so the dream was a good start, yeah? thought it would be. there were lots of different ways i could've started this story--at first i didn't know what to do--but eventually came up with that. glad it went over well.

but enough of my rambling. on to chapter two!

disclaimer: don't own maximum ride.

2. nightmares and suspicion and accusations, oh my

"Con was right. This is a trap. You made the wrong choice."

I gasped and sat up so fast I nearly tumbled from the tree. When I realized I wasn't falling, I took a deep, shaky breath, a hand over my pounding heart. I wasn't falling. I wasn't going to die. (. . .I don't think.)

Man, that stupid dream! I'd been having it for the past three nights now, and every time I chose the window over the shadow-world! Even though I knew what was going to happen! It was ridiculous!

Currently, the eight of us--Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, Angel, Total and I--were camping out in some forest just outside Columbia, South Carolina. Tomorrow we'd meet up with Max's mom, Dr. Martinez, so we could go to the CSM meeting about our tour of Australia.

For some weird reason (if you don't sense the sarcasm in that, shame on you), I couldn't get to sleep. Technically, it was Max's watch, so we were the only ones awake. The flock was spread out over two close-grown trees, with me, Fang, Iggy, and Nudge in one and Max, Angel, the Gasman, and Total in the other.

"Spark?" Max said.

I looked down to where she was reclining on her branch and once again realized how similar to my own family she looked--similar hair color, eye color. We could've been related, even though I was, like, ninety-eight percent sure we weren't.

She'd probably heard me wake up--she looked almost worried.

"I'm fine," I said mechanically, then chided myself. Of course she wouldn't believe me when I said it like that.

Max's eyes narrowed. "Was it that dream?"

I hesitated. ". . .Who told you?"

"Fang."

I cursed silently. Two nights ago, I really had fallen from my tree branch--right onto Fang, who'd been beneath me. It'd been majorly embarrassing, so don't ask me about it any further. Long story short, I'd had to tell him about the dream. I should've known he'd tell Max. Stupid goth.

"It's nothing," I mumbled, leaning back against the trunk of my tree. "Really." Then, before she could grill me further, I sprang my own question on her. "So where're we going to meet your mom? Like, a hotel, a mall, what?"

"We're not done with this dream thing," Max told me, scowling at my sudden change in subject. "Why's it scaring you?"

"I-I'm not scared!" I protested. Because, you know, stuttering's so convincing. "Just. . .freaked out."

"Okay, then, why's it freaking you out?" When I didn't answer, she got impatient. "Spark, you can't run away from--"

"Just stop!" I snapped, uncharacteristically frustrated. When I have a problem, don't bug me about it. If I wanna talk about it, I'll talk about it. And I did not want to talk about this, least of all with Max. "Look, I'll deal with it, all right? Leave me alone!"

"Spark, you have to. . ."

I tuned her out after that and flicked my eyes toward the sky. . .or what I could see of it through the branches of the trees, anyway.

Nine days ago (I think--the days sort of blended together after a while), I'd looked up at this same sky with Sy, second-eldest experiment of the human/fish project and the coolest guy in the world. I've known him for nearly a month now, but already I considered him my best friend. Best friend, and--though I feel weird saying it--boyfriend. Geez, never thought I'd have one of those while a teenager.

I wondered idly where he was. Probably back in Chicago, working with Joey and Frankie--cat hybrids--on the plan to free all the mutants worth saving. That, and secretly making lives of all Itex employees a living hell.

"--ven listening to me?"

"Huh?" I blinked and looked back at Max, who looked really worked up about something. Perhaps I should've listened to whatever she'd been saying. "Were you. . .?"

"Did you hear a word I just said?" she demanded before I could finish.

"Um, yeah," I said, faking an offended expression. "I heard you say 'Are you even listening to me' and 'Did you hear a word I just said.' See?"

Annoyed and irritated, she rolled her eyes. "No, I mean before that."

"Oh. Then no, I was totally blocking you out," I said. "I tend to do that when I feel a lecture coming on." I tilted my head. "Was what you said important?"

