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Fang

Physical pain could be ignored. Anybody could take their mind off of a throbbing headache or a broken arm. Even deep cuts and bullet wounds become nothing more than a distant fly, buzzing just close enough for you to hear their annoying sound. But emotional pain- nothing could get your mind off of that.

I tried to focus on my bedroom for a long time. All the grooves in the walls, the cracks in the ceiling, the stains on my comforter, but nothing could completely silence the screams of sorrow in my heart.

I've never been an overly emotional guy. There's only two things in this world I love and that's my mother and Max. Up until a couple months ago at least. Then a third love wiggled its way into my heart, and I was left thinking about a baby Fang or Max crawling around the confines of a warm house.

In fact, I had gotten so used to the idea of being a dad I had even taken it upon myself to start the training. Whenever Max was sleeping, or out of the room for a few hours I looked up countless articles about how being a parent actually works.

At one point the fear of being a horrible dad had been completely squashed by the excitement of the experience, but none of that mattered anymore. The few months I had of thinking I was going to have a son or daughter was nothing more than a memory I had to get rid of. Nothing more than a memory I couldn't get rid of.

It was stupid to let an unborn baby catch hold of my feelings as quick as it did, but I had let my guard down once I convinced Max to keep him or her. I figured if we made it through the first month we could make it through the last. Apparently I was wrong.

And now the only person I could blame for my shattered heart was myself. The only person I could blame for the endless stream of silent tears that fell down my face was me. It was all my fault; even if I hadn't been the one who shot Max.

Three exhausted knocks rumbled off the wooden door just twelve feet in front of me so suddenly I choked on my own sob. "Hey, can I come in?" Max asked, her voice flowing into my ears like ripped velvet.

"No," I mumbled, ashamed of the tears. This shouldn't hurt me. I technically hadn't lost anything but my own deluded thoughts.

"Fang, please let me in. I want to help you-"

"You can't," I snapped viciously, tensing up instinctively before relaxing and letting out a sigh. "I'm sorry, I'm just… I don't know. Just please, let me be alone."

"It hurts me too. I think that loss you were talking about that I've never felt? I feel it now. I don't need your shoulder to cry on though, Fang. I don't want to come in to make you feel worse, I just want to…" Max's voice faded off for a second, and I cracked a small smile knowing she was looking around to make sure no one would hear what she was about to say next. "well, to hug you, and let you know that I'm okay, so you should be okay, okay?"

"Well, I guess since you obviously can't stand being away from me for longer than an hour then yeah, you can come in," I spoke up, trying to lighten my voice, to sound cheery, but my voice cracked and my smile dropped.

Hastily, I wiped my tears away as Max walked into the room, looking just as exhausted as I did, if not more. "Hey," she whispered, walking over to my side of the bed, where I sat, and crawling into my lap.

"Hey," I spoke into her ear, resting my chin on her shoulder. It was nice to just feel my pain in silence for the next few minutes, knowing that Max was here empathizing with me. If I really wanted to, I could talk about it and she would nod her head in agreement and a few months from now we'd joke about the time something tragic happened and we couldn't even remember what it was.

"Are we going to tell Iggy and Ari what happened?" I asked quietly, not bothering to mention Lupo since she had basically shut down.

"No. I don't want their pity. Let's just keep it between us, okay?" Max asked meekly and I nodded once.

"How are we going to keep it a secret though? I mean, seven months from now when a baby doesn't pop out- won't that be suspicious?" I asked, trying to throw some effort into a joke. Neither of us laughed.

"When it gets closer I'll just tell them I decided I didn't want it- him or her." Max shrugged effortlessly, as if this plausible story would make all of our troubles disappear.

"But that's not true," I pointed out, looking at her.

"You know that, and I know that, but they don't have to." Max said and I agreed, deciding it was better like this. We needed to both move on, we couldn't stay hung up on this forever.

"I'm a horrible person?" Max asked suddenly after a few moments of silence and I blinked in surprise, looking into her beautiful brown eyes.

"What?" I asked, stunned just by the prospect of Max being described as 'horrible'.

"Why am I not shutting down like Lupo? Why am I not hiding from civilization like Ari? Why haven't I developed a tick like Iggy? Even you have been suffering worse than me and I'm the one who was carrying the thing!" Max exclaimed, before resting her head on my chest with a heavy sigh.

"We all react differently to bad situations. Some of us cry, some of us hide, some of us shut down. You react by learning from it and moving on, I think. You don't need to cry, or isolate yourself, you just need to learn a lesson."

"I don't know what lesson I learned," Max muttered crossing her arms over her chest.

"I think you know exactly what you learned. You just don't want to admit it," I mumbled and kissed her forehead. "We should head down stairs and let everyone know we're back now," I told her and Max nodded.

