3I do not own any of the characters from Maximum Ride. I do, however, own the original characters that will appear.
Chapter One:Imprisoned
I was dreaming. This had to be a dream. There was no other explanation. It just had to be. I was asleep in my room, and this was all just a dream. Nudge and Angel were still down the hall, trying to fall asleep in their own beds. Iggy and the Gasman were sitting in front of the TV eating popcorn. Fang was mindlessly tapping his fingers over the keyboard, and I was in my room sleeping safely, with my Mickey Mouse alarm clock right next to my bed. Yeah. That was right. Everything was normal. Everyone was okay.
Of course, that was before I opened my eyes, and you'd be surprised at what I saw.
Nothing, absolutely nothing.
Naturally, I felt the panic begin to sink in, but I had to at least try to keep a level head if I was going to figure out what the heck was going on. I took a deep breath and tried to convince myself that everything was going to be alright. I closed my eyes.
It's just a hoax, I told myself. Someone's just playing some stupid trick on me.
But when my eyes opened, I was still in the same dark room. The first thing I noticed was that I could barely see a foot in front of my face. The second thing I noticed was that the only light was streaming in from a barred window about the size of a Kleenex box ten feet above my head. The fourth thing I noticed was that I couldn't move much. Great. I was in a Max-sized cage. How flattering.
The fourth thing I noticed was that I wasn't alone.
I didn't move. Maybe my mind had been playing tricks on me. Maybe I didn't hear someone stir, and maybe I didn't hear someone else groan. Maybe I was putting false hope into my head.
That was when whoever else was in there noticed that I was there too. It ― he or she, I couldn't tell from the dark ― reached over, seeming to look for me. I held my breath and crammed my eyes shut, trying to think about how I would attack it if it turned out to be bad. First I'd have to find its body. Go for the legs. Knock it out. Beat it down. Ask questions later. That's what I would do. My body tensed, ready to spring.
A rough hand found my shoulder. I held my breath as I felt the calloused fingers traveled up my arm. My breath caught short in my throat, and I started to scream.
"Max! Max! Shhh, it's me!" he said is a raspy whisper
"What?" I gasped unintentionally, sounding heavily incompetent.
He — I'm sure it was a guy now — turned me from my shoulders so that I was facing him. His grip on my arm wasn't too firm, almost gentle. I took a good, hard look at his face. Even in the dim lighting, I could just about make out his smooth olive skin, his angular jaw, and then his eyes. It was his eyes that gave him away. As dark as they were, they were distinct.
I let out a relieved sigh. "Fang."
Fang nodded once, taking one of his hands off of my shoulders. "Are you okay?" he asked. "You're not hurt, are you?"
I shook my head, but rubbed the back of my head guiltily. "Yeah, I'm fine," I said too quickly. Fang raised an eyebrow, not completely believing my response. "It's just a bit of a headache, alright? I'll be fine. It's not a big deal."
He held my gaze until he was satisfied. Fang let out a heavy sigh and slid his back against the smooth concrete wall.
It was quiet for a while, too quiet. If my original judgment had been right, it meant that only the two of us could fit in here. Where was the rest of my flock? Were they safe at home, or were they somewhere here, where ever here was, locked up in a small cell?
"Do you," I said quietly, my voice on the verge of breaking. Fang looked at me from the corner of his eye. I clear my throat. "Do you know where they're at?" I asked.
Fang closed his eyes and shook his head, knowing that I was referring to the flock. "I don't even know where we're at," he mumbled in response.
I sighed, not knowing what else to do. It wasn't like I could go pounding at the walls and start demanding to know where the flock was at. As far as I was concerned, there wasn't a way out of here. There had to be a door, logically. It was just probably hard to see in the dark, and they could have designed it so that it looked invisible. That was the better option to the other one in the back of my mind. We could have been blocked in so that there would be no door. I tried not to think about that possibility.
"Just relax, Max," Fang murmured. His eyes were still closed, and his head was resting against the wall.
I wrinkled my nose. "How am I supposed to just relax?" I asked with an edge of ice. "My flock is out there without me. I don't know where they're at or if they're okay, and you expect me to just relax?"
