TWELVE

Since I'm not totally detached from reality, I was fully aware that I looked sketchy enough to be stopped by a member of law enforcement as I pounded down the street with my face hidden below my ballcap. I was praying that my hidden ponytail and broad shoulders would at least pose a question as to my gender in terms of anonymity, and that my defeated posture was enough to convince someone I didn't need to be frisked.

Not exactly a bulletproof plan, but I've had worse.

Luck wasn't really on my side these days, so I kept to the winding walking path that cut through one of the many parks in the city. I found a bench and sat with my head in my hands, trying to figure out not only what the hell our next step would be, but how on earth we'd ever take it without Iggy. Out of the five of them, he's the one who's always driven me the craziest. His quick wit and sarcastic tongue spared no one, especially not me. But when it came down to it, he always stood by me.

He won't actually leave, I tried to convince myself. And if he does, he won't be able to stay away for long.

I almost laughed in spite of myself. Three years of existential dread and emotional reconstruction since the fall of Vector, and I still couldn't formulate a pep talk to save anyone's life, least of all my own.

Despite my incredibly unwelcoming body language, a stranger had the audacity to perch on the edge of the bench next to me as they finished up a phone call that I chose not to bother listening to. I focused on my boots, committed to not looking up, until red alarm bells started blaring in my brain as the ever-dreaded déjà vu reared its ugly head.

Because then I did look up. And when I did, I found myself staring directly at the stranger's face—which was a not-so-stranger's face. In fact, it was a face that I knew well. Not only that, but it was a face that I had kissed.

I couldn't tell you who was more shocked, but based on the look he gave me, it honestly might've been him.

"Max?"

"Sam?"

Ding ding ding! Round one goes to anyone but Max, because she has apparently lost all ties to the real world and has fallen deep into the pits of moronhood.

Stupid! Stupid! Why didn't you just walk away, you idiot?

We stared at each other for a comically long moment. Yep, it was him, for sure. Taller, broader, and tanner, but Sam Wright all the same.

Under different circumstances, a parallel universe, maybe, this reunion would've been dramatically different. Pleasant, even. OMG! How ya been? Been a while, huh? Young love. What a time. Great ice cream, though.

The bigger issue here was that the last time I'd seen Sam, I had been running through the halls of our former high school with half of the teaching staff aiming tasers at me. I'd looked back at him once, thought that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance he was an Eraser, and never thought about him again.

Well, actually, the bigger bigger issue here was that right here, right now, Sam was ogling at me with the kind of look you'd only ever give somebody if you'd recently seen their face on the America's Most Wanted special on Dateline.

Shit.

I did the only thing I could think of: I grabbed Sam's hand, dragged him off the path into a thick patch of trees nearby, and held him against a trunk by the neck with my forearm.

"You've seen the poster" was the first thing out of my mouth, because there was literally no point in beating around the bush.

"If you don't let me go, I'm going to scream," he said in warning, looking panickedly around him.

Well, that wasn't ideal.

"Wait!" I wrapped my hand around his mouth. "Don't give me a reason to punch you so hard that you forget this."

His eyes went wide in his face. I could tell he didn't trust me as far as he could throw me.

I had no idea what to say or do. Running into Sam had just wedged an astronomical wrench into our plan. He couldn't unsee me, and he obviously knew some messed up crap had gone on five years ago, so the only true way to fix this problem would be to convince him to be on our side and trust him implicitly (inconceivable), or to kill him (inconvenient).

Great.

I had about a thousand questions, but the first one that burst out of me without premeditation was, "What are you doinghere?"

My brain registered the American University sweatshirt and LL Bean backpack clearly crammed with books, then once again considered the odds that I would run into one of the only people on the planet that would likely recognize me on sight. I pulled my hand back from his mouth. He immediately opened it, preparing to yell, so I wrapped it back around.

"Give me sixty seconds," I begged. Then I took a deep breath and got ready to dig myself into an even deeper hole with Fang.

"That FBI poster is—they're wrong. The FBI has got it all wrong," I said in a pleading voice I infrequently used. Sam looked at me uneasily. "Please. You have to believe me. I have literally no idea what else I can say to convince you except for that."

