To those who have read and reviewed, thanks a ton =) For those who have read, but not reviewed, click the goddamn button. It's not going to jump off of your screen and gnaw your hand off, for Pete's sakes.

Anyways, here's the next chapter. Don't forget to check out my Heroes/Max Ride crossover fanfic too, Storming Wings.

I woke up to my combination alarm clock and Ipod speakers blaring music out. It was another Coheed and Cambria song; this one was called Feathers. Fitting, considering my wings and everything. Of course, the lyrics didn't exactly match the song's title, but that's just how things work.

Before my brother got the chance to try and rip out a feather of mine (dirty bastard succeeded last week, he hung it in his room for about three days before I took it outside and torched it), I got out of bed and headed straight for the shower. I got in, and turned the shower as hot as it could possibly go.

I stayed in there for a good fifteen minutes, feeling the heat of the water on my body. It felt especially good on my wings; the showerhead made it feel like a massage. I finally forced myself to shut off the water, and shook the water out of my wings before stepping out. I decided to mess with Mike (A/N oh wow I forgot to give James' brother a name so, well, there it is) by watering down his mouthwash so that there was next to no effect left. Ah, the joys of brotherly love. Sike!

I grabbed a sports bar for breakfast, and took my vitamins (I take double the vitamins my brother does… result of being a mutant bird-kid) before grabbing my backpack and heading out of the house. Well, actually I went into our nice, expansive back yard so that I could get airborne without anybody seeing me.

See, I fly to school every day. My parents didn't like the thought of keeping a bird grounded, and in my case it applied more than just metaphorically. So they let me fly to school, and I always made it appear like I left really early in the morning to walk to school. I would fly with just an undershirt on, then once I arrived at school I would pull on a T-shirt and a button-down over that. The button-down is just to help hide the wings even better, because a hoodie would seem kind of suspicious on a really hot day. A button-down, though? Those were just for looking classy. And trust me, the girls loved it. Too bad I didn't have a girlfriend yet.

When I arrived at school, I landed down on the golf course. I put my shirts on, hopped the fence enclosing the putting green, and started walking towards the campus proper. Everybody would guess why I came from that direction; of course, none of them ever got the guess right. That's because in their minds, people with wings were relegated to the realm of the imagination. I still cracked up every time I saw a girl wearing fake wings on Halloween. Nobody understood why, but that's for me to know and them to never find out.

At my locker, my best buddy was waiting for me. "Yo Jameson, whattup man?"

"Not much Sam, not much." Sam Linden is about the same height as me, with short blond hair and a friendly demeanor. He didn't know about my wings; nobody did, actually. It was my big secret from the whole world. To be quite honest, considering how reckless I am when I take off from the golf course at the end of the day, I'm amazed that nobody's found me, especially the golf team. Of course, I'm usually gone long before they even get out there, so I'm safe.

"Did you do the chem homework James?"

"Um, yeah. Why?"

"Can I copy it down?"

Geez. That was one of the only problems with Sam: he lost his homework every other day, and it was a different class each day. Lucky for him we shared all of our classes except foreign language, or he'd be dead meat. I opened up my backpack, pulled out my binder, and handed him the homework. He copied it down, and about five minutes later, handed it back.

"Thanks man, I owe you one."

"No," I replied, "you owe me about… oh, a hundred?" He playfully smacked me on the arm. He knew never to smack me on the back, after he did one time and I exploded at him. To this day, he hasn't figured out why.

While we were lounging and talking, one of the girls came up to me. "Hey James!"

"Yo Haley, what's happening?" Haley Morisson is definitely one of the cutest girls in the school. She has striking blond hair reaching about a quarter of the way down her back, and her face can only be likened to that of an angel. Hey, I should know, according to some of those religious nuts in the Vatican I could probably pass for one! Anyways, Haley is as close as I've come to a girlfriend. We've gone out once or twice, and I know she's probably going to be my first.

"Oh, nothing. Listen, umm…"

I sighed. I knew exactly what was coming. "I'm free Friday afternoon, but Saturday morning I'm heading on a road trip to go visit family over winter break. Want to get together then?"

"Sure!" Her eyes literally sparkled. "By the way, when are you going to tell me how you get to and from school without anybody noticing?"

"Yeah," Sam backed her up. "When are you going to tell us?"

"Umm, never?" Both of them looked at each other, winked, and pulled a pair of binoculars out of their respective bags.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me. What are you two gonna do, watch birds?"

"No," Haley replied. "We're going to watch you as you head on home!"

Great… guess I would have to get out as fast as possible as soon as school was over. Fun fun!

The bell rang right then. I said see ya to Sam, gave Haley a small kiss on the cheek, and started heading over to class. I started to think about how I would fly off campus without those two hooligans seeing me.

I came up with a plan. It was going to be risky, and required flawless execution, but it would work.