Bam! Here's chapter 11! A lot will happen in the past 3-4 chapters or so, so yeah. I forgot to say… In one of the last chapters, the ending was saying 'it's coming true…' and it was a cliffie. Someone guessed immediately what it was about so here is their recognition: dallascowboysncountrymusicfan and I let them pick the name for the girl in the last chapter: Lee. So there ya go! Disclaimer: You should know by now that I, in no way possible, own M.R. Although, I do own some future characters.
Chapter 11:
"Max, what are you talking about?" Fang was following me around the house as was everyone else except for Angel: She was packing some clothes and necessities.
I sighed as I packed some shirts into my backpack. "I told you! Flyboys and whitecoats are coming! We have to get out of here! If we don't, they'll take Mom and Ella too. Now pack and let's leave." I finished packing and ran out the door.
Fang ran to his room and everyone packed their stuff. We didn't even have time to hug Mom and Ella. We brought Total too because there was no way he was being left behind. We ran out the back door and through the woods. About five minutes later, we wound up in a clearing. We spread our wings out but apparently, other people had different plans. We were jumped and tied up. Our wrists and ankles were put together and we couldn't do anything but struggle. Three flyboys had to hold me while two had to hold everyone else each. We thrashed and tried as hard as we could to get free but we were well restrained. A whitecoat came through the crowd of other whitecoats and flyboys and approached me. We were in the middle of a circle. The whitecoat was male and Mexican. He smiled at me like we've known each other our whole lives.
"Ah… Max. Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, Angel… Hello," he said. "My name is Dr. Theodore."
"What do you want?" I spat. I kicked up, trying to break free.
"You," I stopped and looked at him through my hair. "All of you. We want you to come with us and, of course, to see something that you made worse, Max." He grinned a sickly grin; it made my stomach clench.
Two whitecoats stepped through the crowd as well and carried a body with familiar brown hair. They threw him to the ground and he looked at me through a black eye. He had scratches, scrapes, and gashes all along his body; it was Jeb. I gasped and mouthed his name. I could barely recognize him.
I looked at Theodore angrily. "Leave him alone." I snarled.
He sucked in a breath. "I believe I can't do that. He's a traitor to the School; he stole you from us, he gave away confidential information, and he helped Itex to its downfall. He must pay the consequences. He also gave you a power you were not ready to have; you should have gotten it when you were twenty- seven. If you lived that long that is." He motioned the whitecoats forward to grab Jeb.
My heart sank. "No, you can't," I thrashed again. "No! Please, no!" I screeched. Jeb may have betrayed us and hurt us but I still loved him from the day he saved us and finding out he was my dad made me slightly giddy. Another flyboy came over and held me down. I looked away from Jeb; I didn't want to see this…
Theodore walked over to my side and pulled my face to look at my beaten father by my chin. "You must watch… After all, it is your fault."
"Max, what's he talking about?" Fang asked anger in his voice.
I didn't answer; my eyes were locked on Jeb as the two deadbeats picked him up and forced him to stand. He looked so exhausted but I knew what he was really feeling; I could see it in his eyes. He was afraid for me and the Flock, he was afraid for us- he didn't want us to die-, he didn't want to die. He looked into my eyes with sorrow.
One teardrop fell from my eyes as Jeb was shot right in front of my Flock and I. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion at the moment; I screamed and it seemed distant, Angel and Gazzy were crying and thrashing, Iggy and Fang were wearing blank expressions and trying to get free as well, and Nudge was so still, I thought she was going into shock. I was crying and thrashing and screaming, trying- just trying- to get to my father. But they weren't letting me go and I couldn't use as much force as I'd have like to. I was weak due to my sobbing.
One second, I was screaming and sobbing and thrashing- the next, everything was black and I was out cold.
I awoke to a grey room with brick walls and a steel door. There were two cameras in the top corners of the room by the door. My Flock was with me; Angel, Gazzy, Iggy, Nudge, and Total were by one wall and Fang and I were at the one across from them. We were all shackled with steel shackles and chains connecting to the walls. They were around our wrists and ankles and only gave a foot away from the wall; they were getting better at restraining experiments. The floors were black tile with dirt caked on. My Flock started to wake up.