I realized it was difficult to convince someone to be nice to you while your hand was wrapped around their face, so I let go, praying I wouldn't have to blackmail or harm him to keep him from screaming at the top of his lungs for help.

He was sucking in deep breaths of air, looking like he was in the throes of a horror film. Maybe, in his eyes, he was.

"I'm begging you," I pleaded. "Begging you. Please. I'm not a bad guy—the FBI has this totally backwards, I'm telling you."

"Are you going to kill me?"

"What?" I snapped, totally thrown off by this wildly off-center question. "Don't be stupid."

"Well Jesus, Max, I don't know! Let's take a look at the situation here! A goddamn criminal just came out of nowhere and plowed me into a tree, and it sure doesn't seem like you're about to ask me out for coffee!"

"Keep your voice down," I hissed, highly cognizant of the fact that I was very much not in the position to be making such a demand but hoping he'd comply anyway."I am not a criminal. Listen to me: the government is corrupt—there are things they need to cover up, things like—my family," I stuttered. "Things with my family."

"What things?"

"I… can't tell you," I breathed. "But you have to believe me."

Both of us surely had an extensive list of places we'd rather be. I took a moment to appreciate how outrageously fucking bonkers this moment was, although it was truly just one fucking bonkers drop in the colossal fucking bonkers ocean that was my life.

"'The government is corrupt?'" he parroted slowly, looking—of all things—offended. "Seriously? You expect me to buy that?"

I blinked. Of all the things we were about to discuss, this seemed like the least outrageous.

"Are you joking? Look at who's in office now! Our president is a reality television star!"

He opened his mouth and then shut it, reconsidering. Slowly, I watched his body language open up a bit more, maybe as he connected the woman standing in front of him to the high school freshman in the cafeteria what felt like a thousand lifetimes ago. His eyes lost the deer-in-headlights look and took on a scrutinizing, questioning gaze, and like that, he wasn't terrified anymore—like the true-blue, all-American undergrad he was, he was curious.

"Alright. Okay. But that offers me zero explanation as to why they have you on a Wanted poster. They don't exactly just put anybody on those, Max." His eyes widened and he leaned close to me, lowering his voice. "Were you involved with Epstein?"

"Was I—what? No!" I felt all the patience I had left shriveling up and dying right there between us. "I was not—no."

A beat.

"That really feels like something someone involved with Epstein would sa—"

"It was not Epstein, Sam!" I racked my mind feebly. "There was a… group of people. A, um… a company."

Well, that train of thought ran for about four seconds before stalling out and dying in front of me. Fang's face, enraged over Jamie, flashed behind my eyelids. What could I get away with saying to Sam without totally screwing us even more but still getting my point across?

Sam was looking at me like, Okay, jackass, go on. "A company," he repeated dully.

"Of… scientists, let's say."

"Of scientists." Duller.

"And they did… illegal experimenting. On me and my siblings." I swallowed a lump in my throat, imagining all the creative ways Fang could decapitate me over this.

"Okay."

"It was super illegal. All of it.

"Yes, you mentioned that," he said impatiently.

"The… company is gone now. I mean—we think. But now the FBI is after us."

There was a long, excruciating pause.

"...You're sure you're not involved with—?"

"I am not involved with Epstein!"

"Okay, okay, okay!" He looked nervously around us. "Why am I still standing here?"

"Please," I said again. Man, was I getting really freaking sick of the sound of my own voice begging.

"Okay. Alright. But—you lived with Anne Walker. You have to understand I'm a little skeptical if you're trying to tell me you lived with an FBI agent and they never got to the bottom of it?"

With her name came yet another graphic reminder that the last time I'd seen Anne, a bullet had lodged itself into her frontal lobe.

"Because we think Anne was in on it somehow."

"You think Anne was—you've got to be kidding me."

"Yeah, Sam. This is all one big, elaborate—"

"Look. I—I want to believe you—"

"Kinda feel like you're lying—"

"—but my sister works for CNN and has been trying to crack this case for years."

