Ha ha, up so soon! I hope you enjoy this; I know I enjoyed writing it. And I really hope you guys don't get too upset over it. :3
There must have been at least two dozen dog crates stacked against the walls, beside and on top of each other. Only about five were empty. The rest had limp and whimpering forms cowering in the shadows from the sudden harsh light.
It was a truly gruesome sight, kids ranging from days old- to ten years, but only a few are above the age of three.
Inside the first crate is a baby, maybe four months, and its skin looked like it had black sours spotting its body like freckles, some have a strangle yellowy liquid dripping down to the normal skin. The baby was still, no rise and fall of the chest, and pale in death.
They hadn't even bothered to move the body.
A little girl in the back is crying and reaching through the bars of her cage to another who has an older boy limp on the ground, unconscious or dead, I couldn't tell.
I see scales, fur, organs on the outside of the body, slit eyes, bleeding from unhealed cuts, and children spotted with rash in reaction to something, all laying in their own filth with empty, forgotten trays of food.
All of them had pulled back to the very ends of their cage as soon as the lights flicked on.
It was all horrific and I wanted to throw up or cry. Max, I noticed, was crying with silent tears rolling down her cheeks. She looks around the room with such haunted and helpless eyes that make me want to race out of there that much faster.
But Max takes another step into the room that smells of rot and soiled cloths and crouches down to the first cage with an older kid.
"Hello." She says softly to the raven-haired ten-year-old, one of the eldest in the room. Her nose is smushed slightly, like a cat's, and her ears turn to points and are covered in fur. Something twitches in the shadow of the cage, like a tail, as she looks on in fear and curiosity.
"You don't look like them." the girl whispers.
"So you can talk." Max smiles sadly. "And no, I'm not like them. I was like you a few years ago, but I escaped."
The young girl crawls closer to the edge of the bars. "Why would you come back; why would anyone ever want to come back."
I don't step closer; I never was good with kids and I have a feeling that I would end up scaring her.
Max pokes her fingers through to touch the child's hand. "They have something that I need here. My name is Max; do you have a name?"
"They call me 25683. But the others here call me Carter. Have you seen my brother?" She glances to the empty cage above her. "He's only four and they took him hours ago. He's usually back by now."
My mind flashes to the kid strapped to the table and inwardly shutter.
"I'm sorry." Max whispers. "I don't know." A loud banging noise comes from outside the door and Max stiffens. "I have to go now Carter, but I'll be back. I promise. And the next time you'll see me, I'm getting all of you out of here and I'm burning this place to the ground."
Carter smiles, teeth sharp like a feline's. "Okay." She says and then flinches to the back of her cage as the door slams open and a white coat steps into the room with a gun aimed at my best friend's head.
Max stands and turns slowly, grinning when she sees the barrel of the gun and an odd emotion crosses her face.
Anticipation.
"Hey, Doc!" She says casually, crossing her arms and leaning on one foot. "What's up?" She asks. "Steeling more babies to torture?"
The scientist's hand wavers. "Who are you?" He asks and Max smiles lazily.
"My name is Maximum Ride, or to you lovely people here called me, 666."
His eyes widen, and he actually drops the gun in shock. I blink and Max is strolling across the tile, picking up the fallen weapon and twirling it around carelessly. I almost feel like yelling at her to watch where she's pointing the thing, but figure she knows what she's doing.
Then again, she did just stroll into a top secret facility and seems to enjoy being caught. All former evidence of her weakness is gone, wiped from her face as if it never even happened and the fleeting thought that maybe she has a bipolar disorder flashes through my mind. It would explain all her mood swings. Either that or she's pregnant, which I highly doubt.
"Ah, so you know me." Humor gleams in her eyes. "You know, you do look vaguely familiar. Let's see; where do I know you from? Hmm..." She taps the barrel to her chin in thought but I stay quiet, hoping she's not stupid enough to bump the trigger.
In the cage behind me there is a sharp inhale of breath.
"Ah, you were the bloke in DNA reengineering." She claps her hands together at remembering. She struts back over to my side as Carter's face appears back at the front of the cage, looking excitedly up at Max.
"You're her!" She says excitedly. "You're the Maximum Ride, 666, the white coats called you the Devil! I grew up being told stories about you by the others before they never came back, about how no matter how much they did to you you always came back and you always fought. But I never remembered you myself. They said that you gave me my name."
Max winked at her, her smile turning soft. "You were such a tiny thing, I guess you where one of the lucky ones." She looks sadly around at all the cages. "Not many of you are left though, my family."
