My Borders opened again! *does happy dance* I now officially own Maximum Ride Three! I sleep with it under my pillow! Jk. But you get the idea. I got a ton of reviews so I'm updating soon this time.

Person95: Shank you! You'll get why I asked who you like better when the gang all meets up again! ;)

Alrighty, let's get this gothic bleeding feather filled party started!

Siy Rowling?

(Chapter Three)

(AngelP.O.V)

I knew she hated us. "And don't you dare touch my china ever again. Little brats." Then Mrs. What's-Her-Face clomped out of the room in her three inch heels, thinking mean things about me and Gazzy.

I blinked away the tears and felt the deep scratch that the mean lady had left on my cheek, it was from her sharp gaudy nails that were painted a yucky color of red. Gazzy heard me whimper as I remembered that there was still two days until Mr. Farren got home from his business meeting. Two more days where we had to hide from his sister while he and Mrs. Farren were gone. This sucked.

I curled up on the kitchen floor around the one broken plate, and it looked like cheap china for goddess sakes. We were in our real parents house, but all I wanted right then and there was for Max to hug me and then go and punch that evil lady. That was what Max did best. That lady wasn't my mother, and neither was Mrs. Farren, no matter how nice she was, or her husband, my mom, best friend and protector wa Maximum Ride, and I didn't want to stay here. I should have never left her. I realized.

Gazzy was trying his best to help me, and so was everyone else, they were trying to help us readjust, but no matter how long I lived in that huge beautiful white manson that I had sometimes dreamed of in the past, I would never want anything other than my family, my real family, Max, and Fang and Gazzy and Total and Iggy and Nudge and I. I wanted my family.

And even though I knew I would look like a big baby, I burst into big wet sticky tears. Gazzy patted my back awkwardly, this wasn't what he usually did when I was sad, Max always held be and called me 'Sweetie" and then she would kill the person who made me cry. I wanted Max.

"We have to leave." I said through sobs, Gazzy nodded and then stated sobbing with me. That night, we snuck onto Mrs. Farren' s computer. We only knew how to contact one of the flock, but that was all we needed.

Fang,

Emergency! You know where we are. We need 2 meet. Plea come soon.

Angel, and Gazzy

Then I pressed the little 'send' button and my message was off like a rocket. I had to wait, I hoped Fang was online, in New York it was probably around. . . Six in the morning, so there was a chance he might have been on line. I could probably only risk another two or three minutes on Mrs. Farren's computer if I didn't want to get caught. I had tried not to use mind control, Max didn't like it when I used it, but sometimes, I had to, like this time. So I did. I used it, and in just minutes, Mrs. What's-Her-Face, our baby sitter, was off to the Bermuda Triangle, wherever that was.

(Max P.O.V)

"Xera, you can't do this! You can't and you know it!" I screamed, Xera's pure milky white eyes turned to me, as I lay on the ground, bloodied and battered. My light brown hair matted with deep scarlet blood and sweat. Clothes only tatters. Xera's whole being shook when she saw the blood and smelt the fresh fear.

"I'm doing it aren't I? You're about to die, so is Zane. I'm doing it!" Xera started to laugh uncontrollably, I don't know why, but it only pushed me to try and give Zane more time. He was scudding on all fours to grab the silver gun that lay behind Xera. Flame encircled the whole forest, if anything we were going to catch fire just like the rest of Xera's gang had.

Xera stood tall and slight, once fire red hair almost as dark as the blood that covered her mouth and jaw. She was a rouge, and she was going insane. "Xera, you helped us! Remember when you save Zane? It was just before your body rejected the chemical that was going to kill you. You're the one that helped us, just because you're wings are clipped doesn't mean your not still like a sister to me."

No matter how hard I tried, I knew Xera wouldn't see reason, why? Xera, the closet thing I had to an older sister, Xera who had helped Zane and I find out about extinction, Xera my best friend, was a rouge, white eyes and all baby. So I also knew what I had to do.

"Maximum Ride. I wonder what you taste like." Xera said, bending down and cupping my chin, ruby red hair falling everywhere in a tangled mess.

"Cheese burgers and extra fries." Xera snarled at me and I just shrugged, "Hey! I'm only guessing here!" I had been backing up slowly, not able to stand on my broken leg, but when Xera advanced even more, I had no more room to back up, I was leaning hard into a fir tree, its rough bark biting into my skin that was already in ribbons.

The older the rouge the more insane, but they had more control, they didn't have to hunt as much, so seeing as she was a fairly old rouge, she couldn't hold out for very much longer. He only thing I could think was, 'Hurry up Zane, hurry up Zane HURRY! UP!'

"Xera, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I should have saved you, not Ileta, I'm so sorry." I really was, but if I hadn't have saved Ileta, Zane would have died. I saw something flash in her eyes as human/mutant memories started to poor into her, after that, she was gone. There was no more human in her, she was an animal, just running on instinct, she was the predator, and I was her prey.

Her bloodied fangs ripped from her gums and her eyes turned coal black with hunger. She readied her muscles and then she pounced. Madly ripping at me searching for my jugular vein, she was stronger than me, faster than me, but I was smarter than her. At that moment, I really thought it was all going to end. As her sharp hunters claws plunged into my flesh and her teeth darted to find my throat. I started to struggle but that wasn't going to work.

I wasn't going to scream though. I only thrashed as she wildly tore into me. I felt chunks of flesh peel off and blood gather in the gaping holes. Which just made her more riled up. I pushed and shoved and kicked, I even tried clawing with my non existent nails. None of it was working and Zane was nowhere to be seen. I was going to die. It started to make me sick, I was going to die, oh goth, I WAS GOING TO DIE!

