A/N: The lack of feedback on this story is making it difficult for me to keep my writing mojo. If you're reading, please let me know! Input is greatly appreciated, but I'll even take a simple "I'm here." :)

THREE

When we first moved to this house, it became clear very quickly that I was going to need a place of my own to escape to. We were all growing: Fang and I had become a couple, Nudge had started really transitioning into her teenage years, Gazzy had started ruthlessly powering through the dreaded preteens, and Angel had started her gradual descent into melancholy. Iggy, believe it or not, was my only constant around that time. Our relationship had strengthened in a way I'd never expected. We'd always acted like real siblings, and true to that, we grew closer as we got older.

It was a lot to handle, sometimes. Normalcy, I mean. The life of running and fighting and everything else that had come with it had pathetically become our reality, something that we'd broken in comfortably over the years like a worn pair of jeans. Regular life was like upgrading to formalwear for all of us, and the subsequent adjustment period had not been pretty.

So I'd found somewhere. A hot spring about thirty minutes of superspeed away from the house, a place that I was certain not even Fang knew about. It was tucked so deeply into the canyon that no human or predator could reach it. I went there only at the most dire of times, like when Nudge had nearly killed Gazzy after he teased her over liking a boy or after I'd talked Angel down from her first true panic attack, or after Fang and I had our first legitimate argument as a couple. It was a space to decompress or to think or to just absolutely lose it without anybody trying to stop me or coddle me or shoot concerned looks my way.

I'd zig-zagged my way here, so it took a little more like forty-five minutes. I was certain Fang had taken to the air not long after I'd sped off, so I was crafty in throwing him off my tail. I just couldn't take it—the worry, the levelheadedness, the way I knew he would so logically approach this situation. For a minute, I wanted to wallow. To reflect on how unfair all of this was.

We'd done our time, hadn't we? We'd suffered? We'd fought? We'd conquered? Our new reality had just recently started feeling like exactly that: real. Gazzy and Angel had finally assimilated and mastered the art of participating in things like sports and other extracurriculars without excelling too much. Nudge was getting ready to start looking into colleges, Iggy was already taking online classes, Fang and I were moving up the ladders in our jobs. We'd finally succeeded in breaking in our proverbial formalwear to a point that worn-out jeans seemed foreign.

I dropped at the lip of the spring and let my wingtips brush against the ground, finally allowing the colossal feeling of foreboding wash over me. I sank to the floor of the canyon and pulled my knees to my chest, willing myself to stay calm by doing something any sane person might do: staring down at my reflection in the water and talking to myself.

"Okay. This sucks. It's a mess. The FBI is after you and you don't know why and you don't know how much they know and you have no source of income and…"

I had myself hyperventilating already. I tried some of the relaxation methods Nudge had so deeply researched years ago. Count backwards from ten. Breathe in for five, out for five. Name four things you can see, three you can touch, two you can smell, one you can feel…

Instead, I threw my head back and let loose a scream. A loud one, one that would echo against the walls of the canyon and carry for miles. I could see my breath in front of me but felt nothing but miserable. And lost. And hopeless.

I leaned against the canyon wall and felt my hardened exterior come down in a way I rarely ever allowed myself to do, even after all these years. The tears came quickly and freely, followed by the heaving sobs.

For the first time in a long time, I grieved over the life I'd never had and the life I apparently never would have.

That's what you get for thinking you were free, the cynical voice deep in the steerage of my mind whispered.

That's what you get for being happy.

After what felt like a never-ending flight home during which I may or may not have completely dissociated from reality or perhaps even left my body in the form of astral projection, I walked through our front door feeling exhausted and totally unprepared to face whatever reality was waiting for me.

I hadn't grabbed a jacket before I left, but I'd been totally numb to the conditions. It was only when Fang intercepted me from my path and put his hands on my biceps that I realized how much of a Maxcicle I'd become.

It was also immediately clear that aside from a coat, I also hadn't grabbed my phone, which Fang had called incessantly and eventually tracked to where else but the kitchen counter.

"You're fucking freezing, Max!" he snapped, rubbing his hands up and down my arms. "Jesus Christ, what were you thinking?"

He pulled me to him and I leaned further into his body heat, trying to quiet the chattering of my teeth.

"You can't do that to me! Not anymore!" He clutched my frigid hands in his warm ones. "I had no idea where you were. You were gone for three hours. On the coldest night of the year. In a t-shirt!"

"W-Where's Dr. M-Martinez?"

"Home. She went home. In a panic. I had to convince her you wouldn't do anything stupid," he said with gritted teeth. "I wasn't totally convinced myself."

I could hear muffled voices from the living room. The flock. Of course they'd waited up for me. Shame crashed over me instantly at the realization that I'd fucked up yet again.

Fang picked up on this easily, but instead of comforting me, he grabbed me roughly by the arm and dragged me up the stairs and into our bathroom. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror: pale-faced, tear-streaked, and terrified. The poster child for disaster.

Fang turned the shower on as hot as it would go before closing the lid to the toilet and sitting me down on it. He kneeled in front of me and searched my eyes with his own uncharacteristically wide ones. I'd scared the crap out of him.

