TEN

The walk back to the rest of the flock was silent. Whether it was because Fang was too angry for words or because he knew that I knew what he was going to say, I don't know, but I couldn't have been more grateful either way.

"Well, at least you didn't have to bat your eyelashes at him this time," Iggy said cheerfully. He was mad, too. He just had a different way of showing it. I scowled at him so hard it made my face hurt but reeled it back quickly when I dug up enough self-respect to recognize that he had every right to hate me.

I could practically feel Fang vibrating with fury next to me. I prayed silently that he'd keep his mouth shut until we could find somewhere to be alone and debrief.

Nudge was bouncing on the balls of her feet when we approached, looking ready to lunge like a hungry pitbull.

"So?"

"Pointless," Fang said tightly.

"Pointless?" Angel said, frowning.

"He confirmed what we already knew," I said, snagging my pack from Gazzy and extracting a granola bar from the front pocket. "The FBI knows we were there that night, so they know we're somehow tied to Vector. It sounds like they don't know in what capacity, but still."

"Okay, so not totally pointless…?" Gazzy said.

There was our ray of sunshine. I could've kissed him for diffusing even a sliver of the tension in the air.

"If they know anything about Vector, then they should know we wanted nothing to do with them. Like, these are exactly the evil scientists we've been trying to get away from our entire lives. It wouldn't make sense for us to be helping them," he finished.

"I don't think we know the extent of their understanding of our relationship with any of that," I offered. "It's a good point though, Gazzy."

Iggy cocked his head to the side, thinking. "I guess if they got down there and found Scythe and Jeb and Anne they had to have started putting pieces together. I mean, they're the FBI, Max. They must've interrogated the entire Bureau after that, trying to figure out who knew what the whole time."

"My head hurts," Nudge said, groaning. "This makes no sense."

"It'll make more sense once we have more information. C'mon," I said, motioning toward the sky. "Let's get out of here."

"I swear to God, Max, if you try to make us sleep on an island…"

"God, no," I said, rolling my eyes. "After three years of living in a real house? I'm way too much of a princess for that."

On our way to the hotel, I loaded a large sum of our cash onto two prepaid credit cards. What I failed to realize was that nowadays the majority of hotels and motels require a legitimate credit card at the time of booking a room as a safe hold. It took us the better part of the evening to find one we could stay in.

By the time we got settled into our three dingy motel rooms, all of us were starving and, because of this, angry.

"It's called hangry, Max," Nudge said knowingly.

"Don't even try to tell me that isn't something you invented right now."

She gave me a look that was more horrified than anything else. "Sometimes I wonder how you even survive in the world today."

"That makes two of us," I responded tiredly.

"What about 'stupset?'" Iggy said. "You know—starving and upset."

Fang snorted, obviously amused but not willing to waver from his anger.

I sighed. "Will somebody order pizza?"

"Already on it," Gazzy said from the hotel phone, peering at a takeout menu. "Toppings?"

"Anything." I made my way for the door connecting Fang and I's room.

"Anything?" he asked mischievously, but I was already through the door.

I turned around to close it, catching Fang's questioning eyes. In seconds they'd transformed from what did you do, why did you do it, are you insane et cetera to I'm concerned, what do you need, are you okay and then back again. I knew he was pissed. Beyond pissed, probably. I also knew that he had every right to be. It wasn't a new balancing act for him, this should I kill her/should I comfort her dilemma. I, similarly, had a he should kill me/he should comfort me dilemma of my own.

I cast him a glance that hopefully said I'm fine, just need a minute, also I'm sorry for being such a fucking moron; he seemed to understand, nodding just barely before turning back to the group. His jaw was still tight and his fists were still clenched.

I let loose the giant sigh I'd been holding in once I was safely alone, flopping onto the bed face first. I let my wings droop out behind me to stretch after the long couple of days of wear and tear. We hadn't done this much flying in years—we'd all be feeling it tomorrow.

The events of the day played back behind my eyelids. I resisted the urge to sigh again. It seemed like all I did was sigh anymore. We'd come all the way here, and for what? For Jamie to corroborate what we already knew? Helpful, I guess, but not worth the cross-country trip.

So what next? That couldn't be it.

