Chapter 26

Struck dumb.

It's one of those strange terms that I've never really liked because, honestly, how can someone be 'struck dumb'? How would it happen and what does it mean exactly? Hit to the point of stupidity? I was never truly sure, that was, until now.

Now I understand struck dumb means that you are stunned into silence. Not silence really, more like your brain is completely lacking the ability to connect one thought to the next. No neurons were firing in the brain.

Like the four of us right now.

Iggy had found his way to a curtain covered wall and being his troublemaking self he had pulled the curtain aside. Behind the curtain, set on display for the rest of the lab, was a room full of cages. Cages containing small, child sized forms all sleeping soundly.

Each one of them was disfigured in some way. Changed. Altered. Mutated.

I screamed.

Fangs hand came down over my mouth, cutting my scream off short. Heart pounding furiously, I shook my head, trying to shake off both his hand and the image.

No, no, no! Testing on adults was one thing as horrible as that may be because they had the ability, the common sense, to object or at least know what they were getting into, but kids? They hadn't hurt anyone! They hadn't asked for this, there was no way they could have agreed to it because they wouldn't have understood the implications. It was just wrong.

And my parents were behind it.

I felt tears spill down my cheeks as that realization hit me. My parents, the people responsible for my life, were making the lives of so many other people miserable.

"Hey, don't cry." Fang said, removing his hand from my mouth and draping his arm over my shoulder instead. "It's not your fault," he whispered as if he knew what I was thinking. He probably did. For someone who I hadn't known for very long he was incredibly good at reading me.

"But t-they did this." I gasped unable to resist the urge to bury my face in his shoulder. I heard Iggy and Nudge move away, whether to give us privacy or investigate I didn't know but I was grateful for the privacy just the same. "How could they do this?" I demanded as I pulled away to look back through the glass wall. Little children. These were children, some as young as two years old by the looks of it! I caught a glimpse of golden curls and my mind immediately brought up a picture of Angel in one of those cages, demoralized and in pain. The image made me want to vomit. "We have to get them out."

"And do what with them?" Fang asked softly. "Turn them loose on the streets? Take them to Florida with us? No, what's best for everyone, especially them, is to leave them here until Nudge and Iggy get the FBI down here. That will be tomorrow or the next day. Then the government will find a place for them. It will be safer for them." He assured me.

"But I can't leave them down here." I whispered. "Who knows what's going to happen to them in that day or two?"

"Think of it this way. If you have this bad of a reaction to them after seeing those dog things, after knowing full well what they were capable of, imagine how it will make the FBI and the police feel when they storm this place and find these children in cages. There's no way in hell any of these scientists will escape jail time. They need to be left like this for now."

Fang made sense but in my mind leaving them here was the ultimate betrayal. How could I just leave them here to be subjected to more experiments? It seemed like a crime against nature. My nature.

But if I wanted to take everyone down, including my parents, I had to do what Fang was suggesting. We'd have to leave immediately to get to Itex before they got wind of a raid on the Institute.

"Alright," I agreed dully. "Nudge, Iggy!" I called them over from where they were examining the cages more closely. "Put the curtain back up." I commanded. "Nobody can know we were here." As they started to follow my orders I headed back over to the computer we'd been using and tried to calm my shaking hands as I printed off a copy of every document related to my parents.

Almost seventy pages later I was rushing to gather them up and get ready to leave. I had Nudge erase all evidence of our time on the computer and then we were out of there.

…..

Nobody spoke on our return trip through the sewers. By the time we pulled ourselves up onto the subway platform it was nearly two in the morning and we were all exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally.

We made our way back through the subway and back to our hotel rooms before I spoke.

"Nudge, you and Iggy are going to stay at the hotel room and call my parents back home. Tell them I'm safe and that Fang and I are busy but I'll see them soon. Then ask for Agent Tulsin—he's with the FBI—and tell him that you have the proof he needs to arrest my parents and every other god damned evil scientist they work with. Have him come here and when he does give him these papers." I handed over the entire stack minus the page about my parents and Itex. "That, plus your statements should be more than enough to get them a warrant for the Institute. Once they get there it's their problem to deal with. Just make sure that they take care of those kids down there, okay?"

"Yeah, alright Max but—"

"No buts." I said. "I need you two to do this. You know how important it is and you know that somebody has to do it. But someone needs to confront my parents too and I need that person to be me. So please, no arguing."

"How are you getting to Florida?" Nudge asked.

I smiled meekly at her.

"Well, since the police are probably looking for me at the airport thanks to your little credit card stunt I'm thinking we take the bus out of the city at the very least and figure it out from there." I admitted. "But before I go anywhere I need a shower."

I could no longer stand the stench of sewer on my body.

