Hello, Readers! Okay, so I'm really sorry I haven't updated in, like, a month, but here's the next chapter. Oh yeah, also, I'm going to start giving my chapter actual names because it will be easier to keep track of. Again, I'm really sorry for not updating. I had a busy spring break, including a cruise. It was fun, except for the fact that I had no Internet connection! It was so tragic! And then it was the end of the semester, and I had a science project due, and an engineering project due, and a French project due. Oh, il est tres dificille! Anyways... I hope you enjoy this chapter, it took me forever to write. But, in my opinion, this is a very... dramatic chapter. You also learn mostly why Switch doesn't like Kaito. So... I hope you enjoy!


POV: Tara

I woke up and looked to my right. Smosh was asleep next to me, his chest rising and falling slowly and steadily. I smiled at the fact that we had furniture and hadn't slept outside in over 2 days. It was nice. Our house was bigger than our old house, and still smelled like paint and wood. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and hopped out. I walked downstairs, but wanted to turn around right when I got down there. But I listened to the conversation and decided to stay. I stayed at the bottom of the stairs, making sure they didn't know I was there.

"God, why are you such an ass?!" It was Switch.

"Because you're stupid and don't pay attention to anyone but yourself!" Kaito exclaimed.

"That's you!" she said. But then she lowered her voice. "Need I remind you about what you did at the lab?"

Kaito was silent for a moment. Then he spoke so quietly that he was hardly audible. "That was a mistake. You know that. I love all of you guys, and I didn't mean for any of the Whitecoats to harm you more than they already were. That is the one thing I regret in my life, and you know that."

"It doesn't mean that I forgive you," Switch hissed. "You put all of us in hell for the rest of the time we were there. You put me in hell! You can't expect that I'm just going to forgive you as fast as everyone else did. And the only reason they did is because they didn't even know that it was your fault, you back-stabbing jerk!"

Kaito let out an exasperated sigh. "Alright, I know I'm a jerk, but you've gotten back at me enough! You need to stop, or I'll keep bothering you."

"That is exactly what you said when we had this conversation 2 weeks ago, in case you don't remember. And do you remember what I said? I said 'nothing I will ever do to you will be enough revenge'. And do you know why? Because after you ratted me out, they upped my doses. You will never know that kind of pain. But I can try and cause you somewhere close to it."

"That's enough," Kaito growled. "You don't know what it's like to live with the guilt of that every day."

"So what? You did something bad, feel crappy about it, and expect everyone to forgive you? No! You were terrible to me, and I'll be terrible to you."

"No you won't. You do realize who you're talking to, right? You can't do squat to me, 'cause I'm stronger than you are."

Switch snorted. "Yeah, but you're mean to everyone, so they'll side with me, and together we're stronger than you are."

"Who cares? Right now, you're my biggest threat, and you're one of the smallest here. You can't do anything to me. Plus, if you do, I'll just torment you back."

"It's worth it."

There was a pause, and I knew that Kaito was smirking at her, even though I couldn't see either of them. "Is it really? I know a lot of information about you, and I don't know if you really want to see that unleashed. I know more than you think."

There was another pause, and when I peeked around the corner, I saw Switch standing there, biting her lip, eyebrows pulled together. She was thinking. Then she spoke. "What about me do you know?" she asked. She was trying to sound confident and threatening, but I could tell that she was a little worried. I guess Kaito could, too.

"Now, don't fear, my little winged friend. Nothing too bad. But, it certainly is enough to use as ammo."

Switch glanced around the room and hallway nervously. I moved away, hoping she wouldn't see me, but my hair moved as I pulled back, and I was afraid she would see that. There was silence, and I held my breath, not moving at all. Then there was a shuffling of feet coming towards me, and I knew I'd been spotted. Man, what I wouldn't give to be able to turn invisible. I held my breath, still waiting for Switch and Kaito to grill me for eavesdropping. I heard more footsteps.

Then they were both there, grabbing me by one arm each and pulling me forward. I squirmed, but they both instinctively tightened their grips. We came into the kitchen, and they both pushed me forward against a wall. They held me against the wall.

"What the hell are you doing?!" they both shouted in unison. They glared at each other for a second, angry that the other had spoken, but then turned back to me.

"I…" I started to say something, but then I realized that I didn't really have an excuse. I had been eavesdropping, and now they were mad, and I couldn't deny that I had been there.