I swore I saw a flicker of a smirk on Fang's face, but it was too dark to tell. "Like this," he mumbled, seeming indifferent over the situation.
"Don't you care?" I asked, repulsed. "We've been captured, Fang," I reminded him unnecessarily. "We need to figure out how to get out of here and find everyone else."
"What are supposed to do?" he asked. His jaw was starting to tighten, I could see that much. "Crawl through the window? Knock on the door? I don't think that's really going to work much, Max."
My fist tightened at my side, and I bit down to keep myself from saying something stupid. "I can't believe you," I growled. Did I say stupid? I meant extremely stupid. Just plain stupid is alright.
"Max, look at me," Fang said sternly, like he was trying not to yell.
I wasn't having any of that. I was fired up, and I wouldn't mind a little argument right now. Maybe then I could figure out a way to get us out of here. "How can I if I can't see your face, moron?" I said to him with more distaste than he probably deserved. Oh well.
Fang glowered at me, though he still seemed to be holding back. He shook his long hair out of his eyes so I could see his face more clearly. His hair had gotten considerably longer since he had last gotten it cut. When was that, in New York? It covered his eyes most of the time now, and it was a miracle that I recognized them not so long ago.
"Is that any better for you?" he asked sarcastically, almost in annoyance, too. I resisted the urge to smack him, settling for deepening my frown instead. Fang took a deep breath, and when he spoke I could tell how much in control of his temper he was.
"Look," he finally sighed, "the kids can hold on their own, Iggy, too. They know how to take care of themselves, because you taught them how to survive. They're all probably thinking about what they should do next. They're smart kids, Max. They can take care of themselves every once and a while. They're survivors."
I took all of this in slowly and tried to be open minded about it. Gradually, I felt the corners of my lips curve up unintentionally. Fang raised his eyebrows in confusion, and I laughed dryly once or twice.
"That's the most I've heard you say in, well, a while," I mused, making random gestures with my hands to emphasize my point.
Fang's fingers twitched at his side. I knew this only because they barely brushed up against my hand. The darkness of the room made it near impossible to see anything unless you knew what you were looking at.
"Did you ever think that maybe it was best for us to just quit the mission and find a place to stay and actually settle down for more than a few days?" he asked silently.
Automatically, I snorted, but then I did start to imagine it. A nice, warm home where we could act . . . normal for a change, that would be nice. We could sleep in and eat real food. It was a long shot of a dream, but hey, we can fly. Anything can happen, right?
"Well, the last time we went out looking for real estate everyone else ended up getting caught by the flyboys," I reminded him, trying to get some leverage.
"And then we stayed on the run," he countered, "and look where that keeps getting us."
"Touché," I said, faintly impressed, but I still wasn't convinced. "We're not giving up on the mission," I told him firmly, though I wasn't feeling hostile. I was feeling indifferent about finding a home at this point, more than anything.
"You need to start thinking about them, too, you know."
I looked at Fang, trying to get what he was saying. Yeah, I knew that he was telling me to think about what the rest of the flock wanted, but I didn't why he was saying it. Didn't I always keep the flock's best intentions at heart?
Fang looked at me curiously. "Don't get me wrong," he said, "you're doing fine considering, but they want a home. Personally, I think it would be great for your health. If you don't stop stressing so much you're going to die younger." He paused and frowned a little bit. "Well, I don't think we're going to live a normal life span anyway, but you get the point."
By now, he almost seemed to be smiling, like the idea of our lifespan was a joke. Then again, we've outlived every other experiment, so I guess I could laugh a little. Here we were worrying about killing ourselves from stress while other experiments were trying to live another minute. Not so good for them, but hey, we're lucky. I'm pretty darn thankful for that.
"What do you mean considering?" I asked, my tone matching the perplexed expression on my face.
"Considering that you're a fourteen-year-old mutant hybrid who has no formal schooling, practically lives on the streets, and is threatened by death constantly, you turned out pretty well," he explained.
"Um, thanks?"
He shrugged, and a whisper of a grin appeared on his face. "Don't mention it," he breathed. "I'll have to remember your thanks next time I question your sanity and capability of being the leader."
