I'm BACK! Oh yeah. Not much to say except that:

I AM NOT THE AMAZING JAMES PATTERSON.

Just keep that in mind.

Iggy's POV

Haven't you always dreamed of flying back to the pit of doom – where you were stuck and basically tortured for six years of your life – to find a girl that may be delusional but you still have a major (did I say major?) crush on? Nope. Neither have I. I mean, I may have had a few dreams about girl I have said crush on, but that's a totally different story.

Max has always says that flying helps calm her and clear her mind. She's right. And I'm so glad that we all have wings right now, I mean, without them, Max would be chewing all of our heads off right now.

Instead, she's looking confident and determined. To do what, you might ask? I guess the answer to your question would be that she's determined to kick some serious white-coat butt at the School and take her half-sister back home with us. With or without wings.

The three hours it takes us to get there are spent fairly quietly. I can just imagine Fang and Max giving each other the goo-goo eyes. Gross. And poor Angel has to listen to all of their disgusting thoughts. Ew. Gazzy does let a few stray fireworks loose over some little Podunk town, for which Max gives him the evil eye. I only know this because I swear her stare can burn holes through things. And I was right behind the Gasman when said glare went through his head. Fun.

Max finally gives us the signal (and Gazzy taps me to tell me that Max has given the signal), and we land safely around the back of some McDonald's.

Ella has been gone for almost two weeks – two weeks tomorrow, that is – and we're here, after finally convincing Max just to check the School (I mean, we could always liberate other random creatures in the mean time).

It's almost dark, and we find a park to settle in after wolfing down meals from every fast-food place we found on the way (it would look really weird if we ordered five meals each at one place, you know?). I hear Max and Fang murmuring to each other – wait, okay they're making out again. Gross. Angel is nestled in the crook of my arm, trying to keep warm, and I put one of my large wings around her. Gazzy and Nudge are keeping strangely silent. Pretty soon, though, we're all asleep, and I'm dreaming about Ella.

The next morning, Max wakes me up. "You didn't wake me up for watch," I tell her, slightly stunned.

"Me and Fang had it," she replies briskly.

"Yeah," Angel says, rubbing sleepy out of her eyes. "Your thoughts were so loud that they came into my dream and ruined the ending with all of this… This… Fax-ness."

"Fax-ness?" Max sounds a bit ticked now. Great. We're screwed. "What's Fax-ness?" Now that she's asking, I'm kind of wondering that myself. I turn and stare at where I'm guessing Angel's eyes would be.

"You know, Fax," Angel says vaguely.

"No," Max says, and I can imagine her shaking her head. "I don't know."

"It's your couple name." Shoot.

"My WHAT?" Here we go.

"You know… Fang plus Max equals Fax."

Well, at least it gets her mind off of the Ella situation for a bit. She's still raving about the "Fax-ness" when we go to get breakfast.

"Shouldn't we be concerned about finding Ella?" Fang queries, still chuckling a bit. I can get the idea that he enjoys this Fax business. What would my couple name with Ella be? Eggy? Or Illa? I like Eggy better, but I mean – wait. Did I really just say that? Forget that whole train of thought there. Wow, Iggy. Way to go.

"Okay, so," Fang begins. "Our game plan is?" He pauses, probably waiting for Max to fill in that blank. There is silence. "The plan? Do we even have one? Max? Hello?" Still silence.

"Earth to Fearless Leader," I chime in, "come in, Fearless Leader. We are in dire need of your precious wisdom and guidance."

"That totally sounded like The Big Bang Theory, dude!" Gazzy gives me a high-five. "You could be, like, the blind version of Sheldon, and I could be, like, a way awesome-er version of Leonard, and then, like, Fang could totally be a pimped out version of Howard, and then, like, Max could be a way not-nerdy Bernadette, and then Nudge could be, like, an awesome Penny, and then Ella could be, like, totally a great not-nerdy Amy."

"Who would I be?" Angel asks.

"Oh, you?" Gazzy pauses to put some thought into this. "You could be Raj."

"Okay," she says happily. Wow.

"Oh, um, plan. Right," Max says unconvincingly. "I guess we could sneak up to the side of the School, and then we could break in one of the side doors? And then we break into the experiment room to see if Ella's in there?"

"And if she's not?" I ask.

"Then we search the rest of the School, and if she's not there then she's not there, I guess."

"Okay, then," Fang says. "How are we planning on not getting caught might I ask?"

"Oh, I can get that part done," I say. I can just feel the Flock all simultaneously raising their eyebrows at me.

"And how, exactly, do you plan on doing that?"

"Oh ye of little faith," I tsk. "Gazzy and I got bored last year and figured out how to turn off most basic and complex alarm systems, like the ones in the School. We have equipment."

"Aw does this mean you're going to screw up my iPod again?" Gazzy whines.

"What is this? National Treasure?" Fang asks, confused.

"If it is," I start, "then I'm totally Riley. And I nominate Max to be Ben. And Gazzy, you can be Ben's dad. The rest of you can fight over Abigail, Ben's mom, and the evil guys."

This is really getting us nowhere.

"Hey guys?" Fang asks. "We should get going. Plan or no plan, Ella could still be in there."

He's totally right.

And that leads us to where the Flock is right now. Outside of the School, about to break in.

"All right, Iggy," Max taps me. "You and Gazzy, go… Do your thing."

I sneak in a side door and feel around the wall until Gazzy slides my hand onto a keypad. Wait. I've heard the white coats type in their pass code a lot before. I type in what I think I heard, and it takes a few tries, but I finally get it. I hear a satisfying beep, and suddenly, Gazzy says, "Whoah."

"What?" I ask, trying not to sound slightly alarmed.

"Oh, the lights just went off."

"Finally. I'm in my element when no one else is," I mutter half to myself.

The rest of the Flock is behind us in seconds as Gazzy and I edge around a corner. I hear white coats rushing past, but for some reason, no one notices us. Huh. Odd.

Gazzy taps the back of my hand twice, telling me to follow him. It's not actually that hard in the chaos. We run through a few different corridors, taking sharp turns here and there.

Then suddenly, I'm barreling through a window.

REVIEW! It makes my day We'll hear more from Ella on the next chapter.