning me with warm brown eyes, so similar to my own. "What are you stressed up about? Honey, you know you can talk to me about anything…"

SWERVE. Major swerve. I trust my mom, but she can't know about Carter. "Just… school, basketball…" I shrug. "No biggie."

I'm lying. She knows it. I know it, but neither of us say anything. I let the lie hang in the air, make no attempt to cover it up. There's no point.

Angel comes trotting into the kitchen, saving us from a tense silence.

"Morning sweetie," Mom greets, smiling affectionately at Angel who hops up onto the bar stool beside me.

"Morning," Angel murmurs, patting down Celeste's hair. Her brow wrinkles suddenly, and she looks up at me. "Are you okay, Max?"

I glare at her, knowing that she's feeling around inside my head. Butt out Ange, I think at her. She gives a small shrug, and then turns her attention back to Celeste.

I sigh heavily, going to the medicine cabinet to retrieve my Melatonin. My meds have worked for the most part, successfully warding away my brain explosions. I just hope they continue to work. I've heard that sometimes when you take medication for extended periods of time that your body can become immune to that medicine. I just hope that doesn't happen with me.

I shake out two small Melatonin pills, lay them on the counter, and then retrieve one tiny birth control pill.

"What's that one for?" Angels asks, gesturing to the birth control pill. I snatch it up quickly, dry swallowing it in my haste to get it out of her sight.

I shrug, nonchalantly, throwing up my mental blocks. "Ibuprofen."

"Are you sick?" She asks innocently, and I inwardly sigh with relief. She bought it.

"Maybe," I tell her, and when her forehead wrinkles because she doesn't like the thought of me being sick, I snatch her up, cuddle her to my chest.

She giggles. "Love you, Max."

My heart melts. We all know that we love each other. That much is obvious. But we don't say it near enough. "love you, babe."

"I don't appreciate you disrupting my class with your sarcastic comments, . The class may find you amusing, I, however, do not. This needs to stop. Consider this your warning. Next time, it's detention. Got it?" Misses Sullivan snaps, looking down on me.

My eyes roll before I can stop them. "Maybe you should pull out your sense of humor every once in a while. Life must get pretty boring for someone as uptight as you," I tell her before I remember that I'm talking to a teacher, and this teacher at that. Misses Sullivan is always on my case! It's so unfair. It all started when I gave her the nickname Sully during a particularly boring day in class. You know? Sully? Like from Monster's Inc? I thought it was funny and clever. So did the class. She, surprisingly, did not.

"That's it. I've had enough of you, Maximum Ride. Detention. Every day after school this week until four o clock," She blazes, right in my face. I can smell her nasty coffee breath, and I resist the urge to let my face scrunch up.

"What?" I screech. "I have a game on Friday! I can't miss practice every day this week!"

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," She smirks.

"You must be really dim-witted if you can't even make up your own comebacks," I snap, let that sink in. "That's right, Sully. I know my Gone with the Wind." I send a silent prayer of thanks to Nudge for making me sit through that entirely too long movie so many times. My eyes take in Sully's raging expression and decide it's in my best interest to skedaddle on out of there. I've done enough damage as it is.

I stomp out into the empty hallway. There is only one class on this wing this period, and from the looks of it, there aren't many people in there…. So what is Carter doing ambling around here?

"Carter! Hey!" I call, jogging to catch up to her.

She whirls. "What are you doing over here?"

"Sully held me after class. Gave me detention for 'being amusing'," I explain, falling into step beside her.

She laughs, shaking her head. "You would, Max. You would." Her breath is tinged with alcohol and mint.

"Hey um do you have a minute?" I ask, remembering that I wanted to check up on her.

"Yeah." She smiles, turns to face me. "What's up, babe?"

It is then that I take in her appearance, the red ringed eyes, dilated pupils, no make-up, messy hair, like she doesn't have a care in the world. My head tells me what my heart refuses to hear. So I ignore it. It's best not to jump to conclusions, right?