"Hey," I snapped, hardly able to hide the tiny smile that tugged on my lips.. "I'm leader until I put it on someone else's shoulders or unless I'm dead, and I don't plan on dying anytime soon, thank you very much."
Fang reached a hand out and rested it on my cheek. My heart thudded insanely in my chest, and I felt my cheeks heat up. He looked me straight in the eye. I could see something in his gaze that I didn't quite understand, but sometime's it was the best thing to not get Fang, especially when he has that glint in his eyes.
"And you do a great job, Max," he almost whispered. "No one can take that from you."
I put my hand on his and closed my eyes as I took it off of me. "Could you not do that?" I asked him, near pleading.
He shrugged, but took back his hand almost reluctantly. "Whatever you say, Max," he mumbled incoherently. "If that's the way you want it, I'll do it, I guess."
I grunted, for some reason not liking the way he said that. Fang was stubborn. Maybe as stubborn as me, but he was almost weird the way he acted with me sometimes. It was like he was in on his own private joke and I was in the dark, literally and not. But Fang seemed to have this . . . infatuation that would go on and off periodically with me lately. Hopefully, it was just my mind being freaky. Hormones. It's always safe to blame them.
Fang sat ghostly still, even when I stood up to stretch. I kicked at the ground a few times, not really paying attention to what I was doing.
"Ouch," I winced when I kicked something hard and unexpected. Fang was instantly by my side, making sure I wasn't hurt. "I'm fine, I'm fine," I grumbled.
"Are you sure?" he asked one more time.
I pursed my lips and locked his gaze. "Yes," I said firmly, "I am fine."
We both kneeled on the ground and examined the floor. I moved my hands against the concrete in hopes of finding what had tripped me. The floor was smooth and felt like a cool stone. It was hard, and it would be unbearably uncomfortable to sleep on.
"Here we go," I whispered, feeling a slight ridge on the smooth ground. Fang placed his hand next to mine and nodded. On either side of the ridge was a gap, making it look like the thin piece in the middle could slide up and down out of the hole. "I wish I could see," I mumbled, "then I would know what the heck this is."
"It feels like . . . like maybe it comes out of the ground, kind of like a trap door," Fang suggested as he continued to rub his fingers against the ridge.
"Yeah, except it's sort of backwards," I added.
Fang and I stared at the floor for a while longer, straining our eyes more than we needed. Eventually, we both got tired just staring at it blindly. It wasn't going anywhere and neither were we, for that matter. There was no hurry to get all of the answers right away, if we got any answers at all.
"Is it getting colder, or is it just me?" I asked, rubbing my arms. Fang shrugged and went to sit against the wall. "Well, before I go crazy," I mumbled, "I'm going to rest. That corner is looking extremely cozy."
Fang chuckled. "You know," he began slyly. "They say the cold brings people together."
I punched him in the arm as I sat down next to him, trying to make myself not cold without his help. He would enjoy that too much, and the last thing I needed was a smitten Fang or a Fang with too big of an ego or both. That was the absolute last thing I needed right now in my concrete prison.
Well, it's the beginning of June. I haven't posted since before Spring Break. I promised a chapter by June 5, and here we go. Chapter one. Yep. I'm rewritting CNA. I only had 2 chapters up before, and I didn't like them. Plus the original file got deleted...so this was the perfect opportunity to rewrite it.
I chose to rewrite this because, for one, I wrote it so long ago and my standards have changed. Besides, it was absolutely horible before. Ugh. There was so much attitude change so quickly that I made myself sick. Not literally. I'm making them less...aggressive...that word works, and more neutral. Of course, there's going to be quarrels, but I didn't think opening the story with a fight would be too good. ;)
Okay, now, if you want to find updates on when I'm posting next for this story or any of my other stories, like when I'm posting next or even little "bonus" material on the story, visit my blog. There's a link to it on my profile page.
I don't know when I'm going to post the next chapter. Maybe I'll do the 1 after 5 rule again (1 chapter after the previous chapter gets 5 reviews), or maybe I'll post on a certain day(s) of the week, like I am with Chasing Midnight. I don't know yet. You'll figure it out when I post again or if you check my blog every now and then.
Comments, critiques, and reviews are more than welcome...they are LOVED!
- Saz