It seemed like the only other piece of the puzzle that we had was the FBI themselves and our time with Anne Walker, both based out of Washington DC. Logically, it was the only other place to look. What I couldn't figure out was what to do when we got there. They were the very people looking for me, so walking blindly into their territory didn't feel like the most rational choice.

But something was nagging me—a voice? Not The Voice, but maybe one of my own—urging me to recognize that there was more to uncover if I just dug a little deeper. There had to be more. There always was, with us.

I tried to push it all from my head for a minute. I focused on the ticking of the clock on the wall, the musty smell of the comforter beneath me, the whir of the radiator as it pushed lukewarm air into the room.

And somehow, impossibly, I drifted off into a deep, uninterrupted sleep.

And naturally woke up in a panic.

I nearly fell to the floor trying to get my bearings. This type of disorientation had been jarring even before the drama-fest of the last few years. This wasn't our house—this wasn't my room—and this most certainly wasn't my bed.

Then I turned I saw Fang sitting upright against the headboard with his laptop open and things made a little more sense.

"Holy shit. How long was I out?"

"Not long. Couple hours. You passed out in the middle of the bed and were too stubborn to move. I had to shove you over. Figures." His face was unreadable, closed off, but by all means not as murderous as it'd been earlier. "Feel better?"

I settled back next to him, feeling my breathing even back out.

"I don't think I ever even felt bad. Or, at least, not more than usual."

Fang hummed and set his attention back on his computer. I sighed, knowing what was coming.

"You gonna ream me out?"

He looked away and fixed his gaze on his laptop, taking a controlled breath before cocking his head to the side in a noncommittal gesture of neutrality.

This was almost enough to bring back the jarring disorientation.

"No?"

He cocked his head the other way and gave a little shrug.

"Uh, hello?"

"What's the point?"

I fought back the temptation to survey the room around me and look for a glitch in the Matrix I must've been transported to mid-nap.

"What's the point? I showed a stranger my wings, totally endangering all six of us and breaking one of the only rules we have."

"It was stupid. Reckless. Totally unacceptable. Actually had a hard time even believing it." He gritted his teeth, grimacing, forcing the words out. Shame flushed through me, ice cold and unpleasant. "Completely absurd. But then…" His face softened and he looked to the window, staring at the crack in the curtains that allowed a beam of moonlight through.

"…then?"

He sighed and shrugged a third time, giving me an overwhelming urge to break his clavicles.

"I remembered what you were like back then," he continued finally. He looked like he hadn't wanted to say it at all. "You thought you were going to die, so you completely dropped all common sense."

I hated this reminder of my perceived (actual?) frailty, but found an enormous sense of relief despite it: his jaw was twitching. He was still pissed. Hell hadn't frozen over, the world would not end: Fang hadn't lost all ties to reality just yet.

"So, yell at me, then."

He scoffed. "What?"

"Tell me I'm an idiot, that what I did was moronic, that just because I had an 'expiration date' doesn't give me an excuse to play with fire like that."

"You already know that. Plus, it was three years ago, Max."

For some reason, this infuriated me. Fang was anything but passive, and this soft approach he was taking seemed like yet another way to coddle poor Max who everyone seemed to think would dissolve into tears at the drop of a hat.

"I'm not made of glass, Fang. I can take it."

Fang looked at me over his computer, face again unreadable. "What?"

"I'm so sick of everyone side-stepping me because they think I'm fragile," I said, crossing my arms and glowering at him. "I can take it."

"I'm not side-stepping you, Max, I mean it. Listen," he said, putting up a hand before I could interrupt. "You know as well as I do that we can argue about this ten ways to Sunday. Yeah, I'm pissed. I hate that more people know about us. I hate that it ended up being totally useless to us that you told him. But what are we gonna do about it now?"

I'd been carefully crafting a blank expression to mask the shock that this wiser, Rafiki-from-The-Lion-King "it's in the past" version of Fang even existed. At the core of it, he was right—this was an argument we'd have until the end of time.

And to think some couples bicker over the thermostat.

I decided to drop it for now.

"What did I miss?" I asked mildly.

"Not much. Gazzy's choice of 'anything' topping for you turned out to be anchovy. I made him eat it. And don't tell me that's side-stepping your fragility," he said when he saw my expression. "It was a lesson in not being an asshole."

I laughed. "Dad of the year."

