Well, well, well! Look who's back, beautiful people?! FINALLY! I know it's been about two weeks since my last update, but life just kept on getting in the way! I tried to write in my spare time over Spring Break, but my Spring Break was absolutely, perfectly, INSANE! Anyway, I'm back now, and I hope you all are still with me?! Your reviews have been amazing! So keep them coming!

I had a lot of questions about a false negative from the last chapter, and I just wanted to make it clear that, no, Max is NOT pregnant! The test was completely accurate!

I'm thinking of starting another fanfiction on Fang's Blog. No, I am not ditching this story, but I think it could be fun to work on other stuff at this same time. Basketball season is over and I have a lot more free time! I don't know, what do you guys think? I think it could be fun to write from Fang's point of view! Kind of difficult, but fun.

Anywho, I hope you enjoy this chapter! REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!

KarleeRay

"Maybe if you would stop fiddling with your guitar we would actually get some of this done," I snap, patience running thin. "It's already seven. They locked up two whole hours ago. We're lucky they even let us stay."

Kace glances up at me from his guitar. "Maybe if you would stop worrying so much about getting done, you would be able to find a way to get started… Besides, the best ideas come when you're relaxed."

I groan out loud. "Stop with the words of wisdom."

Kace shrugs, ignoring me. My mind races with ideas for our science project, but none of them jump out at me. Science has never exactly been my thing, and my grade is proof of that. This project could make or break me.

Silence coats the air around us, each of us lost in thought.

"I assume you got things figured out with Fang," Kace murmurs suddenly, fingers lightly skimming his guitar strings.

I look up in surprise. "What do you mean?"

He levels me with a skeptical gaze.

I shrug, pretending like I don't catch his drift. See the tricky thing with Kace is that the boy is so perceptive. Things that no one would think twice about, Kace has racked inside his brain, waiting for later use. Problem here is that Kace was the one who mentioned pregnancy to me. Of course, I brushed him off, but he was skeptical even then. The second problem is that after Fang and I had the pregnancy scare, we were practically attached at the hip for the next couple of days, needing the other close. Kace had to have noticed. Maybe he got the wrong idea.

"Fang and I are fine," I say finally.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," He fires back calmly.

I sigh. "I'm not pregnant if that's what you're asking."

He stares at me for a long while with an expression on his face that I can't quite place. "Congratulations."

My jaw tightens. "We're here for academic reasons. My personal life is none of your concern."

"Touche," he says agreeably.

And I'm left feeling infuriated by him. Like always.

"I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever get home," Fang calls as I walk in the front door.

I find him seated at the bar in the kitchen, wolfing down a can of ravioli. I shrug. "You know Kace. Never one to cooperate."

"Ah, sounds like someone else I know."

I smirk as I brush the hair off the back of his neck, bring my parted lips to his soft skin.

He gives a slight shiver. "You really know how to give a perfect hello."

I nod into him, flick my tongue out against his skin. He groans low in his throat before pushing me away and standing to take his bowl to the sink. "Tease," He mutters under his breath, making me smirk.

I hop up onto the counter. "Everyone else asleep?"

"Nudge is in the shower, Gazzy's in the other one. Angel's been down for hours. She wasn't feeling well. Ella and Iggy are… God knows where."

I smile. "I'm just glad they're back on good terms. Ella gave me an ear full… Gimmie some of that," I command, pointing to some leftover lasagna.

Fang gives me a sour look before heating my food in the microwave and handing it over to me. "You think you got an ear full? You should have heard Iggy's side of the story."

I laugh softly. "Nooo thanks."

Fang studies me quietly while I eat.

"What?" I ask around a mouthful of food.

"You okay? I mean after….. everything?" He asks slowly.

I finish chewing my food and then swallow hard. "Yeah… I think I'm good."

He nods.

"What about you? Are you alright?" I ask, suddenly feeling like a bad girlfriend for not worrying more about his feelings. For me, the pregnancy scare was never really a huge deal, and it was easy to forget about. I'm not pregnant, and it's in the past. Fang, however, had taken the scare harder than me.

He shrugs, and that's when I know.

I hop off the counter, hug him from behind. I know there's nothing I can say to make him feel any better and probing with Fang is never a good idea. If he wants to talk about it, he will. The only thing I can do is be there for him.

We all know Fang isn't the biggest on opening up, so I am surprised when he opens his mouth. "I can't be a dad, Max," He whispers. "Not yet."

For some reason, his words strike me in the heart, and I get a lump in my throat. I turn him slowly to face me. "Hey… look at me." I reach out and grab his chin. "You don't have to worry about that, not until you're ready. We're going to be extra careful from now on, okay? We aren't getting pregnant unless we plan on it. I promise." I kiss his lips quickly and then pull him into a tight hug. His arms wind around my tiny torso and then tighten, pressing me against him. "I promise," I whisper again.

"Nudge," I say gently. "You should eat." I reach out and pat her comfortingly on the arm though my patience with the matter is running thin. Her head comes up off of the lunch table.