"Fang." My voice was so small that I barely recognized it on myself. He looked at me, angry and guarded but curious, encouraging me to continue with his eyes. I had no idea what else there was to say; any words that came to mind seemed so insignificant compared to this new, unprecedented hell that was waiting for us.

"Fang," I said again, but my voice cracked this time, and that was all it took before I was a goner. The tears this time weren't heaving sobs. They were tears of defeat. They fell silently and uninterruptedly, as if my body couldn't care enough to shake and scream.

Fang pulled me into his arms again, tucking me under his chin and folding his body around me. One of his wings opened and draped around me like a shawl. I breathed in his scent, willing it to fill the plunging void my insides had become.

Then I was shaking, either from the cold or the impending breakdown or both, and he was shushing me like a scared toddler. He crushed me even tighter to him. I felt so small in his arms, like I could hide there forever, like he could protect me from whatever challenges were waiting for us ahead. He couldn't. Not even if he wanted to.

"Fang," I said a third time, pulling back from him and looking up to meet his troubled eyes. "What are we gonna do?"

He softened even more at this but had nothing to say in response. Instead, he stood and kissed me on the forehead with a monumental sigh.

"You are going to take a hot shower."

It was clear he wasn't planning on letting me out of his sight after the stunt I'd pulled, but he had the tact to avert his eyes as I undressed and stepped into the shower. For a fleeting second, I reveled in the heat of the water. Then I did what any self-loathing, emotionally distraught girl would do: I slathered myself with "stress relief" body wash, sat against the back of the tub, hugged my knees to my chest, and tried to pull myself together. With minimal success.

Fang sat on the floor next to the tub and reached one of his hands behind the curtain to do nothing but trace gentle circles on my back. He was silent, but his features were tight and his posture rigid as he stared stonily at the wall across from him.

Thirty minutes later I was in my warmest PJs and reeked of eucalyptus and spearmint. I was also equally as distressed as I'd been prior to my hot shower.

Rumination, man. It'll get you every time.

Fang and I were playing the age-old game of Max Catastrophizes and Fang Feigns Indifference, a thrilling competition in which everyone typically loses.

"We can't go outside. We can't be seen. Which means we can't work, which means we have no income—"

"Max."

"I'm serious. They have my picture, Fang. My picture. How the hell did they get my picture? And why the hell are they looking for me? For us?"

I was wearing a hole in the carpet in front of him. He was perched at the end of our bed with a scrutinizing look on his face. Every inch of me was quivering and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't seem to fill my lungs completely with air. My hair was soaking wet and dripping onto my shoulders. On top of all this, every muscle in my body ached—I hadn't flown for three hours straight in months, if not years.

"Max."

"Don't!" I stabbed him in the chest with my pointer finger. "Don't try to downplay this to calm me down or whatever. And don't act like you don't do that," I added testily. "I'm not overreacting. This is a big freaking deal. Why are they looking for us?"

He picked up the newspaper page from where it sat at the end of the bed. He squinted at it, then back up at me, then back down at the photo.

"This really doesn't look that much like you," he said, bemused.

I offered the driest look I could manage. Which is saying something, since we all know I can be pretty freaking dry when I want to be.

"I'm serious. You were what, sixteen in this picture?"

"Almost seventeen."

He rolled his eyes. "And you're almost twenty now. You look older. Your bone structure is more pronounced. Your hair is lighter. You're more…" He gave me the ol' up-down that I had (embarrassingly) come to love. "You know. You're a woman."

I sneered at him. This was not the time. He seemed to consider saying my name again in that aloe-vera-on-a-sunburn way that he'd perfect but finally (and intelligently) decided against it.

"It's a compliment," he said instead.

I continued pacing. "How do they even know who I am?"

"They don't."

"What? They have my picture!"

"They have a picture of someone named Maximum Ride. Not Mackenzie Smith. If they have information, it's on AE02 and AE03 or Fang and Iggy or Nick and Jeff Walker or James Griffiths—not Liam and Mike Smith. They don't know what our government-issued IDs are. They don't have addresses on us—if anything, they have the Colorado house or Anne's bullshit mansion. All stuff they can connect to the Ride family. Not to the Smiths."

I ignored his rationality. "Why even take a photo of me? This isn't security camera footage. This is a photograph. Who took it?" I demanded. "I don't get it."

Fang sighed and put the paper back down on the bed. "That restaurant was probably loaded with Vector guys when you walked in. Had to have been one of them."

"Okay, but that doesn't make sense. Nobody tried to ambush me. They could've overpowered me, no problem."

"With a bunch of regular patrons in there?" Fang said, arching one dark eyebrow. "They had you right where they wanted you. They knew you were going down there. They had no reason to jump you."

"Why would they take a picture of me?"

"I don't know, Max, but I feel like I could think of a couple of reasons without having to think too hard."

"Like?"

The look of exaggerated impatience on Fang's face was enough to shut the book on that discussion. I pressed on.

"Okay, then who gave it to the FBI?"