And there it was: Little Boy falling like a stone on Hiroshima.

Well, that certainly wasn't on my Small Talk with Sam bingo card. I cursed, cursed, and cursed again. Any chance of keeping this encounter quiet and insignificant was sliding through my fingers like sand.

"Your sister's been investigating this for years?"

"Yeah," Sam said, like it was the most casual thing in the world. "You're in DC. Everybody's either politics, military, or media."

"Well, that changes things, doesn't it," I said, sighing. It wasn't a question.

"It was her first job out of college. She's way at the bottom of the totem pole, so nailing you down would be a dream come true for her."

"No!" I shouted, forgetting I was in a thicket of bushes with a college student backed against a tree. I softened my voice to a whisper. "No, no, no. You can't tell her. No—listen. You don't understand," I said. "I haven't done anything wrong." Immediately, I considered all of the things that I had, indeed, done wrong. "Well—nothing that I didn't have to do."

"She's my sister, Max."

"I have sisters too, Sam! Two of them! And three brothers! And I'm trying to keep us all from getting shoved back into dog crates so we can be science experiments for the rest of our lives!"

Well, there it was. I clamped my mouth shut and bit my tongue hard, trying not to totally lose my shit.

Sam's gaze was measured as he digested that one, but he chose not to comment. Instead, he said, "My sister is a good person. She wouldn't be working this case if there wasn't a good reason."

I had to physically bite my tongue to coo at him like the naïve little baby bird he was.

"What if they're not telling her everything? What then?" I suggested. "Do you actually think journalists and government officials are transparent? Again, I implore you to take a look at the Capitol. If she's a good person, then she's in the minority, and she's easy to manipulate!"

Sam's hands were at his temples. He no longer looked afraid of me—instead, he looked impatient.

Oh, sorry, sweetheart, I wanted to snarl. Am I interrupting your study time for History 101?

"You realize how far-fetched this sounds, right?"

"Absolutely. My entire life has been far-fetched," I said bitterly.

"So now what?" He raked a hand through his already messy hair. "I just go about my life like this never happened? Ignore the fact that I just stumbled upon a wanted fugitive?"

"I'm not a fugitive. I'm a victim. And I don't know what happens now." I paused, swallowed every iota of pride in my body, and looked up at him desperately. "You could help us."

"Help you," he said vacantly. "I could help out a criminal."

"Yeah," I said numbly back. "Or you can send the dogs after me. And you can live with the fact that because of you, maybe I'll never live freely again. And neither will any of my siblings. Including my eleven-year-old sister who can barely function from the PTSD she has from all the torture and misery they put her through."

"Ariel?" Sam said, looking shocked.

"Angel," I said back. "Her real name is Angel."

Sam found a tree stump and sat on it, staring at the fallen leaves intently.

"Jesus, Max," he mumbled.

I squinted into the sunlight, trying to figure out what little nugget of information the Universe was offering me by way of this run-in with Sam. Yeah, I know—the Universe, Max?—but since I've given up on all things religion and luck, I've tried to give a little more weight to the nuances of coincidence to see where it'll get me.

Not very far, I'm sure you've noticed.

The sunlight glinted off Sam's hazel eyes as he studied the forest around him. He looked deeply contemplative, like he wanted to help me. And that was exactly the person I remembered from all those years ago—I'd only known him for a short time, but Sam had made it clear that he was just simply a good guy.

"Why did you try to get me to run into that classroom with you?" I asked.

He blinked. "What?"

"The day we left, you tried to get us to go into that classroom. When we were running out of there."

"…Because about twenty teachers were trying to tase you?" he said dumbly. "I mean, I didn't really get what was going on, but I didn't want to see you get tased."

Okay, new angle. "What happened after all of that?"

"What do you mean?"

"After that day. When everything went to hell in a handbasket."

"Nothing, I guess," he said. His facial expression supported his mundane answer. I still didn't believe it.

"Nothing?"

