So…*ahem* Is it too late to ask forgiveness for making you wait so long? …I'MSORRYI'MSORRYI'MSORRYI'MSORRY!!!!!!!!!! I honestly and truly have no idea what happened, but all of a sudden I forgot about this fic completely! You can thank anonymous reviewer Mystery Girl for booting me off my lazy butt and getting me to start/finish this chapter. I felt REALLY bad about leaving it for so long…My only excuse is that I have another fic that a lot more people read and review on, so I was doing that one more cuz it was a boost to my confidence. I'll try to speed up a bit during the summer. Please forgive me and don't kill me because then you'll never get to the end of this! I'm awfully sorry…

Disclaimer: Let me check… Nope. I don't own Maximum Ride, Twilight, or Roswell. After three months or however long it's been, that little fact hasn't changed.

Chapter 22

A New Twist

Fang's POV

Finally, I started getting the hang of the whole flying thing. I guess it helped that I'd technically been doing it for seven years, from what Max had told me. But things were still a little overwhelming; such as the fact that I could fly at all.

But Max was right. I had a new chance at life, at making my own memories. I didn't have a dark past to haunt me; just a future I could make better for myself than it would be if I did remember. I had a chance to have new experiences, to fall in love…again?

I frowned from my seat on my bed in the room I was staying in. What had Max meant, "Find new love"? She had seemed so hurt when saying those words. Did…did I hurt her?

"Fang?"

A familiar voice said my name, and I looked over to see the half-vampire Renesmee standing in my doorway.

"Come in," I said, hoping I didn't sound as glum as I thought I did.

She sat down on the bed beside me. "Oh, Fang, I'm so sorry this is happening to you," she said softly.

I met her eyes "Don't be. It's not your fault," I told her. I forced a smile. "I mean, it's not like you sucked away every memory I've ever had."

Renesmee was the one who looked away first. "Fang?" she asked.

"Yeah?"

She hesitated. "…If you could, would you take back your memories?"

I looked towards the floor. "I…I don't know," I admitted. "With everything Max told me, I'm not sure I even want to remember everything. Maybe…Maybe it's best if I don't, and just try to start over."

"But…" she shifted. "Don't you want to know where you came from? Don't you want to remember your feelings?"

I turned to her, confused. "What are you saying?"

She shrugged, looking sheepish. "I mean, like, wouldn't you want to remember how you and Max felt about each other?"

I stared at her. "How we 'felt about each other'?" I repeated.

Her gaze turned to me. "She didn't tell you?"

"She said we never had feeling like that," I replied.

"Oh…" Renesmee frowned.

"Besides," I added lightly, "she's with Jacob."

"Yeah…I forgot."

She was obviously lying through her teeth.

"You don't like Max much, do you?" I asked.

A grim smile touched her lips. "Is it that obvious?"

I chuckled slightly and said sarcastically, "No, not at all."

She laughed openly, a strange light shining in her dark eyes. They shone on the border of sadness and contentment, and I couldn't tell which was more dominant. But looking at her at that moment, I felt something.

"You're beautiful," I said without meaning to, immediately regretting it. My cheeks flushed bright red and the blood burned to the surface of my skin when her expression changed from that mixed emotion to another one; this time, embarrassment and surprise.

"Um…thank you," she said quietly, pulling her eyes away. I pushed my lips together before I said something else stupid.

We sat there for a moment in awkward silence, neither knowing what to say, until finally, I couldn't take it anymore. "I'm going out," I muttered, standing and heading for the door.

"Wait—alone?" she asked, sounding worried as she stood and walked after me.

"Yup."

"You can't!" she said desperately. "What if…" She allowed her voice to trail off and pulled her eyes away, looking to the floor.

"What if what?" I pressed on.

She looked up at me. "Could you take someone with you?" she asked quietly. "I…I don't want anything to happen to you again…" She blushed slightly, and added quickly, "You know, because you were alone last time and that's when whatever it was happened that made you lose your memories. We don't need you out lost again with no idea who you are." She chuckled lightly, though her cheeks still burned bright red.

I looked past her and out the window. "I'd rather go alone…"

"Please?"

I dared to look into those deep brown eyes that could make any man do just about anything she asked. I sighed. "Fine. I'll go with…someone."

"Where are you going?" a feminine voice asked from the hall, where my back was facing. I turned to find Maximum and Jacob standing there. Max looked slightly worried, but Jacob just seemed curious.

"Out," I said simply, pushing past them. I found myself angry at Jacob for some reason, feeling as if he had taken something very precious from me. I'd had that feeling towards him since I'd woken up after embarrassingly fainting. It was weird, because I had no idea why. From what everyone had told me, I'd only known him for a day. What could he have done in a day that would cause me to despise him even after losing all my memories?

