"You ready for more fun?" Iggy asked, rubbing his hands together as I opened the book with a sigh.

Ella rubbed his arm, knowing more of our past was going to come out. I was glad that Iggy had my sister.

I was more glad that I had Fang by my side to stay.

Part One: No Parents, No School, No Rules, I read.

"Well that does sound fun," Ella said with a slight smile. I grimaced.

"It's not all it's cracked up to be," Nudge said, surprising mom and Ella. I sent a small smile her way.

Chapter 1:

Sweeping, swooping, soaring, air-current thrill rides – there's nothing better. For miles around, we were the only things in the infinite, wide-open, clear blue sky. You want an adrenaline rush? Try tucking your wings in, dive-bombing for about a mile straight down, then whoosh! Wings out, grab an air current like a pit bull, and hang on for the ride of your life. God, nothing is better, more fun, more exciting. "Sounds like a rollercoaster!" Ella said, her eyes lighting up.

Okay, we were mutant freaks, we were on the lam, but man, flying – well, there's a reason people always dream about it.

"Oh, my gosh!" the Gasman said excitedly. He pointed. "A UFO!" Gazzy snickered with an evil grin on his face.

I silently counted to ten. There was nothing where the Gasman had pointed. As usual. "That was funny the first fifty times, Gazzy," I said. "It's getting old." "It was kind of annoying," Nudge said, but Gazzy was unfazed. Angel laughed.

"I thought it was funny." She said.

He cackled, several wingspans away from me. There's nothing like an eight-year-old's sense of humor. "Boys," Mom said, throwing a caring glance toward the Gasman.

"Max? How long till we get to DC?" asked Nudge, pulling up closer to me. She looked tired – we'd had one long, ugly day. Well, another long ugly day in a whole series of long, ugly days. If I ever have a good, easy day, I'd probably freak out.

"Another hour? Hour and a half?" I guessed.

Nudge didn't say anything. I cast a glance at the rest of my flock. Fang, Iggy, and I were holding steady, but we had mucho de stamina. I mean, the younger set also had stamina, especially compared to dinky little nonmutant humans. "And what's that supposed to mean?" Ella said with a huff, crossing her arms. Iggy laughed and threw an arm around her. But even they gave out eventually.

Here's the deal – for anybody new on this trip. There are six of us: Angel, who's six; "Nine!" protested Angel. Gasman, age eight; "Eleven!" interjected the Gasman. Iggy, who's fourteen, and blind; "seventeen and conditionally blind, thank you." Nudge, eleven; "Fourteen," said my little diva. Fang and me (Max), we're fourteen too. "Technically, we're eighteen now, but whatever," I said and mom laughed. We escaped from the lab where we were raised, were given wings and other assorted powers. They want us back – badly. But we're not going back. Ever.

I shifted Total to my other arm, glad he didn't weigh more than twenty pounds. He roused slightly, then draped himself across my arm and went back to sleep, the wind whistling through his black fur. Did I want a dog? No. Did I need a dog? Also no. We were six kids running for our lives, not knowing where our next meal was coming from. Could we afford to feed a dog? Wait for it – no. "Well I'm sorry I was such I burden on you," Total said, wings all ruffled. "It's not as if being toted around by you was such a pleasure all the time either."

"Oh, calm down, Total," Nudge said with a light laugh. "We love you, why don't you go patrol the yard for a bit?"

He snorted and settled down in Angel's lap.

"You okay?" Fang cruised up alongside me. His wings were dark and almost silent, life Fang himself.

"In what way?" I asked. I mean, there was the headache issue, the chip issue, the Voice-in-my-head-constantly issue, my healing bullet wound. . . . "Can you be more specific?"

"Killing Ari." "Didn't mention that one, Max," Iggy said lightly and I stuck my tongue out pointlessly.

My breath froze in my throat. Only Fang could cut right to the heart of the matter like that. Only Fang knew me that well and went that far.

When we'd been escaping from the Institute, in New York, Erasers and whitecoats had shown up, of course. God forbid we should make a clean getaway. Erasers, if you don't know already, are wolflike creatures who have been chasing us constantly since we escaped from the lab, or School as we call it. One of the Erasers had been Ari. We'd fought, as we'd fought before, and then suddenly, with no warning, I was sitting on his chest staring at his lifeless eyes, his broken neck bent at an awkward angle.

That was twenty-four hours ago.

"It was you or him," Fang said calmly. "I'm glad you picked you."

I let out a deep breath. Erasers simpled everything up: They had no qualms about killing, so you had to lose your squeamishness about it too. But Ari had been different. I'd recognized him, remembered him as a little kid back at the school. I knew him.

Plus there was that last, awful bellow from Ari's father, Jeb, echoing after me again and again as I flew through the tunnels:

"You killed your own brother!"

I handed the book to Fang. "Well that's a great first chapter, Max," the Gasman said rolling his eyes.

Chapter 2:

Of course, Jeb was a lying, cheating manipulator, so he might have just been yanking my chain. I tried to send an apologetic glance towards Jeb, but he just shrugged and waved it away. But his anguish after he'd discovered his dead son had sounded real.

And even though I loathed and despised Jeb, I still felt as though I had an anvil on my chest. "That doesn't ever really go away, does it?" I whispered, and slumped against Fang. He rubbed my arm as he continued to read.

You had to do it, Max. You're still working toward the greater good. And nothing can interfere with that. Nothing can interfere with your mission to save the world.

I took another deep breath through clenched jaws. Geez, Voice. Next you'll be telling me that to make an omelet I have to break a few eggs.