"How much did you hear?" they both asked again. And again, they glared at each other, shooting daggers at one another for speaking, but both shook their heads and looked back at me.

"Since 'god why are you such an ass?'" I replied sheepishly.

"That was, like, at the very beginning!" Switch exclaimed.

I nodded.

"Why did you just listen to our conversation?" Kaito shouted. He paused for a moment, looking for any signs that anyone else was awake and listening, but when the house was dead silent, he continued. "Why didn't you come in or, better yet, go away?"

"I didn't feel like it?" I supplied.

They both rolled their eyes, and I tried so hard to hold in my laugh. It was just so funny, how similar they were. Same hair color, same eye color, same skin tone, same facial structure. Even their wings were similar. The only thing was, they didn't get along. At all. Like, they just clashed. Although I don't see why. They had so much in common. Just don't tell either of them I said that.

"Wrong answer!" Switch growled. "That is very private information, and we didn't include you in the conversation for a reason." She looked up at me, her blue eyes glaring at me.

"You should've gone to somewhere private if you wanted to have a private conversation," I pointed out.

They both paused, probably wishing they had thought of that. I mean, our kitchen is not private. What were they thinking? They were both at a lack of words for a moment but then Kaito spoke.

"If Smosh weren't here, I'd beat you to a pulp." He tightened his grip on my shoulder and narrowed his eyes at me. I gulped and squirmed, and they both tightened their grips on me. Then I heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and we all turned that direction. It was Smosh.

"Let go of her," he ordered, not angrily, just directly.

"She was eavesdropping," Switch said.

"So what?" Smosh said back. "What are you gonna do to her? Kill her for listening to a conversation that was open to anyone? Just let go of her."

Kaito and Switch glared at Smosh. Smosh just stared right back at them. The three of them just looked at each other, until Kaito and Switch let go. I backed away from them as they both directed their anger at Smosh.

"You can't just intrude in peoples' lives, Smosh," Switch screamed.

"You aren't in charge of us!" Kaito shouted.

There were a couple more minutes of shouting and stuff, but after a bit, it became only Switch and Kaito shouting at each other while Smosh and I watched. I don't know how that happened, but I do know that Smosh and I weren't going to interrupt it. We both knew that they could be at it for hours. There were exchanges of 'shut up's and 'I hate you's and 'go die in a hole's and 'go (insert profane word here) yourself's and lots of other stuff such as punches and kicks and thrown dishes. At one point, Switch managed to roundhouse kick Kaito in the chest, literally knocking him down flat on his back. Soon, everyone else had been disturbed out of their sleep and had wandered downstairs to where the commotion was.

"Jeez, get a room, you two," Kimu said, walking into the kitchen.

"Shut up, Kimu!" Kaito and Switch shouted in unison. Kimu's eyes narrowed and flashed red, but she dismissed the bickering pair and proceeded to get some coffee.

"Hey, get me some too, please," Crevice said quietly. He rubbed his temples and sat down at the table.

He sat faced away from the fight and looked at me. Then Kaito threw a mug at Switch and she ducked, and the mug hit Crevice on his back. It fell to the floor and shattered to small pieces. We all just stared as Crevice stood up and whirled around to face the two of them.

"Watch what you're doing!" he shouted. "Stop bickering! You are getting on everybody's nerves, and you need to stop before you do some real damage!" There was silence for a few seconds.

"It was Switch's fault!" Kaito said. "If she hadn't ducked, that mug wouldn't have hit you."

Kimu snorted as she brought over a cup of coffee to Crevice. He took the cup and sat back down in his spot, but turned the chair so that he could see if another flying mug was coming towards him.

"It was not!" Switch shrieked.

"Is too," Kaito said. He was oddly calm. It was unnerving.

Switch snarled at him. She opened a nearby drawer and pulled out several forks. She threw them at Kaito. I'm just gonna say, she has good aim for someone who had been locked up in a dog crate her entire life. Kaito dodged most of them, but one managed to get him right in the shoulder and he cried out in pain as the fork dropped to the floor. He kicked the fork aside and lunged at Switch. Soon it was a full-out fight. I'm not gonna get into the details, but let's just say there were a few punches, a couple of kicks, some scratches, a couple bites, and the whole thing resulted in Switch pinned underneath Kaito, stomach-down, kicking and screaming, her arms pulled behind her back and wrists clamped in Kaito's hands. She couldn't move enough to pull away, and Kaito smiled. I have to admit, Switch had been getting better at fighting and had had probably managed to break Kaito's nose with her foot. His nose was bleeding but he was just grinning madly at Switch.

