Hey guys!

Well, a lot of thought went into whether or not I was going to write this… I had the idea, and briefly considered it, and then I decided to make it just a drabble, but somebody who reviewed the drabble (Number 46 in my drabble collection) said they could see it as a full-length story, so I started thinking about it, and… here it is.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT THE SETTING: This is after MAX, but none of the Faxness happened in that book. At this point, the extent of Max and Fang's relationship is that he kissed her in a cave, she flew away, he kissed her one more time, on the dock, and she flew away again. So they're still in that it's-complicated stage in this story.

The title is partly based off the quote in the fourth book, and partly because… well, just read. : D

Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride.

I sat back in my cage, trying to appear half-asleep and disinterested in my surroundings. In the cage to the left of mine, Fang caught my eye and nodded very, very slightly. I reached my fingers through the bars to my right and tapped the back of Iggy's hand twice, letting him know our plan was in place.

Angel? I thought, looking at her across the aisle. Everybody clear on what's going on?

There was a pause, and then she thought, Yep. We're all ready to go.

Good.

A door creaked open, and I looked up to see two whitecoats coming toward us. They stopped in front of Fang's cage, and I resisted the urge to say something snide to them.

"Come on," one scientist said to Fang, kneeling down to unlock the cage and swing open the door. "You're up."

Fang crawled out of the cage without question, letting the whitecoats grab either one of his arms as he walked toward the doors-- slowly, and if you didn't know any better, you'd say dejectedly.

I motioned for the flock to get into position. We all quietly poised ourselves to make a break for it, and I started the count in my head. Five… four… three… two…

And then Fang was grabbing the IDs the whitecoats were wearing around their necks, one in each hand, and yanking, hard. They choked, trying to push Fang off, but he was too strong for them. While they were sputtering and gasping, he snapped the cord on one ID and ran over to the control pad on the wall. He quickly scanned the ID, and the buttons lit up.

"Run!" he yelled, and pressed the "Release This Wing" button. The flock and I launched out of our cages, taking off down the hallway towards Fang. All the other mutants in that room had gotten out, too, and were looking uncertain. If there was any time at all, I would have helped them escape with the rest of us.

We raced through room after room, desperately trying to find one with a window or exit where we could take off. We passed hundreds of awful experiments, set off multiple alarms, making the place sound like a concert times ten, and knocked out a couple dozen whitecoats before we found a window, just big enough to get us all through.

"Angel!" called Fang, smashing the glass with one good swing of his fist. "Go! Hurry!"

Angel jumped through the window, and a moment later I saw her rise again, snow-white wings stroking powerfully.

"Gazzy!"

I took a look behind me at the mutants in the room. These all looked pretty human. All kids, like us. It broke my heart, and I wished yet again that we had the time to save every one of these innocent little beings.

"Nudge!"

And then, two pairs of dark, serious eyes caught mine from across the room. There were two little kids with tiny wings extending from their backs, crammed into one small dog crate. They looked about three years old, one a boy and one a girl. The boy had sandy blonde hair and tan skin; the girl's hair tumbled down her back in black curls, and her skin had an olive tone to it.

"Iggy!"

Making one of my famous snap decisions, I sprinted across the room and knelt in front of the cage. The two kids stared at me, their dark eyes wide and scared. Even as the alarms clanged in the background, telling me that any moment now I'd be captured, I asked the shaking kids, "Can you talk?"

"Max! Max? Max, what the hell are you doing?"

In an instant Fang was at my side, grabbing my elbow and hauling me to my feet. "Are you insane?" he hissed. "Go jump out the window!"

I shook my head and lifted a shaky finger to point at the cowering kids in the cage at our feet. When he saw what I was pointing at, Fang's eyes widened, meaning he was stunned.

"Fang," I whispered. "It's-- us."

Fun fact: Most of this was written while I was half-asleep. Impressive, huh? : )

Reviews are fabulous. : )