I sighed. Yes, I have a Voice inside my head, I mean, another one besides my own. I'm pretty sure that if you look up the word nuts in the dictionary, you'll find my picture. "Dictionaries don't have pictures," Ella said amidst the laughter. I stuck my tongue out at her.

"Well, if they did," I said, "You can be assured that I'd be in it in a few different places." Just another fun feature of my mutant-bird-kid-freak package.

"No, that's okay," I said. Total weighed almost half of what Angel weighed – I didn't know how she'd carried him as far as she had. "I know," I said, brightening. "Fang will take him."

I gave my wings an extra beat and surged up over Fang, our wings sweeping in rhythm. "Here," I said, lowering Total. "Have a dog." Vaguely Scottie-ish in size and looks, Total wiggled a bit, then quickly settled into Fang's arms. He gave Fang a little lick, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from snickering at Fang's expression. "Har har," Fang muttered to everyone's laughter. I smiled.

I sped up a bit, flying out in front of the flock, feeling an excitement overshadowing my fatigue and the dark weight of what had happened. We were headed to new territory – and we might even find our parents this time. We had escaped the Erasers and the whitecoats – our former "keepers"- again. We were all together and no one was badly wounded. "Way to jinx it all, Max," Iggy said, and I paled remembering what happened next. Mom and Ella, noticing my complexion, groaned and were instantly worried. Jeb sighed. Fang kept reading. For this brief moment, I felt free and strong, as if I was starting fresh, all over again. We would find our parents – I could feel it.

I was feeling . . . I paused, trying to name this sensation.

I felt kind of optimistic. Despite everything.

Optimism is overrated, Max, said the Voice. It's better to face reality head-on. "Don't listen to him – her – it? Oh, whatever! Don't listen to the Voice, Max. Optimism is a great thing," Mom said and I laughed, nodding. I was slowly learning that it was okay to think positively.

I wondered if the Voice could see me rolling my eyes, from the inside.

Fang passed the book over Iggy to Ella

Chapter 3

It had gotten dark hours ago. He should have heard by now. "I would get the chapter that's not directly about you," Ella complained, then continued to read, unable to hide her curiosity. The fearsome Eraser paced around the small clearing, and then suddenly the static in his ear made him wince. He pressed the earpiece of his receiver and listened.

What he heard made him smile, despite feeling like crap, despite having a rage so fierce it felt as if it were going to burn him up from the inside out. "So they were tracking us even then?" Nudge asked – then nodded to herself. "What the scientists in Germany said makes more sense now."

"So the chip was being used to track you? So why didn't they just do that to start with?" Ella asked.

"I dunno," I answered.

One of his men saw the expression on his face and motioned the others to be quiet. He nodded, said "Got it" into his mouthpiece, and tapped off his transmitter.

He looked over at his troop. "We got our coordinates," he said. He tried to resist rubbing his hands together in glee but couldn't'. "They're headed south-southwest and passed Philadelphia thirty minutes ago. The Director was right – they're going to Washington DC."

"How solid is this info?" one of his Erasers asked.

"From the horse's mouth," he said, starting to check his equipment. He rolled his shoulders, grimacing, then popped a pain pill.

"Which horse?" asked another Eraser, standing up and fastening a night-vision monocle over one eye.

"Let's just say it's insider information," the leader of the Erasers said, hearing the joy in his own voice. He felt his heart speed up with anticipation, his fingers itching to close around a skinny bird-kid neck. Then he started to morph, watching his hands.

The frail human skin was soon covered with tough fur; ragged claws erupted from his fingertips. Morphing had hurt at first – his lupine DNA wasn't seamlessly grafted into his stem cells, like the other Erasers'. So there were some kinks to be worked out, a rough, painful transition period he'd had to go through. "Did you know he went through all that?" Gasman asked Jeb curiously, noticing his sudden stillness. Jeb shook his head to start with, then sighed and shrugged – it was something he'd come to learn about long after there was anything to be done for it.

But he wasn't complaining. It would all be worth it the moment he got his claws on Max and choked the life right out of her. He imagined the look of surprise on her face, how she would struggle. Then he'd watch the light slowly fade out of her beautiful brown eyes. "I really don't like the sound of that," Mom said shaking her head as if to get the image out. She wouldn't think she was so hot then. Wouldn't look down on him or, worse, ignore him. Just because he wasn't a mutant freak like them, he'd been nothing to her. All she cared about was the flock this and the flock that. "I did notice him though," I said. "He was a cute little kid, a normal kid." That was all his father, Jeb, cared about too.

Once Max was dead, that would all change.

And he, Ari, would be the number-one son. He'd come back from the dead for it.

As Ella passed the book to Nudge, she posed a question.

"Did Ari know that you two were really siblings at this point?" she asked.

I just blinked. My brilliant answer? "Uhh….. Probably. I think he might have."

Nudge eagerly opened up the book and instantly began to read her chapter.

AN:

Hello Everybody! I hope 2013 has been treating you all well. ^_^ I needed to some adjusting to my other stories before I got this one under way. But have no fear for here is the first actual chapter to my second in my series!

For those who care: I've estimated about 53 chapters are needed to complete MRAOA-Part II. That may change, but it won't be much if it does.

For those who don't … well … why are you still reading this? Huh? :P

Review and tell me your favorite part in SO-F or if you have anything you want the flock to do in their spare time, and if you do, I'll reward you with two new chapters (Aside from this one)!

Yours featherly,

~Jezabel Raewin