"We were re-assigned to different schools for the rest of the year. There was an enormous investigation, obviously," he said, brushing some of his chestnut-colored fringe from his eyes boyishly. "It turned out that, like, half the teachers were involved with some underground group. We never learned anything more than that. Just kind of assumed it had to do with you, since you never showed up again. Anne was under the magnifying glass for a while over it. They launched a huge internal investigation. There were rumors she did jail time, but everybody talks around here, so I think it's a bunch of bullshit."

"I bet she did do jail time. She was in on it, Sam, I'm telling you. She must've had some serious power in that branch of the FBI, because they kept this all hush-hush, and we think she was working with them."

"With who?"

"With V—" I cut myself off, not sure how much I should disclose.

Screw it.

"With Vector." Sam stared at me blankly. "It's… a long story. A long, miserable, fucked up story."

We stared at each other for a minute. I considered how positively freaking terrible I felt. It seemed like everyone knew about us, everyone had their eyes peeled for us. Jamie knew we had wings, and Fang was right—he could make promises left, right, and sideways, but we could never possibly know he wouldn't open his mouth. And now Sam, who knew that we were persons of interest to the FBI, and whose sister had been working our case.

"You look different," Sam said quietly, breaking the silence.

I was startled into a laugh. "I do?"

"Way different. You look, I dunno. More grown up, I guess. Mature." I cringed at what this implied, but then considered all the ways he looked more mature: his baby face was gone, and he'd grown into those gangly limbs of his. I was pretty sure I'd lost some of the roundness to my own face and now had the figure of a woman instead of, you know, a two-by-four.

"Plus the hair, obviously. Pretty sure you used to be blonde."

"Different enough that maybe someone won't recognize me from that photo?"

"Yeah, for sure."

"Then how did you recognize me?"

"The eyes, I guess." He blushed and looked at his feet.

"My eyes?"

"Yeah. I remember them. You know. Brown."

"Brown," I deadpanned back.

"Yeah. Light brown. Like a latte."

"Like a latte."

"Listen," he said tightly, looking embarrassed. "Say I buy into all this shit. Side with you instead of the federal government. You mentioned that I could help you."

"Yes," I said eagerly.

"How, exactly?"

I considered something. "What's your sister's name?"

The post-it in my pocket was threatening to burn a hole through it as I made my way back to the motel. Sam had given me his sister's name, contact info, and office location. He also gave me his own phone number and a really convincing scout's honor that he wouldn't rat us out.

Yet.

"I can't sit on this forever, Max," he'd said before we'd parted. "I have a life, you know. I don't want to get caught in the crossfire with this, and nothing around here stays a secret forever."

I'd almost laughed at that but nodded instead.

"Give me some time. Please. I promise you, I'm trying to make this right. But we have a lives, too. Lives that I'm desperately trying to save."

Now came the part where I figured out how to make good on literallyany of those promises.

"Nice disguise," came a familiar voice from behind me.

I almost tripped, but one of Fang's hands shot out and grabbed my shoulder to right me. His grip was a little too tight, his words a little too clipped. I'd pissed him off. Again.

"Do whatever you want," I said miserably. "Yell, scream, silent treatment. I'm not making any friends these days and I'm too tired to care."

He said nothing.

"I didn't tell him about the wings, FYI," I said tightly. "You're welcome."

We walked side-by-side in silence for a while.

"He's still 'stuck to you like glue,' huh?" he said finally. I whipped around.

"I know you're pissed, okay? I get it. Quit beating around the bush. I went for a walk—a totally innocent walk, I might add—and ran into him. Stroke of terrible luck, I thought. Well, guess what?"

He didn't take the bait but was clearly curious. I pulled the note from my pocket and handed it to him wordlessly.

"Who's Sarah Wright?"

"Sam's sister."

He skimmed the note, no doubt taking in the office address and number, and looked at me.

"She's FBI?"

"No. CNN. But she's been working with the FBI on the Vector case since they opened it. Looking for her big break," I added. I could practically see the circuits shorting out in his head as he tried to make sense of the information I was giving him. "She's young, super new, and not corrupt yet. Or so he says."

"So we're just supposed to stroll on up and introduce ourselves?"

"I don't know, Fang. This all just happened. I'd appreciate a minute to process."

