This is placed after Max, so don't read it if you haven't read the book yet!

I do not own maximum ride.

I was walking down the street and I hear a sound like a baby crying, which was odd because I was next to an ally. I went to a dumpster where I heard the sound, I opened the lid and leaned in and was pushed in. I landed on my head, and felt pain, and then I blacked out.

I woke up in some kind of a cage, and I had the biggest head ach ever. A man came in and said "Are you Nicole Marks?"

"Yea, where am I?" I said, rubbing my head.

"You are in a place called 'The institute for higher living' but most experiments call it the school, now days." Then he muttered some thing like "they finally did something right."

"Uh, if you don't mind me asking, can you let me out a here and tell me what's going on?" I said hopefully.

"No now shut up, before you test." He yelled.

Three men came in and one that looked like a model lifted my cage, not being careful and hitting my cage. I yelled "Hey meathead! You can let me out now, and tell me what's going on!"

"Shut up or I'll come in their and chew each of your little fingers of." He said putting me on a cart, and shaking my cage, making me tumble and hit my head, again. They wheeled me into a room with an operating table and all the stuff around it like in the movies.

The one that looked like a model opened the cage and I jumped out running as I hit the ground, I didn't look back and in two seconds flat the guy who opened the cage let out a roar and I was knocked to the ground. My arm hurt like hell and I was painfully yanked up, and put on the table.

Someone put a mask over my nose and mouth. I was struggling as hard as I could, and then everything went back.

I woke in my cage, I groaned and turned over I was aching everywhere. My back felt like it was on fire. I touched it and realized my fingers where numb. I decided that I could see what happened later, I was so tired and my head was killing me. So I went to sleep.

I woke up the next morning to a cage being put next to mine; it held a boy, about fourteen (my age) and had shaggy brown hair with amazing green blue eyes. He looked about as out of it as I was. He looked scared and when they put the cage down and left he looked right at me. I said "what's your name?"

He looked taken back, but recovered quickly. H said, "I'm Jake, you?"

"Nicole" I said "what is this place?"

He looked like I just asked the most obvious question ever. When he relived I was really asking this question, and said "The school, the place where they take people and do stuff to us. Like mess with our DNA, or make us have different abilities, also known as hell to the people they test this stuff on."

I it all in and just sat their thinking about it. Out of nowhere he said "how did you get here?" I told him and I asked him the same question. His face got solemn and hard to read. I didn't think he would answer when he said "I don't know, they took me when I was a baby."

I was about to say something when a man in a white coat came in. he said "what are your symptoms?" to me.

I didn't say anything. He saw that I was not going to answer and said "If you are not going to answer I will have to call the erasers and have them get it out of you."

I looked at Jake and he mouthed "tell him" to me, so I said "my back felt like it was on fire my hands where numb and I have the biggest head ach ever." Giving him my best glare.

Not looking at me he nodded and left. Remembering this I checked my hands they weren't numb and I touched my back. It felt hot and their where two long bumps about an inch or an inch and a half wide. I gasped, not realizing what they did to me.

"Do we ever get out of here?" I asked Jake.

"If you help me maybe we can." He said seriously, reacing through the bars to take my hand.