Hello! Enjoy this chapter. Sorry it's a bit shorter than the others.

Also:A big thanks to my beta reader.

Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride. James Patterson does. But this plot belongs to me.

.oO0Oo.

"The mall?" I asked, trying to hide my discomfort.

Angel nodded.

We were sitting on the couches in the living room, finishing off the box of cookies that Grandma had brought. I sighed and shifted my gaze to the window where I could see the moon just beginning to pop up over the horizon.

"Please, Max," Angel pleaded.

I groaned. "Fine."

.oO0Oo.

The next morning, we were up with the dawn since Nudge insisted that the mall would be less busy. We went with her plan, as she was probably the most experienced shopper out of all of us.

"Okay!" I clapped my hands over my head and motioned for everyone to gather on the sidewalk in front of the house. "I'm going to go over some rules."

Gazzy rolled his eyes. "We don't need rules."

"Do we need to relive the bike incident of 2006?"

He shook his head.

"Good." I turned to everyone else. "First of all, stick together! We don't want anyone to go missing again. Secondly, don't get distracted. Let's not make this longer than it needs to be. And lastly, I'm in charge. Whatever I say, goes. Questions?"

Iggy raised his hand.

"No, Iggy, you may not bring explosives to the mall. Let's go." With that, I turned on my heel and marched down the sidewalk toward the bus stop.

The trip to the mall actually started out great. Nothing was blown up, no one went missing, and they all listened to me. Angel even managed to spend a large chunk of her birthday money. Since this was our last day of freedom, I decided to buy everyone ice cream.

"I'm going to the bathroom!" Gazzy exclaimed as he finished his ice cream and got up.

"Thank you," I muttered, "for that wonderful information."

Iggy stood up too. "Um... I'll go with you. Fang, you too."

"Okay," Fang stood up nervously.

I shot all three of them a confused look.

Gazzy scoffed. "What? Have you never seen three men go to the bathroom together to do manly things?"

"It's fine," I brushed it off. "Just be fast about it."

Stopping myself right there would have been a good idea because I was in for quite a surprise.

"Max, there's one shop I still want to visit," Angel gave me her bambi eyes and cocked her head to the side.

"Sure. But let's wait for the boys to come back," I answered.

Nudge spoke up just then. "Actually, they probably won't be back for a while."

"Why?"

Angel giggled. "It's a secret."

I groaned and buried my face in my hands. "Okay," I murmured through my fingers. "Let's go."

.oO0Oo.

"A what?" I asked genuinely confused.

"A date night. Moms and Dads go on date nights all the time," Nudge explained calmly.

Angel squealed and pointed to a shop with huge glass windows and skinny mannequins wearing ridiculously revealing dresses. "There it is!"

Ella grabbed me by the wrist and hauled me along with her as she followed Angel and Nudge into the store.

"Remind me why we need to buy me a dress?" I asked as I absentmindedly looked through racks of frilly, poofy dresses.

"You need to look nice for your date with Dad!" Ella said. "Dad being Fang, of course."

A date with Fang? Great.

"Try these on," Nudge pushed a pile of dresses into my arms and pushed me toward the fitting rooms.

"But-" I started to protest.

"Trust me, you'll thank me later." Nudge winked and closed the door to the fitting room.

Taking deep breaths, I chose the least flashy dress from the pile and put it on. The dress was blue with bits of lace all over it. I left the fitting room and found Ella, Nudge, and Angel sprawled across the chairs with their shopping bags set up on the coffee table.

Ella smiled. "There you are. Why don't you stand on that platform by the mirror?"

Reluctantly, I stepped onto the platform and looked in the mirror. The dress really didn't look good on me, but I figured that wouldn't be up to me to decide.

"I hate it," Nudge said.

Angel nodded. "Me too."

"Next!" cried Ella, grabbing a candy from the bowl on the coffee table.

The next four dresses got similar responses. I was ready to scream by the time I finally got a positive reaction. The dress was pink and shimmery with sequins stitched into the too-short skirt.

"Yes," Ella gasped. "Max, that's the one."

Nudge's squealing was enough to make me crawl out of my own skin.

Angel ran up to me and hugged my leg. "Max, I love it. Please?"

"Nope!" I threw my hands up. "I'm vetoing this one."

"Aww, please?" Angel stared up at me and pouted.

I gently unlatched her arms from my leg and disappeared into the fitting room calling 'No!' as I closed the door.

When the dress shopping finally reached a conclusion, we compromised on a simple purple dress that went down to my knees. Thankfully, it was sparkle-free.

"Nudge, how do plan on paying for this?" I asked.

Nudge just grinned and held up a credit card.

"Is that Mom's?" I furrowed my eyebrows.

She nodded. "She let's me use it all the time."

"I really hope you're telling me the truth."