I couldn't read the look on his face, but To his credit, he backed off.

When we were a block from the motel, he stopped and took my hands in his own. I tried to dodge his eye contact without luck: his gaze was piercing.

He looked like he had about a thousand things he wanted to say, a million arguments he wanted to have, endless discussions to put forth. But instead, he took my face in both of his hands and pulled me so close that our foreheads were touching.

"I love you," he said simply. "You know that, right?"

"Yeah," I muttered miserably. One corner of his mouth turned up in a half-smile.

"And so do they. All of them. Even the bonehead."

My heart gave an unforgiving squeeze.

"Yeah, but he left."

"He's just taking a breather."

"Side-stepping," I warned.

"He'll be back, Max. Haven't you learned that yet? They all always come back."

"Did he say that?" I asked, voice small, trying to hide any shred of hope. It was futile.

Fang paused before answering. "No," he admitted. "But he didn't have to."

It was another thing we could argue about for months, so I let it go. No point in twisting the knife further. Instead, I let him lead me back to the motel, his hands warm and strong, the beacon in a storm I sensed was only going to get worse before it got better.

Over the past few years, I've done a lot of work with learning my limits. So instead of doing that endearing leaping-without-looking thing I used to do all the time, instead, I employed my undeniably successful method of processing abrupt and potentially life-altering decisions and the changes that might accompany them.

And what is that method, you ask?

Depression napping.

I know, I know. What about the subway tunnels of New York, Max? Or, What about breaking into the School, Max? There was no time for depression napping then!

That's because there was no time for depression then, kids. But boy, did I seem to have all the time in the world for it now.

Really, though, we were all exhausted from our recent days of travel—we hadn't flown that much in ages. And, really really, even though I wouldn't admit it out loud: I was still desperately hoping the keycard slot would beep, the door would open, and Iggy would burst in, begging for forgiveness.

Well, I wasn't holding my breath too much for that very last part, but I was going to take what I could get.

I was in the middle of an incredibly out-of-character good dream when Gazzy came plowing through the door.

"Max," he breathed, "you're gonna wanna see this."

I followed him hurriedly into the living space, where Nudge and Fang were staring at the television. Nudge was slack-jawed and Fang was unmoving, every muscle in his body rigid. When eyes caught the screen, I gasped and stagger-stepped so dramatically that Nudge grabbed my arm to steady me.

REAL-LIFE ICARUS: Winged man says he's done running, was the headline.

No.

"He fucking didn't," I breathed.

"He sure did," Fang growled back.

It wasn't live, and it certainly wasn't shot on an actual camera: the video looked like it had been taken on selfie-mode on an iPhone propped up against something. But there, strawberry-blonde roots and all, stood Iggy, wings relaxed through the slits of his sweatshirt, grinning like he'd spent every minute of his life on center stage. Sam's sister stood across from him. It was impossible to tell where they were. Outside, somewhere shaded, but the sun was setting. I looked out at the sky through the grubby windows—the sun had set entirely. It was just after 8PM.

"I went into the lobby to get hot chocolate, and there were all these people crowded around the TV, so I pushed through, trying to see what was going on, and I thought it was just another mass shooting or whatever because, y'know, I don't think we've had one of those in a couple of days so we were due for sure, but then I saw this and I panicked and I ran back here," Gazzy said in one breath. His eyes darted from me, to Fang, and then back to the screen.

I'm not sure what a normal response to this situation would've been. I don't know that there's any sort of precedent. Bird boy-brother runs off, enraged, after the mere suggestion of exposure, only to do the exactly that? Gazzy's run on explanation bounced around the room, but I could only hear one thing in my own head:

Traitor.

I forced down the bile that was threatening to come up, stuffed down the dread, and sent the emotional pain—the crippling, astonishing, incessant pain—to voicemail. The message box had to be full.

Okay, don't jump to conclusions, I told myself, trying not to panic. There's no way. He wouldn't. This is Iggy.

"What do you want to say to the viewers at home?" Sarah was asking.

"I have so much I want to say. So much, Sarah. Truly. But this is all you're getting for now!" Iggy said playfully. Next to me, Fang made a noise of disgust.

