Disclaimer - I do not own Maximum Ride
Max could hear the second youngest bird kid whimper slightly in her cage. She was only around four-years-old. They called her "Nudge", although they weren't 100% sure why.
"It doesn't hurt as much once you're used to it," Iggy told her from experience. He should know better than any of them. He had had his eyes operated on three years before while he was awake, and it had caused him to lose his eyesight.
Max sat curled up in a ball in her own crate. She had spent her whole life at this damned place. When she slowly lifted her head from her protective ball, she found two black circles staring back at her.
Fang.
Even though Max had known him her whole life, she still wasn't sure what to make of him. He was almost always silent, and he never cried. Not once, no matter what the scientists did to him. Not that Max could remember, anyway.
But he was also funny. Really funny, actually. If he ever saw Max or Iggy, or sometimes even little Nudge upset after tests and experiments, he'd open his normally muted mouth and start cracking jokes, or talk about how someday, they were going to bust out of this place. It was unlikely, but nice to think about. Fang could always cheer them up.
Now was one of those times that Max pleaded with her biggest puppy dog eyes for him to make it better. To be the strong one, even though she was older, and make the dark go away. Even if it was only for a little while.
"Not much longer," he said. His voice was raspy from lack of use. Most of the scientist still thought he was actually incapable of speech. They talked to him like an animal, thinking he couldn't understand. They couldn't have been more wrong. "Soon we'll be out. I know it."
"'Ow?" Nudge asked. That was sob-speech for "how?".
Fang shrugged. "Not sure yet. But I'll figure it out, I swear."
"Cut it out," Iggy told him miserably. "All your doing is making us have useless hope, Fang."
"What are you talking about?" Fang challenged. "It's not useless. I will get us out of here, Iggy. Just you wait."
The newest member of the bird kids cried out from his cage. He was just a baby. Max had heard a female scientist say he looked like a cherub baby . . . Whatever the hell that was.
"Shut up, F28246eff!" someone yelled from the hall. The baby was silenced instantly. Max, Fang, and Iggy still hadn't decided what his name would be.
"You okay, Baby?" Iggy asked, looking over to the smallest dog crate.
"Hung'y," the baby replied. That was one of the few words the older kids had managed to teach him.
"We'll be fed soon," Fang told him.
"Gazzy," the baby added. That meant 'gassy'. Which he was. Always. That had been one of the first words they had to teach him, so they could be warned.
"Why don't we just call him that?" Iggy suggested. "'Gazzy'? It could be short for . . . 'the Gasman'."
Max crinkled her nose. "That's not a name, Iggy!"
"So?" Iggy asked. "Neither is 'Nudge' or 'Fang'!"
Fang shrugged. "I like it. Kinda sounds like a twisted superhero."
Max still wasn't very fond of it, but she caved anyway.
"So how would you do it, then?" Iggy asked, getting back on topic. "How would you save us, Fang? I can't see, the Gazzy can't even walk yet."
"We all have wings," Fang said. "We could fly away."
He made a soaring motion in the air with his hand. Max giggled. Actually flying? That sounded amazing.
"We don't know how!" Iggy protested. "And I'd fly right into a wall!"
"I wouldn't let you," Fang promised. "I'd help guide you so you wouldn't."
"That would never work," Iggy said literally. Normally, he would just hop on board with Fang's crazy schemes, but for some reason, today was different. Today he was in one of his rare bad moods.
"It would to!" Fang argued.
"No, it wouldn't!"
Max looked back and forth between the two of them. They had never fought before . . . She didn't like it. Why weren't they getting along?
"You're always saying stuff like that!" Iggy continued. "That we'll get out, or that you'll make a plan! But you never do! We're still stuck here!"
"Maybe when I do come up with a plan we'll just leave you here then!"
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
Max couldn't take it anymore. She let a small sob escape her lips. Her two best friends in the whole world were talking about leaving each other. She didn't like that.
"Hey . . . Max?" Fang said, his voice gentle now. ". . . D-don't cry. I was just kidding. I'd never leave Iggy behind."
"Yeah, and I'd never let you and Fang leave with out me," Iggy reassured. "You'd probably get yourselves killed without me."
Max continued to cry softly into her drawn knees.
Fang reached through the bars of his crate and tapped her shoulder. "Come on, Max. I promise, we'll always be together. All us birdkids."
"Always?" Max asked.
"Always," Iggy and Fang agreed in unison.