"You're not going alone," Max said forcefully, grabbing my arm.

"Renesmee and I already established that," I said, kind of annoyed.

"Take Jacob with you."

She just had to suggest him. "Why?"

"Because he's a werewolf. He can—"

"I don't need protection!" I snapped, ripping my arm out of Max's grip. "I don't need anything! I just need some space!"

"Where are you off to?"

I rolled my eyes and faced the stairs, where Carlisle was sauntering up to join us.

"I'm going out!" I growled.

"Oh good! Why don't you take Jacob with you?"

I sighed in defeat. I had a feeling that I was fighting a losing battle.

Ten minutes later, I found myself keeping pace with Jacob; me in the air, Jacob on the ground. He could run! I didn't know how fast I was flying, but he was neck in neck with me. Well, as neck in neck as you can be when one is flying and one is running. As much as I hated to admit it, this was…kinda fun, regardless of the fact that I wasn't too fond of Jacob.

For a minute, I had actually begun to forget about my current problem, but that was all cut short when a horrible pain suddenly exploded in my temples. Dark spots swam before my eyes, and my wings folded like paper. I dropped like a stone, only partially aware of the wind rushing past my ears because of the voice suddenly whispering in my head.

"Hello Fang," a sweet-sounding somewhat familiar female voice sounded in my mind, then it quickly turned cold. "Hurts, doesn't it?"

Another blast of pain exploded in my temples, and I dimly heard myself cry out. I managed to squint my eyes open long enough to see the ground rushing up to meet me. But I didn't care; if it took the pain away, bring it on.

A while later, I found that the pain was slowly receding and I could think again. The first thing I wondered was why I was still alive. A fifty foot fall like that should have killed me; especially since last I checked, I was falling head-first. So why was only my head killing me now?

I was then aware of someone calling my name, and I groaned as I realized it was Jacob. I had taken this whole spell in front of him. With my luck, he was probably the only reason I was among the living at the moment. Opening my eyes, I saw that I was right. He was shaking my shoulder gently, as if afraid I would break. I blinked and sat up.

"Are you okay? What happened?" he asked, worry lining his features.

I shook my head. "I…I don't know. One minute I was flying, and then…"

Another sharp pain entered my brain and my hands shot to my head as my eyes screwed shut. The voice spoke again, and a fuzzy picture flickered behind my eyelids. "I spy with my little eye…two freaks in a field. Any guesses, Fangy?" The girl in my head laughed, and all at once the picture sharpened and I saw…us; me and Jacob, sitting in the small clearing, as though I was looking through someone else's eyes.

My eyes snapped open, despite the pounding in my head, and I whipped around so that I was facing the direction that the scene behind my closed eyes had been shown from. There, standing in the trees' shadows cast by the afternoon sun, were four people. Three I recognized as Michael and Max and Isabelle Evens, but I didn't know the little girl with blond curls and black highlights with them.

"Don't say that, Fang," the voice said, sounding hurt. "We're family. Remember?" She laughed again, and I realized that the voice must belong to this little girl with the three aliens. "That's right," the girl spoke, finishing what was being played in my head, "you don't."

"Who are you?" I heard Jacob ask from behind me. "Max? What's going on? What are you doing?"

Maxwell remained silent and still, as did the other two aliens. The girl was the one to answer. "Their just following orders," she said innocently, stepping out from the shaded area.

When I could see her more clearly in the sun, I gasped at what I saw. The girl looked like a Halloween costume. Black spots at the corners of her eyes and a thin layer of golden fur and black spots told me that she was another mutant; a feline hybrid, from the looks of it. And yet, past all the unbelievable things that a non-mutant wouldn't have, I saw a familiar, scared little girl, as though I had known her a long time ago.

She laughed at my expression. "You had the same reaction last time, Fang," she said sweetly. "I wish I could've been there when Mommy Max realized she'd lost her boyfriend, too. But then again, she was already losing you, wasn't she?"

I climbed to my feet, managing to ignore my throbbing head. "Who are you?" I demanded, more forcefully than Jacob had. "What do you want?"

"Just what we came for," she replied, her voice darker than before. "We want the freak."

Jacob stepped in front of me. "You're not getting him," he said, ice dripping off every word.

The girl laughed again. "Oh, Jakey. Clueless puppy. You can't do anything to stop it."

At that, Max, Michael, and Isabelle jumped out of the shadows and aimed themselves at us.

"Fang, fly!" Jacob shouted before exploding into his wolf form. I obliged gladly, seeing as how I had no fighting experience in my memory. So saying, I spread my huge black wings and took off down the field at a sprint, catching air the way Max had taught me. It wasn't long before I was in the air, flapping with all my might and soaring straight up and into the sky.