"What a tease!" Sarah said with the kind of obnoxious squeal you'd only ever hear on cable news.

Iggy was positively eating it up. "Don't worry, America—I'll be back! Next week, same time, same place! If you don't see me, you'd better start to worry, because I'm good on my word." He winked. "Sarah'll be waiting, won't you, Sarah?"

"That I will, Icarus," she said with a grin.

"Please," he said with a dramatic flick of his wrist. "Call me Iggy. And remember, America: I'll see you next Tuesday!"

In any other world but our own, if my red headed, doofus, moron little brother went on the news and said something like, See you next Tuesday! with that twinkle in his eye, I would've laughed. And laughed, and laughed. It was objectively funny.

But in this world, it wasn't. It couldn't be. And this world had just been split in two: Before and After.

In Before, we'd somehow succeeded in doing the most important thing that had been drilled into us from childhood: stay hidden. If people found out about us, it was dangerous. Dangerous for the School. Dangerous for us. Nobody could be trusted.

And now it was After. And in After, my future, however long or short, was spread in front of me like a big, giant, looming question mark. A thick, impenetrable fog that, at this exact moment, was threatening to suffocate me.

And, oh—Alexandra," he added, looking through the camera somehow directly into my eyes. "I'll be home soon. Sit tight, will you?"

An hour later, I had nearly paced a hole through the carpet, thinking of all the creative ways I could absolutely fucking kill Iggy.

A rattling noise, loud and jarring, came from the hotel window, followed by a banging. Nudge shrieked. Fang leapt up and cocked his arm back to throw a punch through the glass when I smelled him:

"Oh, don't worry, everyone!" My voice was thick with sarcasm and rage. "It's just real-life Icarus!"

Fang threw the window open, looking ready to commit homicide, but before anyone could say or do anything, Iggy swung into the room and started talking at a speed that rivaled Nudge.

"Nobody say anything," was what he opened with, and I was too startled to argue.

"Okay. So I left, I was walking around, absolutely fucking fuming, right? Yes," he said to me, sending my fury, "I know I'm a jackass, but just listen, okay? So I was walking around all pissed off, and then I heard Max leave. I got nervous because I was afraid she was gonna go do something stupid. No offense, Max. So I hung back a bit and heard her whole conversation with Sam. He mentioned his sister worked for the news. And then I realized, that's the answer."

Nudge looked nervous, Gazzy looked torn. Fang was listening patiently, but his arms were crossed tightly over his chest.

Props to them for being calm, truly. But I was at an eleven.

"Blowing our entire cover on national news was the answer?" I shrieked.

"Yes!"

"What?" said Gazzy.

"You'd better start explaining," I spat.

"Think about it!" Iggy yelled, waving his arms. "Everybody knows about me now! I told Sarah on national news that I'd be back for another interview next week! If I go missing, or if word gets out that the government has me in a fucking cage, what's going to happen?"

I thought back to a week ago—Jesus Christ, less than one week ago—when we had cable, thought of all the news coverage, all the televised court cases, all the rumors and gossip and exposure of injustice. And then I understood that he was right.

Nudge, who'd spent a lot of time glued to the aforementioned cable, was hopping excitedly from foot to foot. "The media would crucify them!"

"Iggy, you're a genius," I breathed.

"I'm confused!" Gazzy moaned.

Fang's face was unconvinced. I could tell he hadn't quite figured out where he landed on this, but I think it was more because he hadn't had a say in it more than anything. In a world full of worst-case scenarios, this was the best-worst-case scenario. And Fang, the cleverest, most logical, most innately intelligent of us all, couldn't deny it.

This was… good. This was smart. Would it kick off an even bigger search for us? Sure. But what would they even be able to do if they got us? This cracked open a whole world of possibilities that none of us had ever considered.

"So the news knows we exist," Gazzy said carefully, trying to process. "Which means the government knows we exist. And this is a good thing…?" He looked to me for confirmation.

"Yeah, Gazzy. I think so."

