Adryan rolled out of her low, white-sheeted bed and stalked over to the steel mirror that was bolted to the wall, trying to decide if she should brush her hair.

It wasn't that bad, she'd brushed it last night after her shower, so it wasn't in a big knot yet, and she was going to put it up anyway. And I'm not going anywhere, just training, she thought bitterly, again. Like every other day of my life for the last five years.

She punched the wall next to the mirror, hard. She pulled her hand back and examined her fingers. She frowned deeply; she hadn't broken any of them. She needed to punch harder next time.

"I hate this," she whispered to the small windowless room. Then she shouted, "I hate all of this! I loathe everyone! I detest my life!" tears welled up in her eyes. She knelt in front of the mirror and rested her forehead against it. Silently, her tears dropped to the floor.

Adryan would have stayed there all day, forever really, if Hazel hadn't come in.

"Ry?" Hazel asked as she opened the door. "They said to get you, we have a meeting with the airheads."

They were the scientists: Jeb Batchelder and Scott Phillips and April Baker. And the airheads were still more people wearing those lovely white coats, except that they were in charge.

"Oh joy of joys!" Adryan sang out sarcastically, not bothering to lift her head off the mirror. "what did we do this time? Is my overall combat score too low again? Or maybe it's my hair- it's getting pretty long you know."

Adryan had a thing about growing her hair long. When she was eight, when the beast kidnapped her, they'd cut it all off. (everything from the sleeping nightmare and more had happened in Adryan's living nightmare as well.) Now five years later, it had finally grown back.

"It is, and I like it," Hazel said shortly. "So it had better not be your hair. If it's my hair they want, they can have it!"

"But your hair is…" Adryan searched for a word as she faced her best and only friend. "So poofy."

"Exactly," Hazel grinned. She was tall, like Adryan, but that and their age were just about the only things the pair had in common.

Adryan had long loosely curly black hair and violet eyes and freckles and sort of peachy-creamish skin.

Hazel was roughly the same age as Adryan, thirteen, and had big, deep brown eyes and smooth chocolate milk colored skin along with her puffily curly hair.

"Anyway, they want us there- Ry, have you been crying?" Hazel interrupted herself mid sentence. She reached out and wiped the single remaining tear from Adryan's red cheek.

"Yeah," Adryan nodded. "Big shocker, huh? They take away my life and train me to kill, and I'm still not happy."

"I know, I hate it too. Here," Hazel took Adryan's hairbrush from the low bedside table and knelt beside her. "Let's make you look presentable. Hey, maybe today is the day, maybe today we can find she-whom-we-hate and kill her."

"Why do we have to hate Maximum Ride? What has she ever done to us?" Adryan asked. She'd pondered that question ever since she'd first heard the name. Who cares who she is? I don't mind if she doesn't die, she's not hurting anyone, is she?

Hazel laughed. "I don't hate her, you know that, I don't know her. They want us to hate her though, so let's just pretend, okay?" she pulled the brush through the worst of Adryan's tangles so gently that Adryan couldn't feel it.

"Okay, if it gets us out faster." Adryan shrugged. She'd been pretending to hate Maximum Ride for five long years. She'd gotten good at tensing up and balling her hands into fists long ago.

"And as soon as we get liberated we'll find your parents." Hazel said cheerily.

Adryan smiled, she couldn't help it. Even in the extended torture session she thought of as life, Hazel, being ever optimistic, could make her happy.

That's what best friends are for. Adryan reminded herself.

"'Kay, I think that's as good as it gets." Hazel said, setting down the brush. "Come on, the airheads are waiting."

"No breakfast?" Adryan asked, and her stomach rumbled to add emphasis.

"Uh, we could snatch something on the way over," Hazel suggested, she loved using words like snatch, because most people would have said grab, but not Hazel, and that was one of the many reasons that she was Adryan's best friend. "But we have to hurry, don't want to make them mad."

"Right." Adryan frowned. She still had scars from the last time they'd made the airheads mad.

[more soon I swear! in the meantime, R&R per favore? grazi!]