"Are you okay? You've been hitting the bottle kind of heavy lately…" I hedge.

Carter looks at me, taken aback. "Excuse me?" She asks, and I don't miss the hidden warning in her voice.

"Well, I just wanted to make sure you know what you're doing. I mean… you're in control right?"

"It's called fun! You should try it sometime, Mom," She snaps, a kindling fire in her eyes.

Now it's my turn to be taken aback. "I don't have to drink to have fun, Carter."

"How would you know? Fun probably isn't even in your vocabulary! You just think you're so high and mighty don't you? Better than everyone? Better than me? Better at basketball? Better looking? Better fighter? Well maybe you should hop down off your pedestal and stop pointing fingers at me until you make sure your own hands are clean!" She screeches at the top of her lungs. I stare at the monster in front of me, try to understand how things got to this point without me seeing it. She looks crazy, literally insane.

"Who are you right now?" I snarl, angry at her harsh words. Why does everyone always accuse me of thinking I'm better than them?

She snorts, begins to march away, but my hands come up, and I yank her back by her backpack. That's when the pipe falls out, rolls across the floor. It's small and black, seemingly harmless, but the purpose of it is clear. Weed obviously, maybe even more, much worse things. Drugs all the same.

I can do nothing but stare, and Carter seems to be in the same position. Silence coats the air around us, making it hard to breath.

"That's not mine," She says finally, the worst lie of the century, and when she sees that I don't buy it, she lunges for it, scooping it up and holding it to her chest.

"Give it to me," I snap.

"No."

"Give it to me, Carter," I growl, latching onto her. We struggle for a moment; Carter playing keep away with the stupid thing.

"Stop it, Max! You don't understand! Get off me! Don't touch me!"

In our struggle, Carter trips over my feet, brings me crashing to the ground beside her. My instincts are quick, and I immediately straddle her, yank the pipe from her shaking fingers.

"I hate you," She yells, looking me straight in the eye. "You are the worst friend ever."

My eyes flick up just in time to see Fang, Austin, and Iggy standing at the end of the hall.

"Yeah well I think I just might hate you too," I mutter, getting off of her and beginning to march away and towards the boys. I don't know how much they've seen, and I'm afraid to find out.

"You don't know what you're missing!" Carter calls, and I turn to see her getting shakily to her feet. "It's like flying, Max."

"Yeah, I doubt it. Take it from someone who would know."

"I didn't know there were drugs involved," I admit to Kace. I had sought him out when the lunch bell rang, and I knew that there was a good chance he would be milling around in the empty music room. I didn't know what else to do, who else to turn to.

Grim gray eyes flick up to mine. There's just a hint of smugness in them, and that makes me want to stand up and punch him right in his pretty little face. Okay, so I'm a little irritable. You would be too if you had had the night that I had.

"Addiction is a tricky thing," He says simply.

My shoulders sag in defeat.

"Don't feel too bad," He says, and my head snaps up in surprise. Is Kace consoling me? Well would you look at that. There might be hope after all. "You probably think you should have seen the signs… Don't fool yourself into believing that. Addicts are sneaky. You won't see the signs unless you know what you're looking for."

"And you do?" I ask exasperated.

He stares at me as if trying to decipher something. After a moment, he speaks, "There's not a lot I don't know."

I wait for him to elaborate.

When he realizes I am not going to say anything, he takes a deep breath. "My life started out similar to the way yours did. In a cage. No surprise there." He flutters his wings just a tad to prove his point. "I escaped when I was eleven. I had waited so patiently for so long… the white coats finally slipped up, and I jumped at my chance for freedom. They didn't come after me like I expected them to. It was just me, on the loose, on my own, just a kid. I didn't know what to do. I lived in my own personal hell, always paranoid that they were going to find me and take me back. I remember one day I was walking down the street. This guy came up to me. He was selling newspapers. I started to tell him to piss off, but then I saw the front cover. Breaking News: Birdkids Spotted in New York City Restaurant. I was in awe. I took the paper, five finger discount." Kace breaks off, smirking. "That was the first I heard of the infamous Maximum Ride. I kept the paper for a long time, and even though I didn't know you, I envied you, envied the fact that you had a family, that you weren't alone. That made me decide to look for my own family. You know when you think of the family you've never met, it's easy to imagine the cookie cutter house, the hard working dad, the stay at home mom, the 2.5 siblings…. It wasn't hard to find my mother, surprisingly enough. My dad was a dead beat, no siblings. My mom lived in a rundown house in Reno." Kace stops. His gray eyes are distant, and I know he's gone to a place that no one but him can see.

