Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride or any of its characters. I do, however, own original ideas and names (including the Agency and Lyndotia) used in this fanfic.

A/N: You guys actually get an update the next day like I used to do all the time! :O Thank your lucky stars, and my college for being closed for snow and ice. And also my awesome manipulation skills for convincing my grandfather that it's perfectly fine for me to drive and that I need my car to get to wireless access at Books-A-Million… because he was wanting to borrow it to get a part for his car and instead I talked him into taking my aunt's. But anyway, I'm rambling again. Chapter eleven!

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Chapter Eleven – Mind Games

"Good morning, Max," Dr. Martinez said with a smile as she looked over her shoulder at the pair entering the kitchen. "Good morning, Angel."

"Morning, Mom," Max responded, sounding a little distracted, but Angel beamed in typical angelic fashion and replied sweetly, "Good morning, Dr. Martinez."

"Iggy won't mind that I'm making breakfast, will he?" the veterinarian asked, looking over her shoulder and through the door to the living room. Huh, she had thought she had seen Iggy there a minute ago. Maybe he had gone back upstairs.

"If he does, he should've gotten to the kitchen first," Max said with a shrug. "It doesn't look like he's even coming, so I'd guess not."

"He's talking to her," Angel reported, her gaze turned toward the kitchen door.

Max's eyebrows shot up at once. "About what?"

"Trust," Angel said simply, then shook her head. "But it's weird, Max. Her thoughts are so… strange."

The suspicion in Max's voice was unmistakable as she asked quietly, "Strange how?"

"Like nothing I've ever heard before," Angel said, frowning. "Or at least, from a human. Her thoughts were perfectly normal when she was in the clearing, just like yours or Fang's or Iggy's. You know, words and strategy and things that made sense. I can't understand what she's thinking now."

"Like it's another language or something?" Max asked, not understanding.

"No," Angel replied, shaking her head and causing her tousled blond curls to go into even more disarray. "There aren't any words. It's like trying to listen to Akila."

"You're sure you heard her thoughts before, Ange?" Max asked, looking confused. "And they weren't anything like this?"

"Her mind doesn't feel human anymore. Or not like any human mind I've ever seen."

"It could be because she's a bird kid," Max said slowly. "Maybe they messed something up in her head when they were grafting her DNA?"

"No," Angel disagreed again, looking up at Dr. Martinez and then back to Max as if answering an unspoken question. "I heard her thinking in those woods when she was being attacked, I know it. She can think like we can, she just isn't."

"So she's hiding something," Max said instantly, her jaw tightening.

"I didn't say that," Angel objected quickly. "How could she? She doesn't know I can read minds."

Max frowned, trying to find a way around that. Of course, if Itex had sent her, she would know… but Itex had been dismantled. But then again, who could have sent that exploding assassin earlier? Maybe the same people had sent this girl? Some faction of Itex, somehow hidden or protected from scrutiny?

"I don't think so, Max," Angel answered her thoughts aloud. "She really is surprised whenever we talk about the School. She really didn't think it existed."

"I thought you said you couldn't understand her," Max said, now getting even more confused. What, did she keep shifting from human thoughts to more animalistic ones just to throw them off or something?

"It's not like that," Angel said with a sigh, rubbing her temple. "I can tell what's going on in her head, I just don't always know what it means. There are a lot of pictures and emotions but no real thoughts. It's like her mind has been hotwired and everything's running together. I don't know how she can make sense of it. Most of them don't even seem to be connected."

"She seems perfectly normal," Max murmured, gazing toward the living room as if her eyes could pierce though the wall and into the girl's mind.

"I think it is normal, for her. Just a part of who she is. But I can't understand it. I can get general impressions, like figuring out what she's feeling in a way. But even that's confusing. She doesn't even seem to understand some of what she feels."

"Is it possible hitting her head could have done it? When Nudge tried to catch her and they ran into the tree?"

"You've hit your head loads of times, Max," Angel said, looking doubtful. "Has it even changed the way you think?"

Max grudgingly shrugged. Okay, so maybe this was just how this girl's head worked. How the heck was she supposed to be able to tell whether to believe her or not, then?

"If you care for my opinion," Dr. Martinez spoke up as she took a frying pan of bacon off the stove, "I believe you're both thinking too much. If you didn't have your abilities, you would have to rely on interpreting actions just like the rest of us. Maybe you should try that instead of condemning her for something she isn't even aware she's doing."

Angel looked to Max for guidance, as usual. The older girl sighed heavily and finally nodded. All right, she would try the 'normal human way'… but she was still going to talk to Jeb and see if any of this girl's story was to be believed.