I took a good twenty minutes to use a combination of extremely hot water and a loofa to get rid of at least two layers of skin before I felt clean enough. Once I had changed and packed my belongings once again Fang—also freshly showered—and I said our goodbyes to Nudge and Iggy and headed for the nearest bus station.

….

"The nearest long distance trip heading south is to Washington D.C." Fang informed me as he read the arrival/departure board above the heads of the swarming crowd. Apparently the bus station in New York never slept either. "It leaves in fifteen minutes. Every other bus doesn't leave for another two hours at least."

"Then that will have to do." I agreed. D.C was huge so I was sure we'd be able to find further transportation from there.

I bought the tickets with my dwindling supply of cash and Fang and I managed to find two seats on the bus right next to each other. We stored our bags in the overhead compartment before slumping down on the stained fabric seats, exhaustion washing over us in colossal waves.

"Everything's going to work out, right?" I asked Fang as I suppressed a yawn. I don't know why I asked it. I'd sounded so confident when I'd told Nudge that things would work out back at the Institute and the hotel. I guess I just needed someone else to say it too.

"Yeah, Max." He whispered back to me after a minute's hesitation. "Everything's going to be all right."

…..

"A train?" I questioned. Not just any train: Amtrak. Apparently that's a fancy train or something. "Seriously?"

Fang shrugged. "With the amount of money we have left it's about our only option. It will take us about twenty-six hours to get to Miami and from there we we'll have to find another way to Itex. But it's faster than a bus and cheaper than an airplane."

He was doing it again. Being sensible. I understood that he was proposing the best situation but I couldn't stand the thought of sitting inactive for an entire day. We hadn't stopped moving since we'd left Montana and I was afraid that if I didn't do anything for an entire day I'd lose my mojo. Besides, it was entirely possible that Nudge and Iggy would pull through in record time and have the Institute flooded with law enforcement by then. My parents could be gone by the time we got there.

But still….

We really didn't have any other options.

"Okay," I sighed in agreement. "Two tickets to Miami it is."

…..

"You've been staring at those papers since last night. Where is Itex exactly?" Fang asked me about seven hours into our train ride. We'd both passed out once we'd gotten to our compartment—also called a room on Amtrak—and had only recently woken up.

"Right outside of a city called Homestead. It's right on the edge of the Everglades. According to this paper they've told the surrounding community that Itex is a government owned research facility trying to use resources from the everglades as a source of natural energy."

"And nobody from the government has blown that charade to bits?" Fang scoffed.

I waved the paper in front of his face. It was basically a full blown report about Itex from its inception until today. It covered all the bases. "They have someone in the office that would usually investigate matters like that. They submitted a fake report saying that Itex was legit. Sneaky bastards."

"So from Miami to Homestead shouldn't be that far." Fang observed. "If it's right near the everglades."

I nodded. I'd asked one of the Amtrak workers that very question when we'd first gotten on the train. "About thirty miles."

Fang let out a sigh before slumping back against his seat. "I still can't believe you managed to figure this whole thing out." He said.

"What do you mean? I'm just following what all of the information is telling me. Besides, I had you, Iggy, and Nudge helping me."

He shook his head. "No, Max. You had us following your lead. That's different. Yeah, we were able to be useful and throw in a suggestion here or there but you're the one who got the original information in Montana. You're the one who managed to get us to the School. You're the one who found the Institute beneath the sewer system of New York City. And you're the one who's getting us all of the way to Itex. You've managed to pull something off that not even the FBI could do. Thanks to you all of this sick sorry excuse for science will be shut down and a lot of lives saved."

"But I couldn't have done it alone." I reminded him, embarrassed by his compliment. "You got us into that lab in the School, you helped us get away from Fido and He man, you helped narrow down where to look for the Institute, and hell, we'd be nowhere near Itex without Nudges hacking skills. Even Iggy helped by picking that lock and finding all of those experiments. And the two of them are about to hand the FBI my parents on a silver platter. We all were a part of bringing them down."

"Say it however you want, Max, but you did it." He said stubbornly.

"Whatever. I just want to go home and see my family again. I want all of this behind me."

"Soon enough," Fang said comfortingly. "We're almost there."

So a lot happened in this chapter, even if it doesn't seem like it. 1) Max had a mini breakdown which I find important. Its necessary to view her as a real teenager in this story, not an ass kicking avian hybrid. 2) The FBI is only a hop, skip, and a jump away from getting the Batchelder's. 3) Max and Fang are on their way to (and I promise this!) the FINAL place to look for her parents. 4) Fang comforted Max sweetly and showed that he's been paying attention to everything she's done this whole time. And pretty much says he thinks shes amazing. :) And 5) Lets not forget that Max and Fang are once again together without anyone else to be interfering with them (ahem Nudge and Iggy).

Sorry that there were no sadistic Erasers in this chapter but just wait, they're coming!

Also, with the way that this story is headed, there will be 37 chapters. Just so you know :)

Read and Review!

Peace!