Quick intro, this part picks up from the chapter in book two when the flock is saying goodbye to Iggy, when he's going to live with his parents. NOTE: I don't own the book, so I'm writing this from memory.

The goodbyes were impossible. Heart wrenching. This was the last time I'd ever hear Angel's gentle cry, the last time I'd listen to Nudge's incessant prattle, the last time I would feel Gazzy's unwashed hair, the last time Max would give an order around me. There would be no more getting in trouble with Gazzy, no more running and hiding from whitecoats, no more fighting Erasers, no more traveling the world over, flying thousands of feet into the air where nothing but planes could see us.

No more flock.

I tried not to cry, I did, but the whole overwhelming idea of never ever seeing my family – the makeshift one, the one that had been with me and taken care of me for my whole life, not my biological one – ever again was too much to think that I wasn't being emotionally ripped up from the inside out.

I hated crying. Crying hurt my eyes. And it showed weakness, something I had been taught not to do. But…the flock. This was really, truly and completely the last time Fang, Gazzy, Angel, Max and Nudge would ever be standing before me, comforting me. I remembered when we were outside that place, that old store where my parents were supposed to be, and I'd given up all hope of finding my parents. And Max was right there for me. She brought me back, like they'd all done so many times before. And then what did she do? She actually found my parents. After failing to help me, she then actually did it. God, I would miss them. I would miss them all.

"Goodbye," I whispered into crying little Angel's sweet hair.

"Buh…bye, Iggy," she whispered back.

"It's getting late," Max said forcefully, but I knew sadness tinged her voice. "We should go, guys."

Angel slowly pulled away from me. The footsteps led out the door we'd come through. I recognized Angel Nudge and Gazzy's quiet sobs. Of course. Good ol' Max and Fang. Never shed a tear.

"Won't be the same without you," Gazzy said quietly to me.

"Won't be the same without you, either," I echoed back to him. I listened as they all walked out the door. I followed them to the doorway, and stopped where the carpet ended. Their footsteps faded slowly into the distance, and I stood there long after the sound of their boots died away.

Flock. Gone. Forever.

"James," the woman said quietly.

James? Oh, right, that was my birth name.

"Yeah?" I replied.

"They've left."

"I know," I said.

"Please, come in. There is so much we need to talk about."

"I know," I repeated.

She tenderly touched my arm. "Come in the house, James."

She's your mother, I reminded myself. We've searched for her and my dad, and all our parents for ages. This is what you wanted. It's our dreams, and you're the only one living it.

I slowly shut the door.

"Would you like something to eat?"

I shook my head. I wasn't hungry.

"I can't believe you're really here," Mr. Griffith said. He rubbed my shoulder, and I shifted my wing away form his hand. Now would be a bad time for him to know about it.

"Me neither," I murmured.

"We'll show you your room," Mrs. Griffith – I mean, Mom – suggested. "We'll have to fix it up. It's…a little young for you."

"Still has a crib," he chuckled.

She gently took my hand and guided me down a hall. I listened carefully to everything around me.

Oven fan to the right. There's a kitchen there. Clock ticking down the hall. The clock's far away, so the hall must be long. Probably more rooms down there.

"There's stairs here, watch your step," she warned. We turned to the left and up the stairs. They guided me to a room on the left of the hall at the top.

"This is your room in here," she said. I took a deep breath and coughed out mounds of dust.

"Are you all right?" Dad asked.

"When was the last time this place was dusted?" I coughed.

"Um…" he muttered. "Fourteen years ago."

Oh.

"Let's give you a tour of the house," Mom suggested, conveniently avoiding that subject.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," I agreed. Always, always know everything about where you are, especially if you plan to be living there.

Starting from that spot, they gave me the grand tour of the house (not too grand, though). I tucked away everything they said. I wasn't going to get lost in my own house. And if an Eraser decided to turn up, I sure as hell wanted to know every exit, including windows.

I also noted that the hallway on the first floor was a good long one, well over twenty feet long. That was much longer than my wingspan, and since no other place in the house except maybe the living room seemed to be that large, then the hallway was where I was going to show them.

"It's almost time for dinner. Are you sure you're not hungry?" Mom asked.

My stomach growled a little at the mention of it. "Yeah, a little."

"What do you want for dinner? We'll have anything you want."

Anything? We so rarely got such a large choice of what to eat…I always just ate whatever was in front of me.

"Um…I don't care," I told her.

"There must be something you like, something special," he said.

"Uh…Not to disappoint you, but I really don't care."

She sighed. "How about we go out to a restaurant?"

What didn't they get about 'I don't care'?

There was a silence of about five seconds. I had no idea what was going on and I suddenly became angry for the first time in about an hour that I was blind.

"Let's go out," she said forcefully. What was with her?

He grumbled slightly.

"This is a special occasion," she reminded him. "This kind of thing doesn't happen every day. And, while we're out, we'll get you new stuff."

"Ok," I said.

I walked to the door, and we went out. Since I had no preference to where we went, we ended up going to a small Chinese place. Apparently my mom loved Chinese

I so wish I could have seen their expressions when I ordered an egg drop soup, two rolls of sushi, a plate of cold noodles, a sweet and sour and chicken and a tiramisu for dessert.

After dinner, my mom's only response to any of it was, "I thought you said you weren't that hungry!"

"I'm not," I replied. "We always eat like that."

"We as in…all of your friends?" my dad said, flabbergasted.

"Yeah, we all do."

"How did the people who took care of you feed you all?"

"They didn't," I said. "No one in particular ever really took care of us."

Oops. Was that the wrong thing to say?

The conversation ended there and I wondered how long our conversations would continue to end in awkward silences. Probably every conversation from now until I moved out.

After that, we went shopping for clothes for me, since I had almost none, and things for my room.

Note to self: don't let a woman shop for you. It takes forever. My feet were so sore after the second hour that my dad and I overpowered her and forced her to stop shopping.

On the bright side, I now had two new pants, four new shirts, new pajamas and a new pair of shoes.

I was told that until we went bed shopping tomorrow, I'd be sleeping in the guest room.

They left me in the guest room to go to bed. The air was stuffy so I went and, after a decent while of scanning the entire freaking wall, opened the window. I lay down in the bed and rolled over, dozing off.

A girl and boy shouted next door through the window. I couldn't make out the words, so I ignored it. One of them hit the other. I ignored it again. Eventually, I fell asleep, shivering as the thought suddenly came back to me that I wasn't sleeping in my bed back at Anne's house, and I didn't hear Gazzy's annoying television from the room next to me.

Because there was no more flock.