"So let me get this straight, you were about to escape from the police when Mr. Tall, Dark, and Stupid tripped over his own shoelace?" Iggy asked and Max nodded, holding a small smile on her face with great effort.

"And then when the cops got him you went back?" Ari asked in bewilderment. "You should have just left him to the Big House."

"Eh, he's okay company. I thought I'd let him stick around a little longer- at least until he runs out of jokes." Max punched my shoulder lightly and I plastered an easy smirk to my face.

"Which will never happen," I felt compelled to add in before Max continued.

"So we're in the cop car right? And Mr. Tall, Dark, and Stupid-"

"Is that my new name or something?" I asked, interrupting the story.

"Yes!" Max, Ari, and Iggy snapped simultaneously. Then the two other guys turned their full attention back to Max.

"Actually did something smart," she continued.

"Gasp!" Iggy shouted.

"That's bull," Ari added. A light laugh left Max's lips as she shook her head.

"No, I'm serious. He got his hands in front of him- even in the cuffs. So I followed suit and when the car stopped and Officer Donut-Face got out, we made a run for it."

"So you made it out? Then why'd it take you three days to get back? We were about to get Nudge to activate the chips,"

"Fang got his East and West confused and we headed the wrong way for an entire day and didn't realize it till we got to Eastvine."

"You made it all the way to the town two towns over? Wow, you really got a good sense of direction there, don't you, Kid?" Ari spoke up sarcastically. I glanced at Max, realizing she was leaving out everything else that had happened. From the run in with Jeb to the fact I still had a bullet wound in my chest.

"Guess it went away with my wings," I spoke up casually even though it hadn't. I knew exactly what way was East, and what way was West. I didn't even have to have my eyes open to tell somebody what direction to head in to get to somewhere. But I had to go along with Max's story in order to keep everything a secret. So I went with it.

"Once we got there all I had to do is find out where we were and I lead us back." Max grinned at me, although the light didn't quite reach her eyes and turned back to Iggy. "So, do the brave criminals get some breakfast?"

"Well really it's more of a brunch because-"

"Food. Now." Ari interrupted and Iggy rolled his eyes.

"Yes, Dear," he hissed at Ari before getting up to go make whatever it is you served at 'brunch'.

"Dear? Did something happen in the last few days that I'm missing?" Max asked jokingly, cocking an eyebrow.

Ari scowled at her and muttered something about going back to his room before storming out of view.

"What burnt his breakfast?" I asked.

"He's been kinda tense since you skipped out on us for three days. He probably just needs to get over it," Iggy suggested which would have been plausible to me, but Max wasn't buying it.

"Are you sure there's nothing else bugging him?"

"Well he tried to talk to Lupo. And failed. I haven't seen her show that much emotion since we got her back. Then again it was just a very intimidating glare but still, it was something. I don't even know what he said either, he just stormed out of the room with Lupo snarling at him on his way out."

"I swear your love triangle is more annoying than Twilight," Max joked and Iggy turned on her with a butter knife in his hand.

"There is no triangle. It is a line connected to two dots. And then way a million miles away there's 'hopeless kicked puppy' island that's a tiny dot nobody bothers to find. But in no way is it even close to a triangle," Iggy explained sharply and I coughed to hide my laugh.

"And what's so funny Mr. Stupid?" Iggy asked.

"Really? Mr. Stupid?" I asked.

"I shortened it," Iggy deadpanned.

"Well, you're just really defensive. It's hilarious really," I answered.

"If Dylan was around you'd be defensive too- or Sam. Sam's got is even worse than Dylan," Iggy added.

"What? Isn't Sam the FBI guy?" I asked, turning to Max.

"Yeah, we went out for about a month. I had to break up with him though because Nudge fell in love with him and I honor our code."

"You and Nudge have a code?" I asked, bewildered.

"Duh, don't all best friends? Anyways, Dylan is a guy I dated for about two weeks because he pulled the 'Love At First Sight' card. It was fun sure, but he lacks any and all commitment. But he's supposedly dating my old friend Lissa now so I guess he fixed that issue."

"No, Nudge said they broke up yesterday because he cheated," Iggy chimed up and I turned to him.

"How are you talking to Nudge?" Max asked and I began to feel confusion drain into my system at the question. Wasn't the answer obvious?

"Don't you have like, technology you use to talk to her?" I asked, realizing I had been asking a lot of questions today. Apparently there was still a lot I didn't know.

"I do, and Ari does, but nobody else does,"

"Well, it's eleven now so you should find the answer to that question in another hour or so," Iggy answered and I watched the biggest smile I had ever seen spread across Max's face.

"What? What happens at twelve?" I demanded, feeling utterly and completely left out of the loop. Max turned to me, the joy finally reaching her dark brown eyes.

"Nudge wakes up."

Who's ready to get a taste of the Nudgeinator?

QOTC:

So how long do you think Max can hide her secret?

Soar on

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