"I have to admit," he said, "you're getting better. Just keep practicing and maybe you'll be able to beat me one day. But, unfortunately for you, that day is not today." Kaito shifted slightly, and his grin widened as Switch moaned from underneath him.

"Get off!" she demanded. She squirmed and struggled and kicked.

"Nope." He shifted again, and she screamed bloody murder.

"Kaito, Kaito, Kaito! Get off! Now!" she twisted underneath him, but it was no use.

He just continued to press his weight on her.

"Kaito, get off," Smosh ordered.

"You've had your fun for the day, now get up," Kimu ordered. She looked at Kaito and her eyes flashed red. Her pupils narrowed to slits and she glared at Kaito.

Kaito looked at her, and then back down at Switch, who was trying to turn her head to bite the closest thing to her, which was Kaito. Then Kaito got up off of Switch and turned to Kimu. He looked at her challengingly as I went to help Switch off the ground.

I took Switch's hand and pulled her up. She looked up at me angrily.

"That was your fault. You shouldn't have been eavesdropping."

I felt bad. Honestly, I did. Switch doesn't get mad at me that often, and I wasn't used to it. We were good friends, better than has been shown in this story. Nobody has talked about it so far, I'm pretty sure. But Switch and I were close friends. Our cages were next to each other at the School. We used to talk a lot, but we hadn't been talking as much lately. But after Kimu broke us out, Switch didn't talk as much. She just sat in the corner and whispered things to herself. It wasn't that she was uncomfortable with us, or sad. I asked her about it several times. She just thought to herself. I'd listened to her mumble to herself a few times before I actually tried to get her to participate, and she's always be saying something about how Kaito "wouldn't live it down" or how the scientists messed up with Artie or how Maximum Ride was an "attention whore" or something weird like that. I figured I could lighten her mood if I talked to her, so I did. Soon we were talking a lot and she told me a lot of things that I didn't know about her. I'm surprised she never mentioned anything about this whole Kaito-betrayed-us situation. This day was the most I'd ever heard of it. But back to the main point. I was upset because she was mad at me and that almost never happened. We used to be so close, and I felt distant. I looked down at her and felt awful. But then Switch smiled.

"But I forgive you. It's not your fault that Kaito's a selfish, stupid, ignorant little"-

"If you have something to say, say it to my face," Kaito growled from across the room. He folded his arms across his chest and faced Switch.

Everyone groaned. We were tired of all this fighting. Honestly, it's all they ever did. And, if Reader, you are tired of this too, just understand that I live with them, and you are just reading about them. Its worse for me, trust me; I live with it. But we were all sick of it! At first it was amusing, but then it just started to bother us and slow us down. The two of them could be at it for hours. Really, any insult Switch could've thrown at him wouldn't have surprised me, I'd heard them all.

Switch turned around to face him. "I said you're a selfish, stupid, ignorant little pig, who can't control his emotions and shouldn't have been let out of his cage along with the rest of us."

Except that one.

He shouldn't have been let out of his cage? That was extreme; did she really think that about him? Did she honestly believe what he'd done was so awful that he shouldn't even be free? To be fair, Switch was a little irrational, but her opinion still meant a lot.

Everyone gasped in surprise, probably thinking the same thing as I was. Artie's eyes widened. Smosh just froze in his spot, and slowly moved his gaze up to Switch. Atia was shaking her head slowly, and had tears forming in her eyes. She blinked them away quickly. Kimu tilted her head with a quizzical expression as if she must've misheard her. Crevice's cheeks reddened as if he'd just heard something he wasn't supposed to and was embarrassed about it, and he quickly looked away. My jaw dropped. Even Kaito was silent. He was looking straight at Switch, but the anger in his eyes was replaced by something else, some hurt expression: Sorrow? Sadness? Betrayal? It was the most vulnerable I'd seen him since we'd been out of the School.

"You don't honestly mean that, Switch," Kimu said, half stating, half asking.

"I do," Switch replied simply. "He got time out while we were there, now it's his turn while we can be free."

"Time out?" Smosh asked. "What do you mean, time out?"

Switch and Kaito both ignored him.

