Another short-ish chapter… Here you go.

Fang's POV

After my talk with Iggy, I was really tired. Kind of emotionally drained, I guess. So I allowed Iggy to take first watch and got a good four hours of sleep in until it was my turn.

Iggy gave me a small nod, and then I watched him sprawl out on the ground, taking a few moments to get comfortable. After a minute or two I could hear his rhythmic breathing, and knew that he had fallen asleep. I walked around for a little bit, scoping out the area. The only thing around us for miles was desert; there were no trees or anything to conceal anybody who might want to sneak up on us. I felt my paranoia settle in, though, as I realized that there could be other ways to get to our location besides just walking up to us. Someone could be digging underground right now, just waiting to find us in vulnerable position, so that they could take us back to the school. We really weren't all that far away from the school, now that I thought about it…

I had to laugh at myself. I really was paranoid, like Max always told me. I shook my head a little to clear my head, still smirking. What was I thinking? I could see miles out; nothing was going to happen to us. And Iggy would have heard if someone was underground, right? Being on watch really gave me too much time to think. Sometimes it was a good thing, like when I needed to sort things out about Max, but other times, like now, it just gave me more time to obsess over irrational things.

I remembered that a few months ago I was on watch for what seemed like years, but was only about three hours. I had been constantly thinking about how Iggy seemed to be a little too comfortable around Max. I had thought madly about how he was spending so much time around her, and by the end of my watch I was completely jealous and angry. When I woke Iggy up for his watch, I probably kicked him a little harder than I needed to, to wake him up. That next morning I almost made the mistake of confronting Iggy, but then I thought for a second and realized that my assumptions had been completely mistaken. Iggy didn't like Max like that. He knew that I did, and he would never do anything that would really hurt me. All I needed was a couple seconds to think rationally, and my sanity on the subject returned. So I had learned not to take anything that I thought while I was on watch seriously.

It was almost time to wake up Max for her watch. Lately I had been taking Max's watch for her, since she was so stressed out about everything. But she seemed to be doing better, and I didn't think that I could stand being on watch very much longer. So after doing one more sweep of the perimeter, I knelt down next to Max where she was sleeping. Looking at her there, so peaceful, almost made me decide against waking her up. I stared at her for a minute, just taking in how beautiful she was when she slept. But I quickly dismissed the thoughts from my mind as I reached over and lightly shook her shoulder.

Max immediately bolted upright, looking from left to right. I had to dodge out of the way to avoid getting hit by her head. Her eyes were wide, looking for any signs of trouble. That was Max, always prepared, even after just waking up.

"Hey, calm down. It's your watch." I observed her face as she turned to look at me, her facial features smoothing out. She let out a breath and stood up.

"Thanks." She said, letting me know that she had everything under control now. I nodded toward her and took her spot on the ground, dozing off again just as I had earlier in the night.

A few hours later I awoke to the smell of burnt pop tarts. There's nothing better. I silently moved from the place that I had been sleeping to the small circle that had been formed around a fire that Iggy, no doubt, had made. And there he was, with his frying pan, cooking strawberry pop tarts. I could practically see the drool coming from Gazzy's mouth.

"Smells great Ig," I told him as I joined the rest of the flock. Everyone looked fully awake except for Nudge, who always takes at least a half hour to function properly after waking up. It was the one time that the Nudge Channel wasn't going full force. I kind of liked this drowsy, half-conscious Nudge, but I knew that it wouldn't last very long. Once she got some food into her, she would be talking nonstop, asking me millions of pointless questions, like what color of the floor at the school had been. White, just like everything else there.

Suddenly I was tossed a steaming pop tart, and I had to bounce it in my hands to keep from burning myself. Even so, I attempted to eat it. I ended up burning my tongue, but it was definitely worth it. How long had it been since I'd had a pop tart?

"Thanks for the warning, Ig." Iggy nodded at me, smirking a little in that mischievous way that he had. He tossed me another one, this one not as hot, thankfully. The rest of the flock was inhaling their pop tarts quickly, and I sadly watched the box of pop tarts empty. I stood up and brushed the crumbs off of my pants, watching the rest of the flock do the same.

"So, Max, where to now?" Iggy turned toward Max, wondering out loud what I had been wondering silently. We all turned toward our leader expectantly. Max seemed to be thinking, but she was probably listening to her Voice. I shuddered, extremely glad to have the Voice out of my head. A defiant look suddenly took over Max's facial features, and I suppressed a small chuckle. She was arguing with the Voice. Then she seemed to have reached a conclusion.

"Arizona, back to my mom's house. We have to explain why we left." Max looked at all of us. Then Gazzy snickered, but quickly replaced it with a solemn look after receiving a glare from Max.

"Well, I hope their house didn't burn down." He said seriously, and then exploded into giggles again.

What?

Ok, so here I am updating again. I'm looking at my story traffic thing, and I have a lot of hits and visitors and everything… But I only had one review for my last chapter. Thanks so much, And the Eternally Silent, for that. The only reason that I'm updating right now is because you reviewed my last chapter. I'm sure that I lost a lot of readers because I haven't really been updating regularly, but I'm trying to get better about that. So, if you're reading this, please review!