A/N: Loooong chapter… read, enjoy, review, et cetera.

MAX

"It's going to be dusk in a little over an hour," Nudge pointed out a little while later. I was sitting on the ground away from the rest of the flock, trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do.

"I know," I replied tersely.

"Maybe I could go meet Jeb?" she suggested. I glanced over at her. "You know, and take Fang with me. And Angel, and maybe Gazzy and Iggy?" I sighed and scraped the dirt at my feet with a finger. How incredibly inconvenient this was. Not to mention embarrassing.

"We can't split up," I insisted, although that's exactly what we had to do.

"Then what are we going to do?" she pressed. I had no idea.

"Go get the others ready to fly," I ordered, and she stood up and backed away to get Iggy, who was asleep, and Angel and Gazzy, who were talking at the top of a very tall tree. Fang sidled over, and I sighed, standing up. "Fang... you're going to have to take them to meet Jeb. Hear what he has to say and get your butts back here without agreeing to anything." Fang looked at me for a long moment.

"I'll stay," he said finally, his voice quiet.

"Um, no, you'll go to Jeb," I corrected him, but he shook his head.

"You need someone here. What if something happens?" Something that would require me to fly away, he meant. I sighed.

"We're in the middle of nowhere. Nothing's going to happen, and you guys will just be gone for a couple of hours. You have to go talk to Jeb. I can't send them alone. I need you to do this, Fang." Again with the considering me silently. Finally he nodded briskly.

"Let Ig stay with you, then," he said.

"Fine," I agreed, just to get him off my back. He needed to leave now or he was going to be late.

"You guys ready?" I called, and everyone nodded, more or less assembled and ready. "Okay. Angel, Nudge, and Gazzy, you're going with Fang. Come back soon, don't trust Jeb any more than you have to, and watch out, okay?" They looked a bit perplexed.

"You're not coming?" Angel asked.

"I'm, uh, staying here. Dying really takes it out of you," I tried to joke. They all continued staring blankly.

"But I have to go," Iggy said finally. "Ella's with Jeb, and, uh…" he trailed off, turning a little red.

"You're staying here, Iggy," Fang said with such finality that even Iggy backed off. "Come on, guys," he continued, taking off. Gazzy and Nudge gave me one more odd look before following. Angel hesitated.

"Go on, sweetie. I'll be right here," I assured her. She nodded slowly.

"Yeah, I know," she said finally. "I just don't like leaving you anymore, you know? Last time I left you I came back and you were dead." She said it so matter-of-factly it made me cough.

"Not this time," I assured her. "Go on." She nodded and took off. I watched them go, my wings itching to fly with them.

I was going to need to learn how to fly very soon.

FANG

It was strange, going on a mission without Max. I mean, we were just going to see what Jeb wanted – we weren't breaking and entering as usual. But still. Not being able to glance up ahead and see her was going to make this trip a long one.

"Why can't Max fly, Fang?" Nudge asked, flapping hard to catch up to me. I shrugged. "But she'll be able to soon, right? I mean, we can't just… walk everywhere," she pointed out. I shrugged again. She had a point.

MAX

I watched the rest of my flock go with a lump in my throat. Fang would watch out for them, I knew, but it wasn't like I was used to letting them go without me.

"So, you can't fly?" Iggy asked. I shook my head, not wanting to talk, and then felt like slapping myself on the forehead.

"Guess not," I muttered, sitting down and leaning against a tree. Iggy sat across from me, stretching out on a rock and letting his wings extend behind him. He pushed himself up on his elbows.

"So. What's up with you and Fang?" he asked after a moment. I choked.

"What?"

"Ever since you, uh, died… and came back and everything… he, like, hasn't left your side. At all. And when you woke up, sure, you hugged all of us, but you and Fang were like –"

"Nothing, Iggy," I cut him off quickly. He raised an eyebrow.

"Sure," he said soothingly, making my blood boil.

"Really!" I protested. He laughed and help up his hands.

"I said okay!" he reminded me, but he still looked smug.

"So, what was that about needing to see Ella?" I asked, knowing that would shut him up.

It did. Quite nicely, in fact.

For a minute.

Then, "So, how are you going to remember how to fly again?" he asked. God, he was as bad as Nudge sometimes.

"I'm shrugging," I muttered, shrugging and moving forward so I could lay down and look at the sky.

