Chapter 21
When Max returns to school on thursday, she almost causes an uprising. Halfway to her World History class, she's mobbed by angry girls demanding she stay away from Fang.
"Excuse me." Max tries to move through the crowd, and she curses her shorter stature when a taller girl refuses to budge and glares down at her. What do they want? She didn't do anything, shouldn't they know that Maya isn't telling the truth?
"Max, come here." Iggy cuts through the crowd like a knife and wraps his fingers around her bicep. Max pushes after him, and someone grabs a handful of her hair. Max cries out, but Ella shakes the persons wrist off with a scowl.
"Don't you have anything better to do?" Ella hisses, and the crowd shrinks away from them. Iggy marches Max to history with Ella on their tail.
"Iggy, let go." Max tries to pull away, but he's clearly pissed, and Ella takes Max's other wrist and drags her forward too. Max doesn't like Ella touching her, and she wishes Iggy would tell her what was going on. She knows Maya's telling everyone that she's friends with benefits with Fang or something, but what can she do about it? It's not like it's true.
"Maya's been riling people up about you since yesterday. You can hold out against her, but not against a crowd like that." Iggy stops in front of her empty history room, and Max yanks her wrist away from Ella.
"I'll be fine. It's not true." Max grumbles, and Ella moves around Max to stand by Iggy.
"Either way, I'm going to stick by you. They'll leave you alone if I can get between you." Ella says, flicking a strand of wavy caramel hair away from her face. Max scowls, she's not friends with Ella, why should she care if Maya's headhunting her?
"Why? You don't know me." Max accuses, and Ella peers up at Iggy and back at Max, like she's looking for some kind of approval.
"Maya's been acting like a child. She needs to get over herself." Ella says, and Max's scowl lessens slightly. If Ella really wants to taint her name by hanging out with her, she's not going to stop her.
"Fine." Max snaps, and walks into the history room first, throwing her backpack down at the first desk in the back row. The kids file in as class edges nearer, and Ella slides into the chair next to her, putting her notebook on the desk. Max can practically feel the questioning glances on her when the class starts, but she keeps her head down. Who's idea was this, that Ella would stick to her and keep people away. If anything, it's doing to opposite, people are staring and probably starting to murmur amongst themselves about how Max is probably trying to infiltrate the popular group and overthrow her sister, or something. When the bell rings for her next class, Max is off like a shot, leaving Ella behind. Ella sighs and takes her time packing up her things. She has chemistry with Max next, but Iggy usually sits with her in that class, and she's happy to pass hostile Max off to Iggy.
Max skids into the chem room and up into her stool, breathing a little harder than normal. her teacher gives her a questioning glance, but Max waves it off. Iggy ambles lazily into the room with a group of boys and makes a beeline to where Max is perched. She glares at him when his friends follow him to her lab table. Iggy sits to her right, and three other boys crowd around the table.
"Hi Max!" One of them greets excitedly, and she offers a small confused smile. This is uncomfortable, does Iggy seriously have to do this? This is going overboard, she doesn't need to be body guarded. The teacher starts the class, but the four boys continue talking under their breath while the teacher gives instructions on today's lab.
"You're going to need goggles, you don't want to get Sodium Hydroxide on your skin or in your eyes." The teacher warns, and hands out the papers with the labs printed out on them. Is this really a good idea, giving a bunch of hormone filled teenagers with dangerous chemicals? No, it really isn't.
"Work on balancing the reactions, and show your work in the left column." Iggy jumps up to get beakers and the chemicals carefully carrying them back with a grin on his face. Iggy loves this kind of thing, and he's abnormally good at chemistry to add to that.
"It's supposed to turn pink when it's balanced." Iggy tells one of the boys, and the two of them start to add drops of NaOH and other acids to a laminated sheet and watching the colors change. Max inches closer when one boy she doesn't know motions her forward.
"Here, you can't equate without observing." He has a slight lisp, and she smiles shyly at him. She scans the sheet, and listens as Iggy counts out the drops of bases and acids. Something wet hits the back of her hair, and Max whips around. Her sister is laughing, and a girl she doesn't know is snickering next to her. Max flicks up her middle finger at her and leans down to pick up the soaked, wadded up paper towel from where it landed with a wet plop on the ground. Max carries it over to the garbage, and notices how odd it smells...not like water.
As soon as she drops the towel, her hand and scalp start burning, like really burning. Max clutches the back of her head, and squeals in pain. It's burning, it hurts.
"Maxine! Did you get NaOH on you?" Teacher asks, and hurriedly pushes her across the room and pushes her shoulders down so she's bending over and her head is under the chemical shower. The teacher pulls the chain, a wave of freezing cold water rushes over her head. The burning subsides, but it's deeper in her skin, and her hair falls away from her scalp where the paper towel hit her. The teacher's hand rubs a weak acid on the spot, and the burning slowly subsides. Tears well up behind her eyes, and Max struggles to breathe evenly. She's won't cry in front of Maya, she won't.