"Max?" Nudge looked at me first and then around her; her eyes widened by the slightest. "Where are we?"
"I'm guessing the School, sweetie." I answered sullenly. I looked pointedly at the cameras and tried to unplug them with my telekinesis. Nothing happened. I tried again; nothing. I panicked and now everyone was up.
"Nudge," I stammered. "Try to unplug the metal cameras."
She nodded, confused, but tried. Again, nothing happened.
Angel gasped. "I can't hear anything! All of you are quiet! I can't… I can't read what you're thinking." She was upset.
Total spoke next. "What's going on here?"
So, apparently, the whitecoats used something in the shackles to disable our abilities. I can't use telekinesis, see the future, use my super-hearing, or pull my wings in. Fang can't turn invisible and Iggy can't see at all and his senses are the same as ours. Angel can't read minds or control them, speak to fish, breathe underwater, or anything else she can do- basically, we're just humans with wings now. All the abilities the whitecoats know about were disabled. After about twenty minutes, we stopped struggling against the shackles.
I hung my head as Iggy and Gazzy talked about what they could use to make a bomb, and Nudge and Angel were just whispering about something I didn't hear. Fang, I could see, was staring at me with concern in his eyes.
"Max?" he murmured. "You okay?"
"No, I'm not okay," I rasped out sharply at him- I was trying to hold back tears. "He was right."
"Who?"
"Theodore- Theodore was right!" I yelled at him. Everyone went quiet and looked at me with shock- Iggy faced me, though. I took in a deep breath. "It is my fault. Jeb warned me when I went to visit him in jail- he said if they found out, they'd get him. I didn't listen… and it got him killed. He was supposed to die peacefully but I saw a vision of him die when I was 19. They found out sooner and they just murdered him because of me! And you all had to witness it! My own father… killed because he did the right thing and ditched the bad guys." I shook my head. "He was right… All my fault." I started to noiselessly cry.
"Shut up," Fang said sternly.
He's never said that to me and I stopped crying and looked at him with shock, through my hair. Everyone's expressions were the same.
"What?" I demanded.
"I said, shut up. Theodore was wrong; it's not your fault. You didn't see it come and the vision was a warning to you- to let you be ready for his death. I don't care if you think you weren't ready to see it. You were. If you hadn't had that vision, you would've acted a lot differently and possibly would have been killed because of it. Max, it's not your fault at all. Don't blame yourself for something that wasn't your fault because a damn whitecoat says it's your fault." His voice was cold and hard.
I just stared at him with my mouth slightly open. "That… has got to be… the longest speech… you have ever given."
The mood lightened up and he smirked. I had to be strong for the Flock; that's what he was saying… and that, you know, it really wasn't my fault. But if you could see the future and someone you loved died and you didn't see it coming, you'd think you were at fault too.
A whitecoat stepped in and I recognized him to be the guy who shot Jeb. I leaped at him and the chains stopped me. I almost growled. He walked over to Fang and grabbed his chin. He turned Fang's head left, right, up, and down, examining it. Fang jerked his head out of the sick guys hold and bit his fingers. I chuckled and the whitecoat stopped, mid-slap. He looked at me, with his hand raised ready to smack Fang across the face. He stood up and walked over to me. He bent down to his knees to get to my eyelevel.
"You think that's funny, Blondie?" he asked me, snidely.
I sneered. "Yeah, I do, actually. It'd be even funnier if you bled… or if you died instead of Jeb," I almost finished my rude comment but he slapped me across the face so hard, my head went with the momentum and flew to the side. The whitecoat left.
I looked at my Flock and saw that they were leaning against their restraints because they tried to break free to get the whitecoat because he slapped me.
"We'll get out of here. Don't worry." I reassured everyone.
Gazzy looked at me skeptically. "How?"
"I have a plan…," I think. Fang raised an eyebrow at me. "I do." I hoped this worked… "Have you ever noticed at my concerts that nothing goes wrong? No mosh pits? No mic feedback? No chaos?" They all nodded slowly. "Well, and I'm just hypothesizing here, I think that's because of my singing."
"Huh?" Iggy scratched his head, confused.
I sighed, closed my eyes, and sang low.