A yelp of pain from the ground turned my attention downward to find Jacob barely holding out against the three extra-terrestrial vamps. But I wasn't too worried about him; he could take care of himself. I was more worried about the fact that the creepy little cat girl had suddenly decided to sprout large white wings and take to the skies after me.

I turned as fast as I could and flapped hard, heading in the general direction of the Cullen house. Unfortunately, my fastest obviously wasn't fast enough, because the girl had caught up with me in less than thirty seconds. She came up so fast and unexpectedly that I didn't see how close she was until her black-booted foot connected with my jaw. I was sent flying backwards in the air, but managed to keep my wings flapping and somehow I ended up right-side-up and still in the air and facing my attacker. I turned away from her and flapped hard again, trying to put as much distance between me and her as possible

I mean, she was a little girl; surely no older than ten. I wasn't about to fight her. even if she did want to kill me.

"Not so fast," the girl said from above me. I looked up and found that she was keeping pace with my every wing-beat. I guess I was a little out of practice. Duh.

Before I could do anything to evade it, the girl pointed her feet downwards and tucked in her wings, immediately dropping like a rocket. Her boots connected with my back, in the center of my wings, and I cried out in pain as I lost the use of them and began falling the hundred feet towards the ground.

Desperately, I tried again and again to open my wings and flap, but they weren't listening. I was just about ready to meet Death head-on when finally they snapped open, immediately slowing my descent but hurting like crazy. But the decrease in speed was not enough to keep me from slamming into the ground really hard.

As I pushed myself shakily to my hands and knees, biting my lip to keep from crying, I heard another yelp from Jacob and looked over to see him fall heavily on his side, panting. He didn't get back up. The three alien-vampires looked at me from where they stood around Jacob, and the girl that seemed to lead them landed halfway between them and me. As a unit, the four of them moved towards me with an elegance that only comes with confidence of victory.

Now I was panicking. With Jacob down and my memories gone, I stood no chance against them. I wouldn't stand a chance against a beetle.

Okay, so maybe I would stand a chance against a beetle. But certainly not against these four.

I clambered to my feet as the four approached, once again finding this surrealism hard to grasp.

"Good job, Ariel," the friend-turned-enemy Michael said. "You managed to do something right."

The blond girl—Ariel, I presume—froze in her step, then turned to Michael with a look of murder in her eyes as she quivered with rage. "When have you known me to do something wrong?" she asked coldly, daring him to continue before turning back to me.

"You see, Fangy?" she asked, but I wasn't fooled by her sweet voice. "It isn't easy to save the world. Some things should just be left alone. You should never have gone to fight Itex. The world was fine just the way it was. If you and Max had left things as they were, none of this would have ever happened." She smiled sweetly as she stepped up to me. "And if you and Maxie hadn't had that fight, you would still know me." She laughed, but I barely noticed.

Fight? What fight? What is she talking about? I thought through my panic.

She laughed again, and as though reading my mind, she said, "Aw, Max didn't tell you? You two—"

"Ariel," Isabelle said, cutting her off.

Ariel turned on her, snarling out, "What?" but the alien stood unfazed.

"They're coming. Just like you said they would."

"Ah…" the blond girl turned back to me, with a smug smile on her lips. "Sorry, Fangy, but it looks like I'll have to tell you about it later. Right now, we gotta jet."

Before I could even say anything in response, Michael stretched out his hand towards me and, as Ariel jumped into the air and spread her wings to get out of range, a fiery explosion went off where she had been standing ten feet from me a second before. The shockwave sent me flying backwards as debris scratched and burned my face and arms. I landed hard against the base of a tree, smacking my head against the trunk. White dots exploded across my vision, and I barely saw the little girl Ariel looming over me, shadows covering most of her features. A voice whispered in my head, accompanied by another blast of pain in my temples that succeeded in fading the white to blackness: "Nightie night, Fang…"

I closed my eyes.

Oooo we're getting further into the plot now! The story is beginning to unravel! Answers are finally on their way! Please review!

Now I have something very important to say. I do not ever want anyone to think that I will stop writing one fic just because another has become far more popular. I do not write these fics for the amount of readers I have, but rather because I want to write them for me. I don't care if everyone else hates them; if I like the story, I will write and finish the story. Never will I start a story and then completely discontinue it. Some day, I might take down a story that only has one chapter, work on it, then put it back up, but I will never cease a fic that I have already posted. I say all this because I have received a review from someone who will not be mentioned telling me that no one cares about a couple of my fics and that I should stop writing those because another one is really popular. I just want you all to know that saying stuff such as that will only make me take even longer to update on the story I am basically told to write. I plan on finishing every fic I start on here, and the only thing that could stop me from doing so would be if I lost the use of my hands or if I died. I can not say how long it will take me to finish them, but you can rest assured that I will.