"Give me your hand." Her teacher commands, and the acid is rubbed into her stinging palm. Another freezing gush of water over her head and she's being stood back up, a towel being pulled over her head. Max clings it closed around her head and cries into the fabric.
"James, would you take Max to the nurse please?" The teacher asks with urgency, and hands are guiding Max towards the door. Two classes into the day, and she's been burned with acid and cried hysterically in front of her whole chemistry class. Man, she should have stayed home.
"That fucking bitch. She threw corrosive base at you! Fucking Sodium Hydroxide! Is she crazy!" Iggy curses the whole way to the nurse, keeping one hand on Max back to guide her. She's still sobbing into her towel, and Iggy pushes her down to sit on the couch and she leans forward to rest against her knees.
"She got hit with Sodium Hydroxide." Iggy tells the nurse, who clicks her tongue disapprovingly and stands from here she was sitting in her chair behind her desk. She peels away Max's towel, and rubs her shoulder soothingly.
"Let's see how you're doing under here." The nurse murmurs, carefully probing through Max's soaked hair to the burned spot at the back of her head. The hair around the area is goo, and the nurse carefully picks it away with gentle fingers. The skin is inflamed, but not broken or damaged badly.
"It's only a first degree burn, but I'll give you some cream that should neutralize any base still left." She murmurs, and leaves for a second to return with a little squeezy tube and a comb. The nurse combs Max's wet hair away from the burn and removes any fried hair from the site of the burn. In the corner, Iggy is boiling. Max isn't crying anymore, but her eyes are red and she's still been burned. He couldn't imagine any of his siblings doing this to him, but he knows it would hurt his feelings more than his skin.
The nurse combs her hair back into a smooth braid, and rubs the rest of the cream on Max's hands.
"Are you okay? You can go home if you want." The nurse murmurs, and Max sinks back into her mind. Should she go home? Should she let Maya drive her back into that hole when she was just starting to poke her head out?
"No, I've missed too much school already. Just give me a few minutes." The nurse moves away from her back to her computer at her desk, and Iggy comes to sit next to her on the couch. Max leans back and wipes at her face. She knows she's probably splotchy, and Iggy just rubs her arm and leaves her alone, than god. if he tried to hug her or touched her for any longer she probably would have melted down into a puddle of sad.
"I brought your backpacks." Ella enters and drops Iggys backpack to the ground with a thunk and places Maxs lighter one next to it. Max hangs her head, and Iggy offers Ella a small smile.
"Are you okay?" Ella asks, sitting gingerly on the ugly couch next to Max, and craning her neck to get a better view at the back of her head.
"I'm fine." Max says, and Iggy stands, and Max follows him. She's scared, but she needs to force herself to stay here, but she needs someone to hide behind, but Iggy's getting harder to hide behind with Ella around.
"I can't believe she did that. She talks shit, she's never done anything crazy like that." Iggy nods and Max slings her backpack over her backpack, trying to quench the sick feeling in her stomach. Ella sighs, frustrated and examines Max again, like she's looking for her to just dissolve.
"I tried to tell Mrs. Weaver, but she said she couldn't do anything if she didn't see it. If she get's away with it, I'm gonna tell Nick." Ella seethes as the three of them leave the office, Max safely sandwiched between them.
"You'll unleash a new hell if you tell him." Iggy warns, and Ella huffs and crosses her arms. Max frowns.
"What do you mean?" She asks, and Iggy tuggs Max out of the way of a kid pushing a computer cart at a run.
"If Fang knows Maya threw that at you, he's probably start collecting heads." Max's frown deepens. She doesn't know how she feels about that, but the memory of Fang's drunken confession and his barrage of attention and kindness creeps up from where she hid it. She smooths her hair and takes hold of Iggys backpack strap as the kids start flooding the halls after class let's out. They have break now for fifteen minutes, and she thinks she might pee, she's so freaked out. What else could possibly happen today? Okay, she can image a few ways.
"What class do you have next?" Iggy asks, and Max peers around.
"I have french." She replies, and he steers her in the direction of the french room. Ella has this class with her, and she's more okay with that now as she was this morning. The room is empty, and Max lets go of Iggy's backpack to go to her desk. Ella follows her and puts her bag at the next desk over, and the door slams open.
"Max!" Fang spots her, and walks with a purpose to where Max is standing. He shoves a chair out of his way and grabs her, crushing her to his chest and resting his chin on the top of her head. His breathing is shallow, and his arms feel like steel around her.
"Are you okay?" He asks her softly, and something in his voice makes her melt. She nods, not trusting her voice, and picks up her arms and wraps them around his waist. Something in her twists, and she can smell his skin, the flex of his arm against her shoulder.