Where
are we? hide and seek hide and seek (hide and seek) (hide and
seek) (hide and
seek)
What the hell is going on?
The dust has only just begun
to form
crop circles in the carpet
sinking feeling
my
voice started to have an eerie pitch to it. My eyes stayed closed but
I could hear steel bending. I concentrated.
spin me round
again
and rub my eyes,
this can't be happening
when busy
streets amass with people
would stop to hold their heads
heavy
trains and sewing machines
all those
years
they were here first
oily marks appear on
walls
where pleasure moments hung before the takeover,
the
sweeping insensitivity of this still life
trains
and sewing machines (oh, you won't catch me around here)
blood and
tears (hearts)
they were here first
Mmm What'cha say,
Mmm that
you only meant well?
Well of course you did
Mmm What'cha say,
Mmm that it's all for the best?
Of course it is
mmm
What'cha say?
Mmm that it's just what we need
you decided
this
What'cha say?
Mmm what did you say?
Angel smiled
and I knew she got her powers back, Nudge was working on breaking the
steel shackles and Gazzy and Iggy were creating bombs with material
they had snuck in.
ransom notes keep falling out your
mouth
mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut outs
speak no feeling
no I don't believe you
you don't care a bit,
you don't care a
bit
ransom notes keep falling out your
mouth
mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut outs
speak no feeling no I don't believe you
you don't care a
bit,
you don't care a (you don't care a) bit
oh no, you don't care a bit
oh no, you don't care a
bit
(Hide and seek)
oh no, you don't care a
bit
you don't care a bit
you don't care a bit
I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. I grabbed my head for a second and shook it. When I opened my eyes again, everything looked normal again; nothing was tinted purple anymore and wind wasn't blowing around me anymore either. I looked at my Flock and smiled smugly.
"Told you…," I said in a sing-song teasing voice. They all rolled their eyes. "Nudge? Can you break these?"
She tried to snap the shackles off me and then she shrieked, pressing her palms to her temples. She shook her head vigorously. "No! They shocked me when I tried."
Damn… these guys are getting smart. I looked over at Fang and he wore the same expression as me. My vision went hazy and I was pulled into the future. After ten seconds, I was pulled back out with everyone staring at me.
I looked at the door expectantly. Everyone followed my lead. "Let me deal with this," I told them. "Five… four… three… two…" The countdown reminded me of Mandy in the visions Jeb had sent me. I smiled a small smile. "One…" Two whitecoats- one boy, one girl- walked in.
The door shut behind them and they walked over to me; Fang went rigid next to me and the girl noticed and seemed confused. I waved him off.
"Don't mind him. It's our instinct." I explained.
The girl nodded and sat next to me and pulled out a key. She started unlocking my shackles and the guy talked quietly to me.
"Did you-?" He asked. He cut himself off in case this room was bugged other than the already destroyed cameras. I nodded. "Okay. I'm glad you can trust us."
"I have faith in my visions."
"Max, what's going on?" Nudge asked, nervously.
Max, she thinks you turned over to their side… Angel informed me.
"I had a vision of these two coming to help us. They're not whitecoats; they're experiments."
Everyone nodded.
"How do you know for sure?" Fang asked stiffly.
I rolled my eyes. "Don't you trust me?" I honestly felt hurt that not one of them trusted my judgment. The shackles were undone and I grabbed a key from the girl. I walked over to Total to undo him since one shackle was around his neck but stopped. I scoffed and threw the key away. "Wait… what am I doing?" I held my hand out. "Total, don't make any sudden movements." I closed my eyes and used my mind to tear apart the metal.
The boy and girl experiments looked at me with awe. They watched me as I undid Angel, Gazzy, Iggy, Nudge, and Fang. We were all getting ready to leave when I froze. Fang was pulling on my arm and I was looking into the distance.
"Get back into your positions." They all looked at me confused. "Pull out one piece of hair and set it in one of the shackle things. Then close them- someone's coming!" We all ran to our spots by the walls and did as I instructed. Fang used his power to make the boy and girl invisible so they could sneak out as Theodore came in. It worked.
Theodore walked in and the two left.
"How are all of you? Comfy?" he asked pleasantly.
"What do you think?" I scowled. "Do you expect us to be comfortable with chains on?"