"You could have Fang teach you. That way he could catch you when you fell," Iggy suggested brightly. Suppressing a shriek, I picked up some bark and threw it at him. It bounced off his leg. "Shutting up now," he announced, and blessed silence surrounded us and the forest.

FANG

Our flight to the School was relatively uneventful, but we knew they had cameras on the skies above all the buildings, so we landed half a mile out and walked in. It was dark, so we didn't have to fear being seen – we were very good at blending into the shadows and darkness of the night by now. Also, thanks to Jeb, we now knew that there weren't any Invisirasers guarding the buildings.

We wove between the buildings, me in front and Nudge in the back. I kept Angel right behind me, listening around us for nearby thoughts. After a few minutes she tugged on the back of my t-shirt. I turned and she pointed.

"Jeb?" I breathed, and she nodded. Sighing with relief, I snuck around the corner to find Jeb standing there. He looked very dusty and tired, but that's life.

"Fang. Where's Max?" I didn't answer, and he sighed. "You're going to have to trust me, Fang," he told me. "Max obviously trusts me, or she wouldn't have sent you to me." I sighed.

"Can't fly," I muttered. Jeb didn't look horrified, so I guessed he already knew that would be a possible side effect of waking from the dead.

"I thought that might happen. Her mind just hasn't fallen into place completely. She'll need a few lessons and then she'll remember again," he told me. I didn't respond, and he looked up at me. I realized he was waiting for me to respond.

Cool. I didn't plan on it. I'd stand here and listen, but I wasn't making small talk. He cleared his throat and continued. "You guys need to hide for a while. Lay low in a cave or something. The School is trying a new type of technology that hooks into all public security cameras, and some private cameras, too, so you can't be seen in airports, supermarkets, gas stations, post offices…"

Yeah, because we were always hanging in the local post office.

"I'm trying to get more information on the Invisirasers. As long as you stay in hiding you should be fine, but just in case, make sure everyone carries spray paint with them," he warned. I was annoyed at his demand, and his fatherly advice, but the truth was, it was a good idea. Incredibly annoyed I hadn't thought of it myself, I nodded vaguely, not meeting his eyes, shoving my hands farther into my pockets.

"Can't go into stores. Can't buy paint," I pointed out a moment later.

"I thought of that." Of course he did. "Here," he continued, pulling six large cans of spray paint out of a bag he had on his back. I shoved two in my pockets and handed the rest to Angel, who was hanging on my arm.

"Ooh, can I have the purple?" she begged, and I shrugged, wishing Jeb hadn't bought different colors. The inevitable fight that would ensue over colors wouldn't be pleasant. It wasn't as if the Flock got lots of different colored items all the time. I glanced at Jeb, but he seemed more or less done playing Santa.

"See you," I muttered, feeling like that was more words than I should have used on him anyway, but he frowned and shot a hand out to grab my elbow. I pulled it away but glanced back at him.

"Fang. Be careful. And tell Max that, too. These are dangerous times. Itex may be destroyed, but The School is getting stronger." He actually sounded sincere. And I was good at picking out lies, too.

"Whatever," I muttered. "Thanks for the paint." Turning from the man who I'd once looked up to so much, I spread my wings. "Let's go, guys," I said to Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel, who'd been standing close together behind me the entire time. Angel smiled sweetly at Jeb before sticking her tongue out at him and taking off, but Nudge didn't spare him a glance. Gazzy looked like he was going to just fly off, too, but at the last second he shoved his bare toes – where the hell were his shoes? – into the dirt and spun to face Jeb, who was still standing hunched in the shadows of The School.

"I wanted to be you when I grew up," he said to Jeb, his voice accusatory. Jeb's eyes widened and softened, and he stepped forward into the beam of light a nearby floodlight was leaking out onto the courtyard. "I wanted to be big and strong and good and save kids from cages," Gazzy continued. Not much of a job market there, Gaz, I felt like saying. "But now…" Gazzy trailed off, looking out over the dark buildings that held memories no nine-year-old should posses. He turned back to Jeb, and his eyes were filled with such disgust even I was impressed. "I still want to be big and strong and good, but now I want to do it so I can be better than you." He flapped his wings hard, jumping and beginning to make a wide ark that would carry him far away from The School. "You think you're being all good 'cause you're helping us now, but you're not fooling us!" he yelled just before he disappeared behind a cloud.

I glanced one last time at Jeb. He looked kind of… broken.

Him and me both.