"I don't want to," She mumbles. She looks at me through puffy eyes, eyes that have been crying nonstop since Tuesday night when Jett decided that they were not compatible. Nudge was taking the breakup extremely hard, and I mean extremely.

I begin to press on, tell her that just because some stupid boy doesn't like her anymore does not mean she should starve herself, but Fang stops me with a hand to my leg. I look at him, and he gives his head a tiny shake.

One of Nudge's friends speaks up. "You don't need him Nudge. You can do so much better."

I wave my hand at her. "Give the girl a prize," I mutter, and Fang's grip on my thigh tightens, a warning.

I sigh. "I'm gonna go get my shorts out of the dressing room. These jeans are so uncomfortable." I shoot Nudge a death glare since the only reason I was wearing said "uncomfortable jeans" was because it was supposed to brighten her day just a tad and maybe, just maybe, get her to stop with the waterworks. I understand that she liked the kid but enough is enough. It's not like they were going to get married. Tough lesson, babe. Life goes on, and you gotta go with it.

I stand, sling my backpack over my shoulders, and say goodbye to the lunch table before turning and walking out into the empty main hallway.

Or, it was supposed to be empty. Apparently not today. I look up and then down one of the side halls when I hear voices.

"Aren't you just adorable?" I hear a male voice sneer. Several loud obnoxious guffaws follow.

I'm totally aware that ease dropping is wrong, but if you would all remember correctly, I have an impeccable sense of paranoia and something here was just a little bit… off.

I turn down the side hall, creep closer until I can see the scene before me. Three bigger jock looking guys surrounding a smaller nerdy looking kid. Figures. Why oh why do the strong always pick on the weak?

My blood begins to boil, but I decide that I should stay put and see what happens. I'll step in if I need to, but I'm not exactly in the principle's good graces at the moment.

One of the bigger guys takes out a folded piece of paper and begins to read in a high-pitched squeaky voice. "The thing is, I love you Alexandra. I've loved you since the day I saw you. Your red hair is the fire that burns in my sweetest dreams." The guy reading stops, looks up at the smaller kid with the glasses who is shrinking back against the wall, cheeks flaming with humiliation.

It is literally painful for me to stand back and watch this. It goes against every single one of my values, but I can't keep getting into trouble at school unless it is absolutely necessary.

I look at the poor kid, take in how the guys were sneering at him, and re-think what the guy read inside my head. That's when it clicks. I love you, Alexandra… your red hair. No. Oh no. Not just an Alexandra, the Alexandra, as in my old nemesis, the one who was gunning for Fang at the beginning of the year. It looks to me like this smaller kid wrote a love letter to that retched Red Head. Why kid? Why her? You should have known.

"Dude seriously? Is this serious?" One of the jocks lets out a big echoing laugh. "She is way out of your league, bro."

"Yeah. Dude she's hot and you're… well you're you!" More cruel laughter.

I'm not surprised at all by that. What I am surprised by is the flash of murderous anger in the little guy's eyes. Before I can even blink, he lashes out, throws a badly aimed, weak punch to the guy standing the closest to him. His swing didn't do any real damage except that it turned the confrontation violent. The guy that got hit growls loudly and doesn't hesitate before he throws a punch of his own, nothing special, no enhancement there, but perfectly aimed and with decent power. The nerd's head snaps backward, a stream of blood spurting from his nose. His glasses fly off as he falls backwards against the lockers, slumps to the floor.

He's still conscious and that's enough for the other boys. They swoop in all at once kicking and hitting. Three on one. No freaking way. Not on my watch.

I spring up from my hiding place, and it takes me all but a few seconds to sprint down the long hallway. I snatch one of the guys by the back of his shirt. He gags, and I let the momentum of my jerk send him into the wall behind me.

"Get off him," I growl, slinging a punch of my own. The other two seem to just now realize that I'm standing here. I jerk both of them backward by the necks of their shirts. They start to argue, but then seem to realize who I am.

They back away as one, sending deadly glares at the smaller kid, slumped over on the ground.

"Get out of here! Go before I handle you myself!" I snarl, puffing out my chest. Slight fear flashes in their eyes, and muttering under their breaths, they turn and leave, one of them sporting a nice little broken nose.

Once I'm sure they're gone, I crouch down beside the boy. "Hey, you okay?"

I touch his arm comfortingly, but he jerks it away. "You shouldn't have done that," He says lowly, not meeting my eye.

I swallow, sit back on my heels. In a way, I get it. What guy wants a girl to be his knight in shining armor? On the other hand, I don't get it, and it makes me kind of angry. Why should a guy be able to swoop in and save a girl, but not the other way around? It's sexist, really.

I reach over, pick up his glasses. They aren't broken thankfully, and I wipe the blood from the lens before placing them in his lap. I sigh, pull my t-shirt over my head, leaving me in a black tank top. "Here," I murmur, handing him my balled up sweatshirt. "Clean yourself up before they let lunch out."