She opened her mouth to snap, "Kinda!"

"Oh," I said again. "Well so-rry. My mind was elsewhere."

"I'd appreciate it if your mind was here right now," Max said coldly, her eyes narrowing.

"Okay, what did I do to you?" I asked, more than a little confused. "All I did was not listen for like ten seco--"

"What happens in that dream you were just having?"

I glared hard at her. "I'm not the type to share my dreams in hopes of interpretation. I'm dealing with it, all right?"

"Fine," she practically snarled. "Then I'll move on to my next question. Are you feeding information to Itex?"

I stared at Max. Had she suddenly gone insane? Had that Voice of hers finally driven her 'round the bend? "Um, what?"

"Are you feeding information about us to Itex?" she asked again, and I could see she was one hundred percent serious. Like, ready to leap up and kill me if I said yes.

"Nooo," I said slowly. "Why in the hell would you ever think tha--"

"None of us have a tracking chip, and yet somehow Con and them found us," Max interrupted again. Her words dripped with dirision. "Now, personally, I thought they were a bunch of idiots who couldn't even kill a flock of flying mutants while they slept, but maybe I was wrong."

Were the anti-flock actually capable of not screwing up, I'd say something like, "Maybe they're just really good trackers." But because they're not, I said, "They're gonna do whatever it takes to find us again. They probably just got lucky, I really don't see ho--"

Again, Max cut me off. (It was starting to get really annoying.) "And because nothing in our lives is ever just blind luck or coincidence, they must've known where we were. So, the only options I see are that one of us secretly has a tracker chip, or another one of us told a certain betraying jerk who told Con where we're going. Sound like anyone you kno--"

"Will you shut the hell up?!"

Max glared poison at me and I glared right back, so fed up with her not trusting me and so strung out from the past however the hell many days it'd been since our escape from the Factory that I was about one accusation away from snapping.

"Unless we're implanted with them, I don't see how any of us could be hiding chips," I said carefully, my clenched fists nearly shaking with fury. "When they captured us, they took away everything. Even our clothes! And because I'm sure you don't suspect any of your perfect little flock, I will assure you that I do not have anything that could be giving off our coordinates."

"That leaves me with the other option," Max practically snarled. "Somebody told somebody who told Con!"

"I didn't tell anybody!"

"Don't lie to me!" Max snapped. "I saw you, Spark. Sy caught up to us in Indiana and you went out on the balcony with him for nearly twenty minutes!"

I felt my cheeks flare up as I felt a hint of panic. Was she watching us? "You. . .he betrayed me!" I spluttered. "He betrayed all of us, I hate his guts!"

"Don't. Lie. I saw you," she said, glaring at me. "When you opened the door to the room, I woke up. I was watching you, Spark, and it didn't look to me like you hated his guts."

"Y-you. . .you don't get it!" I said, so embarrassed I could barely think straight. Now, I'm a pretty outgoing kid, and I'm willing to do some pretty crazy stuff without fear of mortification--things like bursting out into song as I'm dragged from room to room, or pretending to be a boy to help my best friend get back at her cheating ex (that was a fun day)--but just knowing Max had been spying on me as I was with Sy was just too much.

"What don't I get? Just how great Sy really is?" she sneered. "How strong and cute and caring and. . ."

"No!" I insisted. I don't have a choice, I thought. I have to tell her now. "You don't understand the fact that he never betrayed us!"

"Oh, sure," she growled at me. She was really pissed, which made me pissed. "It was all an act, right?"

"Yes!!"

"Bull! How can you believe that, Spark, he. . ."

"Only kidnapped me so he could get me out!" I interrupted. "Yes, he hit me, and yes, I thought he'd betrayed me--I mean, I broke five of his ribs because I thought that!--but he only did it so he could get me out of the Factory that much easier!"

"Oh, really? Then why did he come back for us?" Max demanded hotly. "It was pretty clear he only played us so Con could get us to the Factory too!"

"No, no, no, just shut up for a second! He had a plan, okay, but it. . .I don't know what happened, it got sidetracked or something, I. . .Oh, forget it." I stopped and took a breath. We'd been yelling back and forth in whispers, so the flock hadn't woken up, but I still felt as worn out as if Max and I had been screaming at each other.