"I'm sorry," Kaito said quietly. I didn't know what he was apologizing for. "I didn't think any of that would happen. They promised they wouldn't hurt any of you."

"You should've thought about that before you sold us out!" Switch shrieked at him. Tears were filling her eyes and starting to roll down her cheeks, and she just let them.

She was so angry, I could tell. We all could. Artie cowered away from her and clung onto my arm, whimpering. She looked up at me and I could tell she was startled by Switch's outburst. As I looked at everyone, they all had the same startled expression as Artie, but there was a hint of curiosity mixed in. everyone except Kimu. Actually… I do recall her saying that she knew what this was about, so maybe she wasn't at all curious. She sure looked interested in the conversation at the moment.

"Did you really think those Whitecoats keep promises?!" Switch shouted. "Did you really expect them not to harm us?! God, you're even stupider than I thought!"

"I said I'm sorry!" Kaito shouted back. "There's not much more I can do for you!"

"That's a complete lie!"

"What do you want me to do?! Turn myself in?!"

Switch was quiet for a moment. Then she shook her head and wiped away some tears. "No! Just shut up and let me think for a minute!"

After about 30 seconds of utter silence, Artie made a mistake by talking.

"Switch…?" She reached out for Switch's hand.

Switch whirled around quickly and grabbed Artie's wrist. She twisted it, and Artie whimpered. A look of pure terror washed over Artie's face. I guess even in her state of anger, Switch saw it, because she quickly let go.

"Artie!" Switch shrieked. "I'm so sorry! I just… Need a moment." She turned quickly and ran out the door, slamming it closed behind her. I saw her through the window, her face tear-streaked. She unfurled her wings and gave a powerful flap, and then she was gone.

Silence. That's all there was for the next 4 minutes as everybody tried to put the pieces of the conversation together.

"What was that about?" Smosh asked finally, breaking the silence.

Kaito leaned back against the counter and rubbed his temples. "It's a long story."

"We've got time," I said.

Kaito sighed. "I can't tell you. It's the worst thing I've ever done, and you all would never forgive me for it."

"It's obviously not that bad," I said. "I mean, we all lived through it, and we don't hate you for anything."

"Switch does! Sure, you all lived through it, but at what cost? It's my fault that Switch's doses became more frequent! It's my fault that Crevice was in that box! It's all my fault!" Kaito exclaimed. "I can hardly stand to think of that, how do you think I'm going to be able to tell you?" He sighed and ran a hand through his blonde hair. "It's just… You know?" he closed his eyes and sunk to the floor, burying his face in his hands.

I couldn't believe he was actually breaking down like this. First Switch, now Kaito. This was obviously a very sensitive topic for both of them. And I so desperately wanted to know what it was! Why was it so dramatic? I needed answers!

But, there was no time for those thoughts, because at that very moment, the door flew open. It wasn't Switch, though. It was an Eraser. One I recognized. He also looked a bit like a scientist back at the School. Do you know a guy named Jeb Batchelder? Yeah, this Eraser looked like Jeb. He also looked really familiar. He smiled at us with crooked teeth and bright red eyes.

"Hello, my little piggies. What a pleasant surprise," he growled.

Kaito leaped up, ready for action. We all looked at the Eraser, confused. How did he find us?

He let out a forced kind of laugh. "The look of confusion on your faces is priceless! If you're wondering how we found you so quickly, just ask your friends there, they showed us the way." He motioned to Kimu and Smosh, who looked as confused as the rest of us. "You know? On your trip to the furniture store? I saw you!"

Kimu gasped. "I knew I wasn't hallucinating!"

We all turned to her.

"What?!" Smosh exclaimed. "You saw them and you didn't tell me?! What were you thinking?"

"Well, I wasn't sure," Kimu defended. "I mean, how often do you just so happen to see two Erasers? I obviously don't see them often enough to consider if they're real or not!"

"You should still tell us," Smosh said. "Even if they aren't real, it's still nice to know when one of our family is going bonkers!"

"I'm sorry, it just didn't seem"-

The Eraser growled impatiently. "If you are done bickering, I'd like to take you back to the lab now."

"Go to hell!" Kaito shouted.

Artie whimpered from next to me, and I could tell that she was thinking of an escape plan, as was I. if this conversation took a turn for the worst, which I knew it would, we would push through the door and windows, getting outside to open space, where we could fight without being confined. From there, we could fly away to somewhere else. There was just one thing I had completely forgotten about at the time:

Switch.