He shakes his head. "I don't need that. I'm fine."

I roll my eyes. "Put away your pride and use the shirt. Do you really want everyone to see that you got your ass handed to you?"

"It wouldn't matter," He whispers brokenly, eyes glued to the floor. "I'm still a freak in a world full of actual freaks."

I don't take offense to his referral to the enhanced people as freaks. It's true. We are freaks. But we are also exceptional and beautiful. Nudge once called us "poetry in motion", and I couldn't agree more.

I stand, deciding the he doesn't want my help.

"You shouldn't have done that," he says again, bloodshot eyes flickering up to mine for the first time.

"Three on one isn't a fair fight," I say simply.

"Nothing is ever fair," He mutters. "Aren't you the one who said that?"

My eyes flash to his, narrow.

"I'm Agent Dean Mickelson's son. He told me about the conversation you had with him at the hospital. You were right in what you said. Nothing is ever fair," He explains, no emotion in is voice, just a dead monotone.

I balk. It's a small world after all could not be more accurate. First Lissa, and now this kid. Mind=blown.

"The strong shouldn't pick on the weak. It's wrong," I state firmly.

"Hey, survival of the fittest, right?" He asks, gives a slight smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

I stare at him for a long moment. "Right," I say finally because I can't think of another thing to say.

So I turn and walk away, a thousand alarms going off inside my abnormal, bird kid brain.

"Do you ever think that maybe it's just too good to be true?" I ask Fang in the dead of night. We had gone out for a really long flight, and now we were sitting at the top of a big tree, just soaking up the other's presence.

"What? You mean all of this?" He asks quietly, widening his arms to encompass this whole city that we now call home.

I swallow, nod.

His dark eyes flicker up to mine from his branch beneath me.

"Jeb always said that if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is," I say, eyes scanning the world around me.

"Jeb is dead… Max," Fang states firmly, giving me a strange look.

"I know," I say, but my voice catches in hesitation.

Fang leans closer to me, catches my eye. "But?"

"But we don't know that he's dead! We can say he is all we want, but we don't know! We didn't see it happen! We didn't see his body!" I explode, not being able to sit on this any longer. After the confrontation today in the hallway, my mind had been whirring. The strong picking on the weak. The strong picking on the weak. The strong picking on the weak. Always. So many memories have been slung around my mind since this morning that it's making me crazy, memories of being tortured, captured, hunted, hungry, again, and again, and again. But the scariest part is that the strong pick on the weak because the strong will win.

"Woah, woah, Max! Easy," Fang commands, standing on his branch and reaching for the hands that I yank away.

"No!" I snap. "Listen to me. Just think about it, Fang! Use your brain! If we don't know that Jeb is dead, just think of all the others out there that could have survived! All the other crazy scientists that want us dead…. What if there are other underground cities? Yeah the good guys were smart enough to build this one, but the evil guys are smart too. What if they knew? What if they prepared too?"

Fang stares at me, jaw tightening.

"They've been rebuilding above ground for months now. It won't be that long before it's ready. A year? Maybe a little more? What if it happens again? What if they're waiting for us?"

So yeah. Heard of paranoia? I has it.

Fang places his hands on my shoulders, looks me in the eyes. "What has gotten into you? You're talking crazy, sweetie."

"Our whole lives have been crazy. Why should now be any different?" I counter.

"Because it just is, Max. Things are different now. You know that. Why are you suddenly afraid?" He asks softly, and just hearing the sound of voice begins to bring me down from my outburst.

"I'm not afraid," I snap automatically.

"Right," Fang agrees, his mouth turning up into a half smile. He reaches out, runs a hand through my hair. "You know what I think this is?" I don't answer, so he continues. "I think that for the first time in your life, things are okay, maybe even good, and it's scaring the hell out of you. Because you're right. In our past, if it seemed too good to be true then it was. But things are different now. You just haven't fully accepted it yet."

I sigh, lean my head back against the tree. My switch in position exposes my neck, and Fang takes advantage of that, brings his lips down on my tender spots. He kisses down my neck to my collar bone, and my hands come up tangle to themselves in his hair. Fang hits a sweet spot on my shoulder, and a small involuntary gasp leaves my lips. I can feel him smile into my skin. "Feeling better?" He murmurs.

I don't answer him, just yank him off my neck so I can bring my lips to his. He moans softly into my kiss, and I decide that that just might be one of my favorite sounds in this world. My tongue traces along his bottom lip until he opens his mouth a little wider and grants me entrance.

Our kiss grows hungry as well as his hands. He pushes me back into the tree, and the bark scratches my skin, but the physical pain is nothing compared to the emotional bliss that this moment brings.

His lips leave mine, just long enough to get my shirt over my head, before they are back on my skin, kissing down the length of my bare torso.

"You are so beautiful," He whispers.

And I throw my head back, lose myself in the sensations that Fang brings me, and decide that I could live and die in this moment.