"How was she? Your mom?" I ask softly.

"She… was trash. I've never felt such harsh disappointment in my life. I loved her. She was my mother. But I hated her just as much. She worked at one of Reno's "ranches", ranching off women to dirty, horny, no good, men."

I balk, and Kace nods his head. "Yeah, she sold her body for a living, sold her body for drugs. She would do anything to get high just one time. She would take anything from anyone, heroin, ecstasy, crank, weed. She was an absolute mess. The only thing that mattered was the drugs. She was a monster. I tried to get her clean, did everything I could, but she always went back. I wasn't enough. Her own son wasn't enough for her to want to get clean…. Eventually, she overdosed. I found her on the couch, aerosol can in hand. She had been huffing…. Don't look at me like that. Don't feel sorry for me and don't you dare feel sorry for her. She made her bed."

I stay silent. What can I say?

"So that's how I knew. I see my mom in Carter, in her eyes." He holds up the pipe that I snatched away from Carter in the hall. "But I'd be willing to bet there's more than just weed in the picture based on how defensive you say she was… I'm not saying she's a full blown addict, but she's well on her way. That's why I tried to warn you."

I lower my eyes, slightly embarrassed. "I thought she was just having fun, just a few parties, a few too many drinks. I had no idea she was doing drugs… I don't know what to do, and that's not something you'll hear me say often."

"She needs help, Max," He tells me seriously.

"What? I can't out her! I can't snitch on her. Do you know how much trouble she'll be in?" I exclaim, feeling overwhelmed, out of my element, and like I'm in way over my head.

Kace sighs, shakes his head. "What's worth more? Her friendship or her life? Think about it…" He hops off the desk he had been perched on, begins to saunter toward the door.

"That's it? You're just going to leave? After everything I told you?" I ask, incredulous.

He runs a hand through his ash blond hair. "I've said everything you need to hear. I've done my part. Now you do yours."

My teeth grit with anger. "Screw you," I snap.

"Sounds fun." He gives me a killer smirk while my jaw hangs in fury.

"You're cold. You're cold, and you're mean because you don't know how to feel. You have no heart," I say simply, surprising him with the calmness in my reply.

Suddenly, he's serious. "You're right. I stopped feeling a long time ago. You should try it sometime." He comes up to me, very close, presses his hand against my chest. I begin to jerk away, feeling violated, but he holds me firmly in place. "That feeling you have right here? The guilty one? The one that loves Carter and hates her at the same time? You wouldn't feel that if you were as smart as me…. You're wrong. I have a heart. It just doesn't work."

With that, he turns and walks out the door, leaving me more confused than ever.

"You can't do this, sweetie. You can't let this consume you. When it comes down to it, its Carter's problem not yours."

I peek through the crack in my hands, look into Fang's eyes. I want to lose myself in them, forget my worries, fly to a place where life is easy and people don't die… Yeah right. I'm funny.

Fang only calls me "sweetie" when he's feeling overly affectionate or when he's worried about me. I'm guessing it's the latter.

I sigh, pick my way over to him, crawl into his lap. Strong arms wrap me an unbreakable grasp.

"She's my best friend, Fang. What's her problem is my problem," I murmur quietly.

We sit at the kitchen table, lights dimmed down low. The rest of the house is sleeping.

"I know," He agrees. "I just don't like to see you let it get to you like this. It's ridiculous. Carter needs to grow up. She's being completely irresponsible, and she's taking you down with her." Anger laces his voice.