I took a second to recuperate and started again. "Look, Max. I don't think I ever told you how I really got out back there. Would you like to know?" I was straining to keep my voice calm and neutral.

Max rolled her eyes. "Fine. Tell me how you got out."

"I only got out because Sy helped me," I said firmly, staring Max right in the eye. She blinked, then furrowed her brow in suspicion, as if she wasn't ready to believe me. I put on a seriouser. . .er, my seriousest. . .um. . .hm. How do I. . .? Ah.

I put on my most serious expression and went on. "I was supposed to die that night. They had the needle and everything. But Sy--being on the inside track--got wind of it and enlisted two other guys to help him help me. Sy slipped me the key to my cuffs and the other two let me go when they were supposed to be taking me to the death room the whitecoats had set up for me."

"Sy. . .slipped you the key?" Max said slowly, watching me warily.

"Yeah. If it weren't for him and the other two, I'd be dead," I said bluntly. "We'd all be dead, because it wouldn't've been long before they killed you, too. I mean, it's not like you would've given in or anything."

Max deflated like an airy brownie I'd just poked with a toothpick. I leaned back again and closed my eyes, giving her time to gather what dignity she had left.

"Who were the other two?" she finally asked. I sighed.

"Cat hybrids. They're not important." (Not to her, anyway.) I got to my feet and shook out my wings slightly. "I'm going for a walk."

"Spark, wait!" Max tried to call me back, but I didn't listen to her. I mean, when have I ever?

I dropped to the forest floor and pulled up sharply, coasting low to the ground for about thirty feet. Then I backpedaled and came to a running stop, just shy of slamming into the fringe of trees. Still ignoring Max's whispered cries for me to come back, she still needed to talk, I pulled my wings in and started to walk.

I wasn't running away or anything--I just needed to clear my head. And I couldn't do that with Max breathing down my neck. So, hands in my pockets and eyes staring absently at the ground, I walked. I wasn't worried about getting lost, or being gone too long. I just needed to think.

I'd messed up. Bad. My reluctance to tell her anything--plus this, my walking away--had probably crushed any trust Max had had in me. But in my defense, she'd started it. Didn't she know me well enough by now to leave me alone?

Well, I guess not. The past month, I'd been pretty upbeat. Happy. Not troubled. These guys hadn't dealt with a troubled Spark before. Everybody else, yes. My human friends, yes. My family, yes. Anti-flock, yes (though in their case, it was their fault, and they'd just beaten me up for it). This flock? Not so much.

I stopped and sighed. I looked back over my shoulder, but the trees we'd been sleeping in weren't visible anymore. Maybe I should go back. . .I hadn't been paying attention, but I couldn't've gone too far. . .

Crick.

In an instant I was tense, whirling around toward the source of the noise. I didn't see anything, but just to be safe. . .I backed up and whipped out my wings, ready to leap into the air.

I'd just taken a running jump when I crashed into a sheer net, barely ten feet above the ground. I was slammed back to the forest floor and through my thrashing, I caught a brief glimpse of four dark shadows dropping from the trees.

"Hey!" I yelled, squirming around and trying to stand. But the net must've been designed to lock fast to whatever surface it landed upon, because no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get back to my feet. Helpless to do anything else, I hollered at the top of my lungs, praying somebody would hear me. "Get this thing offa me!! Let me up, let me go!! Somebody! Help!"

I heard quick footsteps and twisted around so I could see behind me. A fifth dark figure, its head distorted by the baseball cap it was wearing, quickly closed the distance between us so it could quiet my cries.

I dimly registered Con's face before his clasped fists swung around to deliver a wicked blow to the side of my head. He'd attacked so fast I hadn't had time to block.

Little white stars flashed across my vision as I spun around, the ground rushing up to meet my face.

My last thought before I blacked out?

I'm screwed.

oh no. only two chapters in and already spark's getting kidnapped again.

perhaps max should consider a leash.