"Well, the news knows I exist," corrected Iggy. "I wasn't about to start yanking you guys out of the mutant-freak-closet; that's your call, not mine. I just blew any hope for anonymity for myself out of the water." He shrugged. "Worth it."

"So now what do we do?" Nudge asked. She looked ready to pop with excitement. "Can we go on The Today Show? Or The Kelly Clarkson Show? Can we guest star on Grey's? Ugh, I wish they hadn't killed Derek off. I mean, I know it was years ago, but still—"

"Okay, let's slow down for a second," I said. I was grasping for reality myself, trying to figure out exactly where this left us.

Nudge was right—if Iggy didn't show up for his next interview, there would be an awful lot of questions being thrown around—but Iggy was right, too, in saying that his days of trying to be inconspicuous were long gone. It'd be a small miracle if we managed to keep him out of the tabloids for the next week, let alone the rest of our lives.

A trade-off, then. We could handle a trade-off.

"You sure you made it back here without an audience?" Fang asked, pulling back one of the curtains.

"I'm not a moron," said Iggy, rolling his eyes momentarily before freezing in place. "Well, actually—I might be. Uh, where's Angel?"

I'd completely forgotten. "Next door. You've got some serious apologizing to do."

I didn't need to say it and he didn't need to hear it. His face turned purple and he mumbled an agreement of some sort before shuffling through the door with eerie accuracy and closing it behind him.

Nudge and Gazzy started chattering happily. I clicked the TV on and sank into the couch, flipping through the new channels to see the same footage of Iggy totally outing us to the world.

"Why does this feel so wrong?" Fang asked, coming up behind me. I didn't turn to look at him, but I could hear the frown in his tone as he ran his hand down my back. His thumb found the scar tissue from my old bullet wounds, working it like Play-Doh in his hand. "Objectively, it seems right, but I feel..."

"I know what you mean. But I think…" I paused, reconsidered. Took a deep breath. Leaned further into his touch. "I think it's time for us to go to the FBI."

He hummed. "We can hear what they have to say," he said, "but I'm not making any promises."

I groaned lowly as he worked out a kink I hadn't even known had been there. "At least tell me you'll play nice."

"Like I said." He leaned forward, pressing his front flush to my back. I shivered despite the stuffy heat of the room. His breath tickled my ear as he spoke. "No promises."

A/N: I've done some editing to canon here, and for that I sincerely apologize. In SOF, when Max and the gang escape the school, the teaching staff and students see them fly away. Had to undo that for the sake of seriously what the fuck how on earth would they ever even have maintained even remotely some level of anonymity if that ever happened. It was hard enough to make even some of that part of the plot make sense.

I'm currently listening to the audiobooks; I just finished TAE and have moved on to SOF. Man, there's a lot of weird, nonspecific, open-ended shit going on here, huh? With Like Lions and this story, I'm hoping to tie up what I envision as my own personal canon in a nice little bow.

I also realized that I have likely been pronouncing "the Gasman" incorrectly in my head for the last almost twenty years (!!!! lmao I am one old mf-er) of enjoying these books. I have always said "the GAZ-min" rather than the "GAS-MAN" or even "GAS-min." Likely because I can't get past what a dumb fucking choice it was to name him that in the first place.

Additionally, I'm in the process of going back and doing some editing to Like Lions—nothing crazy, mostly grammar / phrasing things. I won't be making any big plot changes since that ship has obviously sailed, but I am trying to clean up the last third / quarter of that story, since I'm pretty unhappy with it.

Lastly: I'm also in the process of fine-tuning parts of this story that I already had written as newer, better ideas come to me, so bear with me. The scene with Sam has been written for over a year (literally), but it needed some sprucing up now that I've actually got a handle on some of the finer details. A lot of these upcoming chapters are filler / informational. I know it's dragging a bit but hang on.

Thanks to the reviewers. If you're reading, even if you drop an anonymous review with just the word "reading" and nothing else, it'll help motivate me to actually keep this train chugging.

Sorry for the novella of an author's note, here. In my real life, I'm working on not making excuses for myself, but here, I can't seem to help it.

With love, your favorite gram positive cocci,

- staph