'BANG' And everything went silent, even the crackling fire seemed to smoother out, it began to lightly drizzle, I could see it, the bullet had gone all the way through the side of Xera's head. Her body was stiff from the dormant poison freezing in her veins. Her index clawed finger was only centimeters away from my neck, and then her whole body collapsed on itself. It was a mix of some sick black liquid, the chemical that disposed of her body. It soaked into my bloody jeans and left a sickly sweet smell.

"Don't mess with my sister." A husky voice hissed. And then, I was running. They were all around me, Xera's gang. I looked in the direction of the shot, and saw a limping Ileta. Her blonde hair cropped short was dirty and bloody and filled with gun powder. Ileta.

And they all sprung from their hiding places in the flames. Ileta screamed, I dodged, and Zane jumped to cover Ileta.

"Max! We have to leave, now. We have a rouge pack on our tail and I seriously don't plan on beating up fake cops again, that was really confusing." Zane urgently kicked me in the back and wings, we were camping out in a park that was somewhere in Oregon, probably Salem. Then Zane's words sunk in.

"Shit. Grab the crap and let's get out of here." I said in a hushed but still hurried voice. My rouge dream forgotten. But as we retreated, flying into the open June air. It was chilling me to the bone, but that only made my wings pump faster as we raced from the dangers of the unknown. Rouges. They were us. But they had defects. They were fellow experiments, that had gone wrong and had gotten loose. They had rejected the chemical that Itex had injected into us before we were born, even.

It was so that they could dispose of us when our testing was done. And it usually worked, I had seen it work on many. Except the one time I didn't.

"M. MR. We've got a little problemo." Zane hissed from above me, I glanced up only to come almost nose-to-nose with Zane.

"Which would be. . . ?" I left the question open for answering.

"I don't thing they liked the fact that we ran away." Zane hissed, I jerked around, and found a whole pack of flying rouges, some had wings others were just clinging to the flying ones, waiting for a chance to pounce on the fresh meat. Oh, did I mention who the fresh meat was? You guessed it! Moi.

"I don't like the fact that they're in my personal bubble, but we all learn to live with it. You got any ammo? I've got Tilt." I said under my breath, Zane nodded and handed me two clips of ammo. I shoved one in my back pocket and the other in Tilt, my favorite gun.

I know, 'What about the no-gun rule?' Well that rule went bye-bye when evil, mutant experiments trying to kill anyone, started to chase me around the whole continental U.S. and some of Germany! I started to let the shells fall, only to find, I was going to need a lot of ammo.

Twenty rouges, twenty god forsaken ROUGES and we didn't even have a back up clip! You've got to be kidding me. Rouges were faster, and stronger, than us so overall they were killing machines, which equals, not god for Max and friends!

"Hook!" I yelled, as my last bullet entered the waiting flesh of an unsuspecting rouge. It cried out and fell from the sky, bringing two down with it. Ten left and I was out of ammo. Crap, crap, crap.

We both turned left and glided slightly, this was not, I repeat, was not good. I screamed out more directions, Zane doing the same in return. Co-leaders putting their skills to work. Yeah, we were smooth.

Probably too smooth, because two seconds later we lost each other. A tornado brewing just above our heads. "And of cores." I muttered, of cores it had to be like that, of cores, but in the middle of an attack? God rules a cruel world. The sky turned a darker shape of gray, it almost felt like an eclipse, but I felt my hair whipping around and my wings feeling like they were going to rip off, just like in the wind tunnels back at the School. So it was easier than it should have been to push through the storm. Then, after a minutes, I lost the rouges on my tail, but in their place was pieces of anything that had been laying on the ground.

Left right, I dodged the flying objects. Once or twice I was nicked by them, but nothing too bad. In the end, I ended up flying lower to the ground, it was less of a whipping storm down there. Then I heard screaming. I almost tried to help them. I almost leaped into the air, and tried to pull them out of the tornado, almost. But I watched silently from the ground as the rouges limbs slowly tore off and they were knocked unconscious by the flying pieces of random things.

This couldn't be happening, it too easy. Way too easy. But it was painful. Zane. ZANE!

He could have still been in the storm! Oh god, no, no, no! Not Zane. Please, not Zane,

anyone but Zane. I prayed. He was the only thing keeping me sane. Not him, anyone but

him.

I took cover in a hotel basement, somehow breaking in the window, my mind was too

fuzzy to remember details. But it was safe from the tornado and I could hide, so my

choice was basically made for me. I curled up and prayed, I wasn't sure if there really was

a god, any god for that mater, but I prayed, and I think it was the first time in my whole life, I didn't care if white coats marched right up to me and shoved needles in my arms and neck and legs and started mutating me even more, I didn't care if I was really going to go crazy and most of all, I didn't think about the flock for even one second.

I remember only faintly hearing a whimpering dog-like noise, a crash as the window broke in and then I just let the presence be. I knew it was there I also knew I should have been worried r trying to kill it or something, but I just sat there and thought about how much I whished me and Zane could switch places right then, that second. Soon, I was half asleep, half alret. Always alert, and then something completely weird happened.

There was a sniffing noise in my ear and then mad licking and someone screaming at the top of their lungs. "Oh my goth, MAX! I knew I'd find you! I just knew it! And now I did! I'm so happy! Max! Oh, oh, oh. I'm so- *sob* so- *sob* HAPPY!!!!" Total started to cry. And I broke out of my not caring trance and started at the Yorkie/Weiner Dog/Mutant mix. I was screwed.

(End Chapter)

I know, I took way too long to update, but I hope I still get reviews! That would be happy-making. Love you all, you're awesome even if you don't review, but I require one review to continue, you know, just to make sure it's not crap and stuff like that. Check out it rocks! I love writing with my play list on! =) happy! Now, let's rumba! I mean. . . I'll update soon?!

Siy Rowling?