"What happened?" He barks to Ella, his voice taking it's aggressive tone back. Ella chews on her lip and looks at Iggy for help.
"She got hit with Sodium Hydroxide." Iggy says, sounding like he's approaching a hostile animal, which he may or may not be. Iggy kicks the door shut and Fang moves his arm higher on Max's back, holding her firmly against his chest. She doesn't make any attempts at moving, she just nestles there, her warm breath on his sternum.
"And it just launched itself at her?" Fang all but yells, taking a threatening step towards Iggy, and Max flinches, tightening her arms around Fangs waist. Iggy holds up his hands, and Fang tries to reel himself back in. He's seeing red, and he puts his nose against her wet hair, inhaling her flowery scent. His stomach calms and he faces Iggy again.
"Tell me." Fang hisses, and Iggy sighs and tightens the straps on his backpack.
"Maya, Maya threw it." Fang lurches towards the door, but Max tightens her grip on him.
"We could tell them we're dating." That was what he suggested at the coffee shop, and when she mocked him. Now, holding onto him, with her stomach twisted into knots she's wishing she could have gone back to that coffee shop and told him she would.
"Don't. Don't give her the satisfaction of knowing she wound you up." Max whispers, and Fang's arm is back around her shoulders, and for a second, she revels in the fact that her shoulder is right at the height of his armpit, and how perfectly she fits there.
"No, she needs to know that she's crossed the line." And he's ripped his body out of her arms before she can cling back onto him.
"Fang!" She cries, but he's out the door with Iggy on his heels, and he doesn't turn back. Fang navigates the crowd of students like a knife, and with Iggy right on his heels. Lissa's fiery hair is in his line of sight, and he's going in her direction without a word. He grabs her bicep hard, and she turns to face him with a snarl, but it softens when she sees him.
"Oh, hi Nick." She says warily, seeing his expression.
"Where's Maya." He barks and Lissa blanches, looking anywhere but his face. Iggy catches up to Fang and puts a hand on his shoulder.
"Come on Fang, let go of her." Fangs fingers loosen around her arm, but he doesn't let go. Lissas eyes are wide, and she's really, really scared of Fang for the first time.
"I...I don't know." She stammers, and Fang shoves her shoulder away from him and is storming back down the hall.
"Are you okay?" Iggy asks Lissa, and waits for her to nod before he's chasing down Fang again. Fang knows where she could be, and makes his way down the hall as quickly as he can without running. Mayas group of friends have always had a bathroom that they claimed as their own. No one outside of her group would go in there, but Fang was on a rampage, and no sign with a woman in a skirt would keep him from telling her that she went too far. In a back hall under the stairs, Fang shoves past the womens bathroom door and glares at the five girls standing in front of the sinks.
"What are you doing in here? This is a women's bathroom." A pale blonde spits, but Fang has already spotted Maya, who's doing her best to hide behind a taller girl.
"You!" He hisses and shoves past the taller girl, shoving Maya sideways into the wall. She lets out a shriek before her head hits the wall, and her friends scream one of them latching onto Fangs right arm, but he shakes her off hard and shoves Mayas shoulders into the wall when she tries to escape.
"Nick, stop!" She screams, but he ignores her and leans in, his eyes narrow and burning. Maya's pushing against his hands to try and get away, but he's leaning his weight on her.
"You went too far." He growls, and Maya stills, frowning back.
"What are you talking about? I never did anything to you!" She hisses, and Fang practically snarls in her face.
"You threw sodium hydroxide at her, you burned her hair off, you made her cry." He growls, and Maya blanches. She didn't expect him to be mad like this. Having the chemicals and a clear aim at the back of Max's pretty blonde hair was almost too easy, but now she regrets it. She didn't want Fang to be mad at her, she just wanted Max to get hurt.
"She's your sister, and you treat her like that? You bitch!" He yells, and Iggy bursts through the bathroom door, tackling Fang away from Maya. As soon as Fang hits the ground, he lets out a roar and writhes under iggys weight, trying as hard as he can to get away.
"I'll kill you if you even think about hurting her again!" Fang screams, his voice echoing off the tiled walls. Maya sinks down to the floor, and cups a hand over her mouth to hide her mouth. She didn't want him to act like this, she wanted him to turn away from Max, to do anything to prove that he wasn't involved with her like that, but he's doing the opposite.
"Get off me! Don't go near her!" Brigid grabs Mayas arm and hauls her to her feet and out of the bathroom.
"Fang, snap out of it!" Iggy scolds, getting frustrated with his friends violent outburst.
"Stop!" Iggy drops his fist over Fangs cheekbone, and Fang almost instantly shuts up, just glaring up at Iggy and breathing hard.
"Stop, okay?" Iggy asks, quieter now. He did not like punching Fang, not one bit.
"I can't let Maya hurt her, I can't." His face softens, and he sinks his teeth into his lower lip.
"I can't."