Sorry sorry sorry for taking so long to update. I really meant to put it up sooner but I was forgetting and then I was busy and then Dharc wouldn't mail m back when I was asking if she was okay with the back history since we were doing that together and now I'm rambling but the point is: I'm sorry for not putting it up earlier but it's up now so I hope you enjoy.

Oh, and since debookworm01 suggested it, the memory will be in italics.

I don't own Maximum Ride.

Chapter 9

The rest of the memory passed in a blur.

I had awakened in a new cage in a high-security ward with two extra locks on the cage doors. The moment I touched them electricity made the hair on my arms stand on end.

I had done a tactical, even though I already knew what I'd find. Four cameras staring blankly from each corner of the room, two guards outside the only door, the locks and the floors outside the cages electrified no windows. Microphones and hidden video feed from each cage. There was no way out and no hope of escape.

On the upside, most of the experiments in the room had working brains.

Now I could have a conversation with either an oozing, slug-like thing on one side of me or a pair of kids with blue bug eyes and their lungs suck on the outsides of their bodies on the other side. Or maybe the boy across the isle that had hands in place of his feet and gray fur sprouting from where his eyes should have been.

My crate, of course, had nothing in it but the nasty medicine that they reserved for punishment. I dumped the contents out into the isle and watched the electric current boil it.

In the next several days I had spent most of my time in the cage recuperating except for the occasional test. There had been a break in which I was escorted down a hall and shown a room with dried bloodstains all over the cracked walls. There were soot marks, broken glass, and a general aura of destruction. But what caught my eye wasn't the clear evidence of an explosion. It was a tiny scrap of something under a pile of ash. I kneeled to pick it up while my escort was busy listening to report on what they did "with the body".

It was a tiny scrap of leathery bat's wing, next to a chip of charred bone. I picked them up and when I got back to my cell I hid my face from the cameras and silently cried. That was the last time I ever cried.

The next day they took me back to the labs full-time.

During a treadmill test, I saw a whitecoat that I knew well. I took a deep breath, the bone biting into my hand – I hadn't let go of it since I picked it up. "Tell your bosses…" I thought for a moment, trying for the right words, "Tell them that I get it. I won't try again. I got the message."

I got an electric shock for "acting as though I were a sentient and equal" but the message was passed on and after a few more months of my best behavior, I was transferred out of high security.

Their message had been this: If you ever try to escape again you will meet the same fate as your friend. Death is the only thing that waits for you outside these walls.

Not in those exact words, but it was pretty dang close.

So I stayed. And I waited. And I prayed that I'd been wrong. I hoped for something, anything that would tell me that my friends had survived. Any of them. But nothing came. I sank into depression and the whitecoats recorded it, gleeful at the chance to study my emotions.

Time passed.

Months, then a year.

I was angry often and I fought with my captors, but I never attempted escape again. Until now.

I'm not really sure what happened to me to make me try again. I had pretty much resigned to dying in a cage. But then something odd happened. It started off slowly. They began running more tests, pushing me harder. They had to restart my heart twice, Once after I drowned in a test, and once after I collapsed in the wind tunnel. Then there came surgeries, then surgeries without any anesthetic. They would strap me down and insert things, then take them away again a week or two later.

After that came the lights.

It was weird at first, kind of funny. Relaxing, even, some of the time. I would get strapped to a table, then they would flash lights, play music and noises from the speakers, talk to me quietly in soothing voices. Sometimes their words made no sense. Sometimes they would tell me to relax. Sometimes they would tell me that they were friends. Whenever they did that, I would laugh and spit in their faces.

But afterwards, I always felt peaked, irritated. I fought more and more often. I guess eventually everyone reaches a breaking point. Between the tiresome lightshows, the surgeries, and their ever-increasing tests, I suppose I just snapped.

I had been good that week and everything was "normal" as far as they were concerned, but I'd just come back from a light show where an old whitecoat had crooned in my ear about my "purpose" for three hours. So I was back in my cage, my rage all bottled up with nowhere to go.

I broke. No, I didn't just break. I shattered. My mind went to pieces and I guess I went kind of berserk.

You know the rest.

The memory ended.

I looked back at Dharc, who was leaning against the tree still. The memory must have taken about three seconds, real time, but I felt tired as though I'd just gone through it all again. "How?" It wasn't really a question.

"How what?"

"How did you survive. How did you get out. How did you stay out. How did you find me again. How did you –" A split second pause, then I asked what I was really thinking, "Why didn't you come back?"

She looked almost shocked, "You know I couldn't have… They would have killed me on sight."

"You could have gotten me a message."

"No." Dharc looked down, "I couldn't."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," A hint of a smile passed over her face, "I was a little busy."

"How so?"

"Fighting for my life."

There was a pause, "Oh."

She nodded.

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, "The usual then?"

Another pause, longer than the first, then we were both laughing. And I don't mean "ha ha" laughing. It was full out hysterics. I don't think either of us had any idea why, but I might have been a combination of the fact that I'd escaped, gotten attacked, seen some other experiments, flown to the stars, and reunited with my best friend who was supposed to be dead. It had been a crazy day.

I managed to bring my laughter under control, then Dharc sat down next to me, "Oh and…for a while I was pretty sure you were dead too. Up until only maybe a month ago."

"Why?"

"Do you know anyone else that's survived two attempts at escape? And… there was a body."

"Huh?" I had the feeling she was being cryptic just to annoy me. Just like old times. But this new information was enough to keep me from making a sarcastic comment, "Body?"

She took a long time to answer, "They flew a plane over badwater basin and… dumped a body into the water about a week after. It had your face and hair and everything. The wings were broken and the neck was snapped. We all thought you'd been killed."

"We-? You mean Dawn and the others are alive?"

"I think. I left them about a week back. They'd checked into a boarding school after Flareos learned how to hack the ATM."

"So they're okay. All of them?"

"Yeah."

I sighed and leaned back against a tree, Thank God.

"You owe me a story, you know." Dharc said.

I blinked and looked at her, "Excuse me? How do I owe you anything?"

"I told you how the others are," She got an evil smile which I took to mean that she wasn't going to let me out of this one, "Spill it. How'd you get out on your own? What happened after we left?"

I pulled an indignant look onto my face, acting offended, "That was hardly a story. If I'm going to tell you anything, then I want to hear your story first."

"What?"

I grinned evilly, imitating her, "Spill it. What happened after you left?"

She sighed and made herself comfortable, "It's a long story…"

I closed my eyes, finally at ease, listening as she began.

Augh. This chapter sucked. But whatever, now I might get to get some real action again.

And if you're wondering what Dharc's story was, it's not done yet. Me and DarkXShadower are kind of… co-writing the back story. Her fanfic may explain a few things that I'm too lazy to write down here. Here's a link to anyone who wants it: .net/s/5426147/1/Dharc_Experiment_From_the_Shadows.

I need help thinking of what to do next because I'm starting to dry up on ideas. Help?