"The bad news," he continued, "is that he got pineapple for himself, and nobody else would trade."

I groaned. He motioned with his chin to the dresser where the box of pizza sat unopened. I rocketed to my feet and crossed the room, surprised to open the box and find a sausage and mushroom pizza—Fang's favorite, and decidedly not pineapple.

"Feeling side-stepped," I warned.

He looked at me with amusement, eyes bright. "That is called being a gentleman, Max."

I figured that was a good enough answer and dug in. Two slices later, I came up for air.

"What else did I miss?"

He shrugged. "Not much. Talked in circles, mostly. Bounced a bunch of ideas off each other about what to do next."

"Any good ones?"

He closed his laptop. "Not really. Don't think there are any good ones. It seems like the only two options are to keep running forever or somehow destroy the entire FBI and possibly the government, neither of which seem particularly likely or realistic."

"What does everyone think?"

His dark eyes locked on mine, searching for something in them I couldn't quite place.

"Majority wants to go to DC."

"The majority being..."

"You can probably guess."

Iggy, I assumed. I brushed my hands off on my thighs. "And you?"

He ran a hand through his hair, a habit from his long-hair days that he'd never broken.

"You know me, Max."

"'Drop off the screen,' you mean?"

"I don't know what to think. I told you before. Life was normal, finally. That house, the kids in school, us having income, having Valencia around… we were finally living. I don't want to sacrifice that."

"Hypothetically, we could go back there."

Fang offered me an exasperated look. "Hypothetically. But since we live in a land based in reality, that doesn't make sense and we both know it. We'd have to give up all the things that make it worth it. No school, no jobs."

"No cell phone for Nudge. It'd be World War III." He didn't smile. "Okay, but we would still be free, Fang. Right? Isolated house on the canyon. We've got a lot of money saved, and with the fake IDs, when everything settled out, we could try to assimilate again."

"When? In five years? Ten? What about when they inevitably find the house and show up on our doorstep unannounced? When does the risk of ending up back in a dog crate make the things that are 'worth it' actually worth it?" He scrutinized me. "Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?"

I sighed heavily, closing the near-empty pizza box in front of me and staring hopelessly at it. "This has got to be the ninetieth time we've had this exact same fucking conversation and I still don't know what I think."

"Then why are we having it?" he asked. It wasn't accusatory—his voice was sincere, curious. "I know you want to go to DC."

"Why do you say that?"

He snorted. "Because you're you, Max."

I reached for his hand, running my fingers along his palms.

"It shouldn't all be up to me anymore. Like you said, all of us have lives now. There are risks and benefits. I have no idea what the right answer is."

"The overwhelming consensus with them seems to be that fixing this, however impossible it might be, is better than going back into hiding."

"Emphasis on overwhelming consensus," I reminded him.

"About as good as it'll ever get."

"Okay, so say we do that. Keeping in mind that you don't necessarily want to..." I looked up at him.

"Are you crazy? Of course I'm coming." He looked almost offended at the implication. "Don't be stupid. We're a family. We don't split up. Plus…"

He shimmered out of view, leaving me staring at the ugly pattern of the comforter where he'd just been. I reached out and slapped him and he chuckled back into view.

"I'm just saying. It's helpful."

"I'm sorry," I blurted, feeling overwhelmed with gratitude and love and something else mushy for him. "About showing him the wings. About everything that happened back then. Being reckless, running off all the time. Basically just for who I am as a person."

"Things have changed," he said with a shrug. "You've changed. I'm trying to change. Less fly-off-the-handle, more calm-cool-collected."

"Yeah, what happened to those days?" I asked, shoving him. "I miss when you didn't talk."

"Oh, please," he said with an eye roll. He cracked his computer back open. "You love the sound of my voice."

I snuggled back down into the bed and leaned against him, staring idly at his computer screen as he clicked and scrolled. He'd gone on a deep dive into all things FBI but I couldn't care enough to focus on any of it.

"Why did it take them so long to come looking for us?" I asked sleepily after a while.

"Who the hell knows? Does it matter?"

"It might."

He looked down at me and ran a hand through my hair, brushing it off my face to touch his thumb to my cheekbone.

"Well, it doesn't right this second," he said softly. "Go back to sleep."

That was the only permission I needed.