He merely shrugged. "Just to let you know, you'll never get out. I'm sure you've noticed by now that your powers don't work," On the contraire… "And you have no idea where we are."
"Mind explaining who the 'we' is?" I asked.
"We are the last School in the world. We were not funded by Itex but were close with their decisions. We are the more advanced School, as you can see. And we thought it best if we hide out somewhere where no one would ever think to look for a School. Only our workers know where we are." Theodore smiled triumphantly.
"Oh yeah? Where's that? Frankfort, Kentucky?" I snickered.
His jaw tightened and his eyes blazed. "Who's your inside source to this kind of information?" He asked tightly wound.
I laughed. "Oh my God, that was just a guess."
Theodore walked over to me and grabbed me by the neck and choked me a bit. "What else do you know?" he nearly shouted.
"I know…," I looked into the future. "That we're going to escape from here."
He squeezed harder and Fang was about to jump out of his skin, he was so angry. I had been holding my breath so choking me didn't make a difference. I can hold my breath for hours. Since I showed no signs of hurting or fainting, he let go and I silently gasped for air and made it look like I was fine. He left, but before the door closed, he smiled and said; "There's no way all of you will live if you do escape. We will kill at least two of you." The door shut and soon we were standing up and by the window behind me.
"Wait!" Angel yelled. "What about the two experiments that helped us? Shouldn't they come too?"
I nodded and at that moment, the boy and girl came walking in. We all had to open the window together because it wouldn't budge and we all leaped out. I grabbed the girl and Fang grabbed the boy and we jumped out after the others. We landed carefully on the ground. Fang and I let go of them and they thanked us.
"Not to be rude but… What are your names?" I asked.
"I'm Milo and she's Mandy." said the boy, Milo.
My heart skipped a beat. Mandy? In the building, sirens went off saying that we had escaped. Flyboys and whitecoats came rushing out with tasers, knives, guns, and anything dangerous. They pointed them at us.
We all immediately started fighting whitecoats and flyboys and we were winning; apparently, this School didn't have buff whitecoats and they all had bad aim. Many were knocked out in less than ten minutes. A lot of whitecoats had retreated back into the buildings and we had destroyed all the flyboys.
"Come with us," Nudge suggested to Milo and Mandy.
"We'd like to but we'd just be a burden." Milo kindly declined.
"No, it's okay; you helped us and now we need to return the favor." Nudge persisted.
I saw it one second before it happened. Two of the flyboys had been playing 'broken' and they leapt up near Mandy and Milo. No one had time to react. Mandy heard them start up and she saw that one had a gun trained on my head. No one moved. The other flyboy was ready to grab Fang; one false move and both of us were dead.
We all saw the flyboy's finger start to squeeze the trigger and Mandy threw herself in front of me; she got shot. Milo jumped the flyboy but he was prepared. Milo's neck snapped. All of us screamed or shouted and I attacked the flyboys in pure rage. First, the School takes Ari. Then, the take Jeb. And now, they took two new friends of the Flock; Mandy and Milo. I killed the two flyboys using no energy what so ever. The School was only thirty feet away; I could easily go back and murder all those people who've been destroying people's lives. I started to walk toward the building and Fang obviously knew what I was going to do. He grabbed me around the waist and held me to his chest as I struggled to go and hurt everyone that hurt me and my Flock.
I was yelling and beating Fang's arms and yet he never broke his hold of me. "Max," I wasn't listening to him. "Max," I didn't answer, I just thrashed. "Max!"
I stopped struggling and looked at his worried and furious face.
"They killed them… They killed almost everyone I care about… they killed Ari, Jeb, and now they killed Mandy and Milo. I have to get back at them. They need to know how much they hurt me!" I struggled again.
Fang, in one swift movement, had pinned my arms down to my sides while still having his arms wrapped around my waist. "Max, it's okay. You'll get your revenge."
The School blew up and I just stared. I slumped against Fang and he held me. My family was getting ready to fly away and Fang let me go so I could too.
We flew away and we were almost to a clearing when something happened. A portal type thing popped open in the sky and a little body fell out of it. Fang saw the body and flew faster to catch it.
And you'll never guess who it was. No one else knew, but I did. It was…
