Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride or any of its characters. James Patterson has full rights to Maximum Ride. (But of course, I have rights to this story...)

As I drove down the road, thousands of thoughts raced through my brain. (Thankfully, none were my Voice.) Well, technically, I wasn't driving, I was riding. Chained to the seat. With diamond chains. And the seats were leather, so my legs were sticking. But that's beside the point.

My captors were driving down a horribly, annoyingly straight road lined with ginormous pine trees. It was a beautiful day outside – perfect for flying. But there were those diamond chains again.

Anyway, there was a distant curve down this straight road. I itched to see what was beyond it – I just knew there would be something. I strained at my chains discreetly, not wanting to draw attention.

"Ow!" I drew in a quick breath, then glanced at the machines that had taken us captive. No reaction. Good. "Why do these have to be freaking diamond?" The chains were still sharp, because they hadn't been cut all that well, and had cut my wrists.

Apparently Gazzy had had the same experience. "Why can't it be good ol' iron and duct tape? Like normal? I mean, it's not like we could -"

I gave him a specialty Look. I didn't want our captors to know that we weren't even strong enough to break through iron, let alone diamond.

I went back and reflected on Gazzy's words. Like normal? Okay, you know something's wrong when the eight-year-old starts calling iron and duct tape bonds when you're getting kidnapped normal.

Hey, at least we could still talk. I don't know how Nudge would have survived this drive if she couldn't talk. Now she was trying - again - to talk to our captors. "So, what's your favorite kind of music? Maybe we could play it while we're driving. Then it wouldn't be so boring. Are you guys bored? I am. I'd think driving for six hours would get pretty old. Maybe we could stop. Just for a little bit?"

Of course, the Flyboys' only response was, "No. We will take you to Master." Their robotic voices were starting to annoy me, especially since they were repeating this same line over and over again.

And Iggy had been touching everything for the first few hours, muttering their colors to himself. It just never got old for him.

And Angel had been...well, I wasn't even sure what. She was sitting in the back, so I had to crane my neck to see her. I sighed. Apparently she'd been experimenting with her ability to change forms. "Nice try, sweetie, but I don't think that'll work too well," I told her.

And of course Nudge and the Gasman, the wannabe American Idols. Who only knew the constipation song. And had been singing it incessantly, except Nudge, who took breaks to talk to the Flyboys.

So you can see why I was kind of standing on the egde of insanity with my foot on a banana peel.

Fang was sitting next to me, glaring out the window. So Fanglike. He looked my way, and our eyes met. He nodded toward the Flyboys, then said, "Fake."