Switch had left. And we couldn't leave without her. And we didn't know where she was (except for Atia). And we needed to leave ASAP.

"Ari!" Artie exclaimed. "That's his name! I knew it was something weird like that!" I gasped with sudden realization. Ari!

Ari growled again. "Enough! Shut up! We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Which way do you chose?" he barked.

"This way," Smosh grunted as he punched Ari. Ari went flying across the room and left a decent-sized crack in the wall as he grimaced in pain.

"You asked for it," Ari growled.

At that moment, more Erasers filed in through the door. Then it was a full-out war. Punches and kicks were given, along with burns, claw-scratches, invisible punches, and squirrel bites. As I was fighting an Eraser with tiny eyes, another tackled me from the side. I hit the hardwood floor hard. The breath left my lungs in a painful whoosh. I leaped up as quickly as possible, only to be pushed over again. As I jumped up again, I was shoved over again. The Erasers snickered at me. Then I realized that they were just playing with me, pushing me over and watching me struggle as they pushed me over again. So I stayed on the floor and tried to crawl away quietly. The Erasers were too involved in their own laughter to even notice me crawling away. Once I was a few feet away, I leaped up again. I scratched both of them down their ugly faces, drawing blood right away. I cringed at the feeling of my claws against their fur, the tear in the skin, the rough claw-against-tissue feeling. I never liked using my claws, but sometimes it was the only option. The Erasers both backed away, howling in pain. There was a clear pathway leading straight out the door, and I bolted. I leaped up and unfurled my wings, giving a few hard flaps and landing on the roof. Atia and Artie were there, cowering. I was surprised that I hadn't noticed that they hadn't been fighting.

Then I saw two Erasers struggling out of the house with a sack. The smell of burning cloth wafted up as they passed underneath us. Crevice. I started to jump down to chase after the Erasers with Crevice, but an Eraser worked his way up onto the roof, and I had to stay with the younger girls. They didn't fight, which was totally helpful, and I struggled to keep my balance on the roof as I tried to push the Eraser off the edge. I looked back down at the ground and saw two more Erasers with a sack. But they weren't coming from the house, but the wild, overly grown forest. There were shrieks from inside the sack, and I realized that they had found Switch. I turned but then my hair was pulled by the Eraser on the roof with me. I didn't know what to do: protect Artie and Atia or save Switch and Crevice, I couldn't decide.

"Artie! Atia! Go help Switch and Crevice!" I ordered.

They both nodded and jumped down off of the roof, swooping down around the Erasers. Artie stayed up higher as the Erasers lunged for them, but Atia flew closer and closer, a hard, determined look on her face. She did her best trying to distract them, but one of them pulled out a gun and shot a small dart at Atia, taking advantage of the easy target. She cried out as the bright yellow dart lodged itself in her shoulder, and she fell to the ground with a heart-stopping thud. I unfurled my wings and started off for Atia, but the Eraser on the roof grabbed my wings and held them in an extremely painful position pressed awkwardly behind my back. I struggled against him, trying to break free and get Atia, but when I moved, he twisted them and I cried out.

One of the Erasers that were holding Switch's sack bent down and picked up Atia. I didn't see where Artie went, and I only hoped that she had flown away from the fight. Then the Eraser let go quickly and fell off the roof. I looked, but no one was there; the Eraser had fallen on his own. Then Kaito appeared and smiled at me briefly before looking down to see where Switch, Crevice, and Atia were. They were in a dark Lexus, being driven away into the distance.

"No!" I screamed. "No!"

I started off towards the Lexus, but Kaito grabbed my wrist.

"What are you doing, you idiot?!" I screamed at Kaito. "They're getting away! They have our family! We need to go after them!"

"It's too late, Tara. We can't catch up with them." His face looked pained, and I knew he was struggling not to break down again. It had been a very stressful day.

I sunk to my knees as I realized that he was right. We couldn't catch up to them now. I just couldn't believe that had just happened. They had taken them. I wanted to curl up inside myself and just cry. Just cry and cry forever. The Erasers had found us for a second time in two weeks, and had taken our family away. Back to the School, most likely. And we would need to go back. And get them. From the School. My worst nightmare. Our worst nightmare. I just wanted to curl up and cry. Just cry.

So that's what I did.


I hope you enjoyed it. Please review and comment and do all that other good stuff.