Astoundingly enough, I've actually managed to update this story. Admittedly not very well, but here's the next chapter anyway...
Alexa's POV
"You're welcome!" I snapped. "I'll remember not to save you from slavering Wolf-Boys next time."
Max moved forward, her eyes glinting dangerously. Now that all the frenetic fighting was over I got a proper look at her. She seemed familiar, somehow, but I couldn't think why. Unless...unless she was from New York. I remembered her eyes in particular – hard, shrewd and brown, like she'd seen too much cruelty in this world. Well, she'd been in the School; she must have seen and felt more cruelty than most normal people have ever imagined. Her wings were like a mirror-image of mine, tawny and mixed with white and about a dozen different shades of brown. There were exactly the same size; I guessed that we were the same age, which would mean that she was sixteen too. It was an interesting thought...maybe this girl was who I thought she was. Before I could think any more about it, Max interrupted me.
"Who are you?"
"Me? Your guardian angel, by the looks of things. Who are you?" I countered.
"Don't even try it," growled Max. "What's with the wings?"
"I could ask you the same thing, Max," I responded.
She moved back as though she was having difficulty restraining herself from killing me.
"Two little rules for you, kiddo – one, I ask the questions here; and two, don't ever call me Max. Only my friends call me Max."
"Well, aren't you just a bundle of joy? What can I call you, exactly? Like, are you okay with being called Jimmy? Cos I could do that," I answered, trying to look innocent.
I saw, out of the corner of my eye, that the rest of the `flock' trying to stop themselves from laughing. Great. Whilst they were laughing, they weren't on guard. Max looked feral, though.
"Give it up. What's your real name?"
I put my hands on my hips and stared her down.
"Why should I tell you?"
"Well, we've all got wings," interjected the dark, good-looking boy.
"So?" said Max and I at exactly the same time.
We both glared at each other. This lasted for a few minutes until the boy sighed.
"Give her a chance, Max," he pleaded.
The girl narrowed her eyes further, and then rolled them.
"Fine. I'm Maximum Ride. I have wings. Your turn."
"Alexandria Astra. I also have wings." I looked around. "Who is everyone?"
"Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman and Angel," instructed Max, pointing to everyone in turn.
"Right..." I replied disbelievingly.
She glared at me again.
"Did you escape from the School as well?"
"No, I was born with wings," I replied sarcastically.
"Look," began Max. "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. Me, I want to go for the easy option – these are my new jeans, I don't want to get blood on them. The easy way starts with you answering my questions without using sarcasm. Think you can manage that?"
I looked her straight in the eyes.
"What do you think?"
She slammed me back against the tree, holding me by the throat.
"Stop being so freaking stubborn!" she hissed.
I could just about make out the dark-haired boy detaching himself from the shadows and coming over.
"Coming from you, Max?" he said with a half-smile. "Give her a chance."
With a noise that sounded suspiciously like a growl, she released me, letting me sag against the tree to catch my breath. I cast a thankful look at Fang, and remembered...
He looked back with dark eyes, already regretting his decision.
"Sorry," he whispered. "I..."
"Fang!" called a female voice from down the echoing passage.
"I have to go. I'm so sorry..."
He ran down the passage-way, glancing back at me...
I shook my head, and opened my eyes. Max was looking down at me with a less than friendly expression.
"What's wrong?" she asked, not sounding at all concerned.
"Nothing," I replied gruffly, jumping back onto my feet.
"She has wings," mused Fang. "I vote we take her back to Dr. M's house."
Max turned back to him.
"What if she's a traitor? She might work for Itex or something!"
"I like her," commented the pale boy Max's age. "She's like Max."
"She is not like me!" snarled Max. "I am not that sarcastic, or that, that...annoying!"
The entire flock burst out laughing, apart from Fang, who merely chuckled. I guessed this equated to the same thing for him.
"Not that sarcastic or annoying?" giggled Nudge, doubled over. "Your middle name is Sarcastic!"
Max looked annoyed.
"Yeah, but..."
She looked around her flock.
"All right," she sighed. "Come on, Alexandria. But I'm not promising anything – if we decide not to trust you, you're not staying."
"Hmm, déjà vu!" I said bitterly, almost to myself.
"What?" asked Fang.
"Oh, come on," I sighed. "Doesn't matter."
I could see Max and Fang exchanging significant glances but ignored them. I'd had more than my fair share of those in my time.
"Are we going, or what?"
"Yeah. You can fly well enough?"
"Of course."
I leapt up into the air and snapped out my wings, leaving them behind me. I had to find out more about these mutants, especially if they could help me; and if they were the ones I thought they were. If Maximum Ride didn't kill me first.
Max's POV
"This is a stupid idea," I said for about the tenth time in the past ten minutes.
Fang and I were flying in front of Alexandria, having over-taken her so we could show her the way to Dr. M's place; which I was so thrilled about. I didn't like this girl one bit – the sooner we got rid of her the better. If only I could shake off the feeling that I'd met her before...
"She's okay," replied Fang with a shrug.
I glared at him. "You're supposed to be on my side!"
"I am. But I don't see why we shouldn't trust her."
"There are loads of reasons! She might be an Eraser in disguise, she might be working for Itex...you haven't thought this through. I say we ditch her and go home."
"Max, come on." He turned his dark eyes on me and I felt my resistance weakening. "Give her a chance. If you don't like her after a day or so, we can leave her."
I sighed heavily. "I guess so."
This did not feel good. There was something weird and familiar about Alexandria – I felt like I'd seen her before, maybe even spoken to her. But I couldn't remember for certain.
I heard wing-beats behind me and turned my head to see Iggy flying up next to us.
"Hey," I began.
"Hey. Listen, I think you should calm down about Alexa. I think she might be from the same batch as us."
"Alexa now, is it? And what do you mean?" I asked.
"Think about it. She's sixteen – so are you two. Your wings are practically identical and she broke out of the School in California," explained Iggy. "It makes sense."
"How did you find this out? You've only been talking to her for about ten minutes!"
"Well, I told her about us and she-"
"You what?" I interrupted.
"I told her about us," he repeated patiently.
"Are you mad? The last thing we need is some strange mutant knowing everything about us!"
"I trust her. Angel's read her mind, there's nothing evil in there. I think she's safe," responded Iggy, folding his arms. "If you don't like her, fine. But Nudge and I have decided we're going to keep talking to her."
"Iggy! For God's sake listen to me! Don't trust a random mutant just because she made up a believable cover story! We're going to leave her here and go back to Dr. M's, okay? Go tell the kids."
"Max-"
"Do it."
He sighed, but flew off anyway. Fang gave me a disapproving look.
"What?"
"This is a bad idea," he replied, shaking his head.
"Oh, so you'd rather she stayed and killed us all in our sleep?"
"Max, think about this."
"I have thought about this, and this is my answer."
"This is going to go badly. I know it."
I ignored him. Mainly because I had a horrible feeling that he was right.
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