A/N: Hi so this fic is about a girl named Leanna who was left behind at the School. Some Fax, maybe some mystery couple? Well, you'll have to read it and see!
Disclaimer—I'm only going to say this once because otherwise I'll forget—I don't own MR.
Also, this story was written by a girl who's only ever gotten THREE REVIEWS in her life. THREE. You know, if you catch my drift...
Chapter 1: The Escape
(Leanna PoV)
Whitecoat # 1 walks into my cell. Yes, I'm lucky enough to have a cell and not a dog crate, but there's a reason for that.
"Name?" Whitecoat # 1 asks Whitecoat # 2.
"Leanna." Whitecoat # 2 doesn't blink.
Whitecoat # 1 flips through the stack of papers on his clipboard. "Arm," he says, pulling out a syringe from his pocket. Wow, these whitecoats have amazing vocabularies. (If you get the sarcasm.)
I look at him suspiciously, but stick out my left arm and flip it over so that the inside is up. He injects the needle, and I quickly pull my arm back once he's done.
"The injection should stimulate the subject's mutation rate," Whitecoat # 1 says to Whitecoat # 2. "Write that down." Whitecoat # 2 quickly writes it on his clipboard and presses a button on a metal remote, opening a large hole in the cement wall. For a second, I consider trying to make a break for it, but the whitecoats are gone.
It wouldn't even be too hard for me to escape, really. I can teleport, but not inside this cell, which is why I don't have a dog crate. I can also read and control minds. But the whitecoats are strangely immune to mind control. And, again, me no teleport.
I look around my cell. It's an empty room with no doors or windows whatsoever. Just a bucket. That sounds like one of those riddles— you know, you're stuck in a room with no doors or windows, you only have a mirror and a table, how do you get out, blah, blah, blah— but unfortunately in real life you can't look into a mirror, see what you saw and then magically have a saw appear in your hand. And honestly, I'm lucky to have a bucket. You gotta do what you gotta do.
Sometimes I'm allowed out of my cell, for tests and stuff. I'm... friendly... with this group of... people... who call themselves the flock. Not including me. Like, WTF? I have wings too.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that part. I have wings. Not like, dressup fairy wings or whatever, but actual wings. My— I guess our— DNA was mixed with 2% bird DNA. The flock is the only other group of human-avian mixtures. I guess I should say was. They escaped four years ago, when I was ten. The leader, Max, is the same age as me. Did they even think to get me out? No.
Not only am I experimented on, usually painfully, a lot of the time is insanely boring. I mean, there's not much you can do when you're alone with a bucket full of shit. And no, I am still above playing with shit. Anyone out there who's ever bored in class, be glad there are other things, even people with you in the room.
The wall opens again, and my anger— the fact that I'm stuck here, am in excruciating pain twenty percent of the time, was left behind— surges out of me and I sprint past the very surprised looking whitecoat. Yes! I run down the hallway and kick through the window, jumping through and letting out my wings, very light brown with red tips, like my hair. Except my wings are dead straight, and my hair is wavy.
Crap. The school is surrounded by Erasers. Well, no biggie. I fly over them. If I were on the ground, I'd be dead. Or maybe I would be if I wasn't fighting Erasers basically 24/7 for "testing." But right now, I'm too happy that I've finally escaped to focus on a fight.
After about 29 hours straight of flying, I bump into something. Crap. If that's a plane, please let them think I'm some weird overgrown bird...
"Hey, are you OK?"
I look up and realize what I bumped into was— no lie— Max, from the flock. Okay, now I know I'm hallucinating. My luck literally does not get this good.
"Uh. Yeah," I say. "Uh... what..."
Max laughs. "And here I thought we were the only bird human mutants. What's your name?"
She doesn't remember me? "Leanna," I say, then pass out from exhaustion.
I wake up around five hours later. I always know what time it is— weird mutation thing.
"Hey, Max, she's awake!" the short dark girl says. "Hey, are you OK? Did you come from the School? How long have you been flying for? Are you used to flying? Are you used to flying for so long?"
"Uh..." I say. "Yeah, I'm fine, yes, I just escaped from the School, I was flying for about 29 hours and 17 minutes, yeah, I'm used to flying, and yeah I'm used to flying for so long."
The girl's jaw falls open. "What? Max, she just came from the School and she's been flying for over a day!"
Max laughs. "Yeah, real funny, Nudge." Nudge? What kind of name is that? Max looks at me. "You weren't really flying for that long, were you?"
I shrug. "It wasn't that long. I'd had a long day. I can usually go for about 53 hours, more or less."
Max's mouth falls open too. "Yeah, right," she says.
"Seriously," I say. "Uh... where are we?"
Max sighs. "At someone's vacation house in California."
"Whose?" I ask.
Max shrugs. "How should I know? Hey, guys! Everyone come into the extra room!" Extra? How nice.
Three boys and another girl sit down around me on the bed. "Who's this?" a boy my age asks.
"Iggy, be nice," the short girl sighs. "Okay, guys, this is gonna sound really stupid, but let's go around and say our name, our age and any... skills."
Max glares at her. "I don't remember putting you in charge. Oh, whatever." She looks at me, probably to start.
"I'm Leanna," I say. "I'm fourteen, and I can teleport, read and control minds, and I'm also telekinetic."
Angel look annoyed. "Hey, that's my thing! I bet you're lying, you can't really read and control minds!"
"Oh, yeah?" I ask. I search her mind. "Right before now, you were thinking about how Max is a bad leader and how you should be the leader and how you want a baby penguin."
Angel huffs, and Max yells, "Angel, we've gone over this!"
Crap. Bad thing to say. Oh, sorry, I think to Angel.
She smiles. Yeah, no prob. She needed to know, and plus, this way I have someone to talk to. Mentally, I mean.
Cool, I think back. I turn to the boy on my left. "Go."
"I'm Gazzy, I'm eight, and my farts are... dangerous." He grins.
"I'm Iggy, I'm fourteen, and I'm blind, but I can feel colors," the boy next to him says. "Nudge."
"I'm Nudge, I'm eleven, and I can hack just about anything and I'm magnetic sometimes."
"Fang. 14. I can basically go invisible," the last boy says.
"Kay, meeting dismissed," Max says, putting out her fist. The others stack theirs on top, then tap the hand below theirs twice. I follow Angel to her room. So, she says mentally. Mind reader, huh?
Yep, I think back.
"Ya know, I remember you," she says out loud. "From the School, I mean. You were the one they always brought past for 'testing.' You were nice."
I look up. "Really?" Wait a second. "Then why did you leave me there?"
Angel looks around like she doesn't want anyone to hear. Well, Max said we had to get out of there, fast, she thinks, and there was no time. Plus Jeb had to get out, too, and he can't fly.
Jeb? Jeb helped them out? I hold in the gasp. Angel, Jeb's the Whitecoat who tried to kill me less than a week ago.
"What? Our Jeb's dead," she says. "He disappeared five years ago."
I take a deep breath. "That's when he showed up at the School."
Angel jest sits there. Please leave, she thinks at me. I need some time to think.
I walk back to my room. Then what she said hits me. Well, Max said we had to get out of there, fast.
Max said we had to get out of there.
Max.
I think back to Angel. You hate Max and want to be in charge, right? And you need help?
Yeah, she thinks back.
I'm in, I think. Whenever you're ready.