"You can't blame her…"

"The hell I can," He snaps. "And you can too. Because the only person here to blame is her. No one forced her to do drugs."

I sigh. "Don't you get all worked up too."

Fang smirks, and my heart gives a tiny stutter. "I don't get worked up."

"Oh really? That's not what it looked like last night," I joke, my brain having lost all filter.

Fang's eyes widen in mock surprise. "Did Maximum Ride just make a perverted joke?"

I roll my eyes, automatically wishing I could take it back, realizing I just opened a whole new door. "I guess the average teenager disease is wearing off on me."

We share a soft laugh, perfectly content pressed up against one another.

"What are you going to do?" Fang asks finally, bringing back the seriousness.

"I have to try and talk to her first, see what I can do. If worse comes to worse, I'll have to think about telling someone with authority."

Fang nods, his chin resting on the top of my head. The air grows silent around us.

"Can I ask you something?" I ask hesitantly, not sure whether or not this is a good idea.

"Mmhmm."

I swallow hard, twist in his arms so that I'm straddling his waist and looking into his eyes. I want an honest answer. This is not something we've ever talked about, and it has weighed on my mind on more than a few occasions.

"Do you think that the only reason you came back to me… to us… was because Maya died?"

Fang is silent, and I can't help but notice the way his face goes slightly paler than normal.

"It's a fair question. If you think about it," I say quickly, wanting to defend myself in advance in case he got angry.

He takes a breath. "If it wasn't Maya's death, something else would have brought us back to each other."

"Yeah but… I know it's not something that we've talked about but it was obvious to me that you two had… something… going on… If she hadn't died, is it fair enough to assume that you could still be somewhere with her instead of me?" I feel very vulnerable all the sudden and saying these things out loud only makes them seem more probable and true.

Obsidian eyes meet mine, and for the first time in a long time, I have no idea what he's thinking, what he's about to say.

"I would never lie to you, Max. So I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong about Maya and I having something going on. I couldn't define it. I didn't understand it. I was confused. I missed you. Maya was there, and you weren't. I felt for her. Whether it was romantic on my end… I don't know. I'll never know. All I know is that when I watched Maya fall, there was a stretched out moment when it wasn't Maya. It was you. I saw you falling, dying, being ripped away from me. I've never felt pain like that. I thought of all the things I felt but never said, of all the things I would never get to say to you, and it devastated me. That's when I knew I needed you, couldn't live without you. I knew I had to come back… So I did…"

I lower my eyes, try to keep the tears at bay. Hearing Fang open up to me, hearing his most intimate, raw thoughts and feelings, it touches me. When he speaks from the heart, it's music, a melody that you could never get tired of.

Two fingers under my chin make me look up. "I once told you that there would always be a you and me, whether you acknowledged it or not… I meant that. Truly. So when you ask me if we would be together if Maya was still alive, I can honestly answer you and say that something else would have brought us together if not Maya's death."

His eyes search my face, questioning, and I nod, lean in and rest my head on his chest.

"I never told you I was sorry," I say suddenly.

"What?"

"About Maya. I didn't like her, but I never wanted her dead. I'm sorry, for you, for her. I wish you hadn't had to see that."

Fang smiles softly, places a kiss to the tip of my nose. "There aren't many things in this world that I'm certain of, but you're one of them."

I fall into his kiss, lose myself in him. His hands run up and down my thighs on both sides of him. I take advantage of the fact that I'm straddling his waist, press myself closer and closer still. My hinds wind into his hair while his soft groan thrills me to no end. I pull back wanting to say something, but his lips seek me out, hating to break contact. "I want you," I murmur into his mouth. Now it's his turn to pull back. His eyes ask me a question that I immediately answer with a positive response. He lifts me up, carries to me to the couch. It's dark, can't see a thing, which makes it all the more amazing, just the feel of skin on skin.

And there are no regrets as I give myself up to him, tie myself to him once again, strengthen the knots on the unbreakable shield of our love.