I feel a throb in my heart, feeling that I am imposing in this moment, but it is soon lost as the stupid scientist opens his stupid mouth.
"The Handler is already on his way."
"Ah, the Handler!" Max exclaims twirling back around to face him. "The Handler, the Punisher, yes I had many visits from him. We go way back. Tell me, is it still Omega, or did you replace him in my absence?"
Carter looks on with excited eyes as Max raises the gun to aim at his head. Is she going to shoot him?
The man ignores her question and scowls, fear hidden deep in his pea soup eyes. "I bet you don't even know how to use a gun."
Oh, so she had absolutely know idea what she was doing. Great, just great. A gun in the hands of my crazy best friend, hell bent on revenge but with no idea how to work the weapon. This is just perfect.
Max glances down a the firearm curiously, probably trying to figure out how it works, before shrugging and hurling it at his head like it was a knife.
The tall man crumples to the ground unconscious.
Oh. Well that works I guess.
"Come on." She says grasping my arm and dragging me toward the door, scribbling furiously on her clipboard as we race past the unresponsive body and out the heavy door.
I jerk to a stop at seeing a boy there. He's an older boy, almost a man, with strong set muscles and a perfectly proportioned body.
His hair is blond in a surfer dude kind of way but his eyes are empty and emotionless. Almost like he's not entirely there.
Max glances up when I plant my feet and she takes in the obstacle with guarded eyes.
Still, even then, amusement dances in her eyes. She really is enjoying this.
"Hold on a second." She says holing up a finger before going back to scratching at the paper with a pen. "Let me just finish this real quick."
The boy blinks and rolls his eyes, actually waiting. Hmm, he must have met Max before.
After another minute of silence save for the writing being done, Max shoves the clipboard and pen into the bag that way still slung over my shoulder. She zips it quickly before turning, smile back in place.
"Long time no see Omega, how's life treating you?"
The boy blinks before returning the smile. "Very well, you?"
Wait, are they really having small talk? Is this whole place loony? And Omega; that was Max called the Handler person.
"Can we move this along please?" I can't help but blurt out irritated. Max glances at me questioningly. "I'm sorry, it just feels like a family reunion and I'm the friend that was forced to tag along to keep it from being awkward. Well guess what; it's still awkward?"
Max cracks a smile.
"I suppose we should speed this up." She muses, glancing at the stair and elevator shaft.
Omega sighs. "Well fine, if you want to make this boring."
"I know right?" Max grins. "He's always like this; he didn't even want to play hide and seek with me."
"Unbelievable." he deadpans.
I mentally start banging my head against the wall. I was wrong before; both of them aren't all the way there.
A scowl quickly forms on Max's face as he quickly pulls a gun to aim at her head.
"Again?" She scoffs. "Haven't you people ever heard of a good old fashioned fist fight?"
The gun shifts to now point at my head. Max suddenly seems so much more sober, and entirely different light entering her eyes. I don't feel scared at that moment, probably still just trying to keep up the happening right in front of me.
"I'll give you a choice Max, because I used to have fun with our... games." He says, face void of any feeling he had earlier. "You can pick. You can walk out right now with you're friend now, or I can shoot him and let you walk into that chemical storage room and pick out any of the ingredients that you need for that brother of yours."
Max smirks, a cruel look entering her eyes and like the flip of a switch, she's the girl I first met in the rain. Dangerous.
I blink again, and suddenly she's standing slightly beside me, knife that was once hidden up her sleeve pressed to my throat. This was not my Max. This was not who she was, confessing everything to me hours before.
"Well, since you offered..." She says. Was it all a trick? Her caring, her confession? Did she know that this would happen this was. Walk in and walk out if someone thought she cared for me.
Confessing her betrayal to me to get me to trust her. Telling me her story to get me to feel bad for her?
No, those emotions I saw in her eyes, those were real; you cant fake that. I'll just have to trust her.
But there is a pressure in my neck and the sound of tearing fabric as she moves to plunge her blade into my heart. There is the sound of tearing flesh and warms stickiness seeps through my shirt, soaking it quickly.
My vision blurs. The ground is suddenly not under my feet as my legs give out and I land face down in the ground, blood spreading over white floor.
As my vision fades I see Omega smirk before turning around and entering the elevator as Max shuffles around in her duffle bag, jogging away and leaving me there as my vision goes dark.
Okay so, let me know what you think! One chapter left, maybe, so you gotta leave a review.
They are 'my muse, my inspiration!'
-feather flyer