"We've never known that everyone involved with Vector blew up when HQ did," he pointed out.

"Okay," I said again, trying to keep my frustration to a dull roar, "but they bombed themselves. To destroy evidence."

"That's what we think, but we've never had proof of any of that. Or even if they were truly the end of it. I know that's not what you want to hear, but…" He looked like he wanted to say more but instead let the weight of that idea positively bowl me over.

"No," I said, trying to squelch the feeling of holy shit what the fuck that was threatening to drown me. He was making perfect sense, but I didn't want to hear it. "No. You're wrong. Why would evil scientists give my photo to the FBI? That would make the FBI look at them, not us."

I shook my head over and over, feeling my vision blurring, my head spinning, my stomach churning. Everything had been so great, so calm, so… normal, for three years. And now this? I grabbed feebly at one of the posts on the bed frame, pleading with myself to calm the H down.

"Vector could've leaked it with false information. Who knows? It could've been anybody. We don't know what the FBI is thinking. Maybe they want our help. Hey—come on. Breathe."

I laughed manically at this suggestion, ignoring the fact that I I had to look like a sociopath. "Sure, Fang! Maybe they want our help!"

"Max—"

"God dammit, Fang, I am breathing!"

Fang growled with frustration and raked one of his hands through his hair. I was wearing him thin. Well too freaking bad.

My breathing had progressed to full blown hyperventilation without me even noticing. He closed the gap between us, put his hands on my shoulders to ground me. I shrugged away from him.

"Look at me," he ordered. When I didn't: "Look at me!"

I shoved him away. "I'm fine!"

"Would you get off the fucking warpath for a second?" he roared. "For fuck's sake, Max, you're not fine!"

I shrunk back at his tone. It had been a while since we'd been at each other's necks, and I knew the rest of the flock could hear us when we yelled like this. They typically went about their business, doing their best to give us privacy, but considering the stunt I pulled, I assumed they were all listening.

Over the years, Fang's level head and linear thinking had been my saving grace during times of immense stress. This time, there was no convincing me. Not even he could console me.

All at once, I felt utterly humiliated. Fang seemed to read my face and heaved a sigh, dropping his chin to his chest for a moment to collect himself before shutting his eyes.

"I understand that you're stressed. This is a lot for all of us. I can't imagine what it must feel like for you. I know how crazy you drive yourself with guilt," he said much more quietly and steadily. "But I'd just like to remind you that we've handled everything life has ever thrown at us. Which suggests that we can likely handle this."

"Fang," I whimpered. "We've never been wanted by the FBI."

His face was blank while he tried to decide how to play this. I was blown away by his patience—even I was fed up with myself.

"Technically, it's only you they want."

Any other time, I might've appreciated this new angle. An attempt to make light of this. Nothing about it felt light.

"Please," I begged in a whisper.

He sighed for what felt like the billionth time and dropped his hands from my shoulders, crossed his arms, and stared at me levelly, apparently accepting the challenge.

"Anne was FBI."

"Anne is dead, remember?" I said desperately, dropping onto the edge of our bed. "Scythe blew her head off because I wouldn't—"

"All the agents that worked with her aren't," he said, obviously trying to dodge that very triggering trip down memory lane. "They've known we exist. They have since we were fourteen."

I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes, forcing myself to see stars. "Okay, but they're just coming after us now?"

"They couldn't exactly run around saying they were looking for mutant birdkids, could they?" I opened my mouth to counter, but he held his hand up. "Max. Please. Listen. We could go back and forth for hours. Nothing I say is going to fix your anxiety. I get that, and it's okay. But we can handle this."

He sat next to me and took both of my hands in his. My body automatically turned toward his warmth. My hair was still dripping onto my lap and I still felt ice cold to my core, whether from my flight or from soul-sucking despair was anybody's guess.

He dropped my hands and put one of his own on the back of my head, pulling me to him. His voice was tender when he spoke.

"Me, you, and Iggy won't go to work, the kids won't go to school. We'll put our heads together to figure out what comes next. Just because we haven't had to in a while doesn't mean we don't remember how."

My chest felt impossibly tight. I leaned back and averted my eyes. "I'm sorry," I managed in a pathetic whisper. "Just... Vector? Again? Almost losing Gazzy, thinking I lost you and Angel, almost losing everybody…"

"I know that, Max. We all do." He leaned close to me again and took my head in his hands, pressing his forehead against mine so our lips were only inches apart. "But we don't know what part Vector even plays in all of this. And we've been on the run before. We've been homeless and hunted and everything else before. A bunch of wimpy guys in suits?" He gave a little shrug. "Nothing we can't deal with."

With him this close, it was impossible not to relax a fraction. The air in the room seemed a bit cooler, and it felt a little easier to fill my lungs. I locked eyes with him.

"Or wimpy ladies in suits," I muttered.

Fang was startled into a brilliant, crooked smile, a special little slice of sunlight that he seemed to reserve only for me. He kissed me on the forehead, letting his soft lips hover there for a moment.

"Or wimpy ladies," he agreed.