Maximum Ride: Stuck

Author's Note: I know that I suck at updating. I lost all the work I did on this story (which was only two chapters, but still,) I got discouraged, so here we are, a long time later. I really do enjoy writing this story: I feel like I'm losing Max's voice, though. I need to keep her in my head. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and the problems in the last chapter were fixed (I hope). Happy New Years.

Immediately I pressed a cautious finger to my lips – waking Angel up now wasn't possible. In fact, if I could keep her sleeping for long enough, I might be able to figure this out without freaking her out right away. I wanted to prolong that until it was absolutely necessary. If I could only figure this out, figure out why this was happening and what it was … then I could come up with a solution.

Yeah, right. The chance of me thinking up a solution that worked in the next hour or so was a million to one.

And I wasn't exactly the luckiest chica around.

In fact, if there was a worldwide poll, I think I'd definitely come in last on the luck scale.

I locked my brown eyes on Fang's dark eyes, hissing out a breath. It had felt so good to voice my fears – something I wasn't exactly used to, but then again, there had been a time when Fang and I could tell each other everything in the world and not worry how the other would react.

And then puberty came along and ruined everything with its damn hormones.

"What do you mean, Max?" His voice was low, tight with more emotion than I've ever heard from him. He may be quiet, subtle, but this was family. This was different. Every word he said was annunciated, separate from the one before and the one after.

I quieted my voice, barely a whisper now. "I mean, she can't fly." Was he a ding-bat or something? What else could I possibly mean? For God's sake, this wasn't a riddle. It was a simple, very confusing statement that there was nothing right about. Why couldn't he understand that?

"Her wings can't be paralyzed, Max." Agh, don't you just hate it when someone sounds so calm but all you want to do is scream at them?

Welcome to my life. Or the past five minutes of it, rather.

"Fang, give me five good reasons why its not possible."

And, like the rest of his life, he stayed silent as ever. The one time when I wanted him to talk to me and tell me I was wrong, that this was something… oh, I don't know, something else. Anything else.

But, of course, he didn't. Fang stayed silent, and so did I, we were locked in a silent gaze that said more than words ever could.

We were stuck. Like fish out of water, like birds out of sky. We were stuck.

She moaned in her sleep, trying to turn over. I shifted so that she wouldn't have too, and she settled back down without wakening, thank the lord. That was the last thing I needed.

"Iggy."

I turned my head to the side, scrunching my brow at him. "What about Iggy?"

Fang rolled his eyes at me. "Iggy, you know, the blind kid asleep a few yards over?"

I resisted the child like urge to stick out my tongue at Fang – under normal circumstances, I would have. "I know who he is, Fang. What about him?"

He obviously thought I wasn't the brightest bird kid in the Flock – heck, I probably wasn't, but at least I wasn't being a mysterious idiot.

"Have him check out Angel – he's more than likely to find something wrong."

Why in the world hadn't I thought of that? "I don't want to wake her up." I murmured, looking down at my little girl, seemingly so peaceful, if just for these few moments. I didn't want to wake her, cause her any distress, but I knew that I had to. Sighing, I nodded to Fang. "Get Iggy, bring him up here, then go back down and watch over Nudge and Gazzy."

With a single nod, Fang jumped down from the tree branch where he'd watched me sing Angel to sleep. That annoying little … I won't finish that sentence, seeing as it's not a nice word that I was going to use there.

I took a gaze around me – dawn would break soon, and we'd stay in the forest for the full day, I'd assume. Even if we were all fine and dandy, I had no interest in taking to the sky in broad daylight just after a jailbreak. It was a fine forest, after all – the trees were high and thick enough to cover us, but thin enough for a quick burst out exit if the need was to arise. We'd been lucky, this time. I didn't want to have to try our luck with another clearing until I had to.

That was also another option that I didn't really want to grapple with at the moment. It was more than possible for us to carry Angel for a distance – but if we had Erasers breathing down our necks, it would be difficult to maneuver with. We'd be stuck – caged in the forest, a cage without bars.

Author's note:

I'll be updating again as soon as I can!