all right. so, two chapters ago, i gave you a coded message:

o eqffgz wtsotct ngx ktqsomtr o ktqkkqfutr dn atnwgqkr atnl qshiqwtzoeqssn!!!

what it means:

i cannot believe you realized i rearranged my keyboard keys alphabetically!!!

. . .i got bored. sue me. credit to Asuterisuku for figuring it out!

and love to all my dear reviewers. you make me happy. ^^

disclaimer: don't own maximum ride.

(but spark is mine. and so are all other people you don't recognize from the original maximum ride series.)

(and the members of the anti-flock belong to their individual creators: blackberry01, 11Twilightcrazy, FireHawk43, amongthewinged, and GrimmGurl4Lyf3. if i could i would hug you all.)

37. captured. . .again

Con and Blaze stood side by side, Con with his arms crossed, Blaze leaning close to the one-way window. Neither saying a word, both deep in suspicious thought.

In the interrogation room sat Dylan.

He looked bored. When he wasn't resting his forehead on the table, he was tapping his long, pale fingers on the tabletop and tilting his chair back, swinging his feet aimlessly when they left the floor. Sure, he'd kicked up a fuss when he'd first been put in the room ("This is stupid! Why are you wasting time on me?! She's the one you wanted, right?!"), but now he was calm, quiet, and cooperative.

"How long are we gonna keep him in there?" Blaze finally asked. "Jay gave us two hours before his mom gets here."

Con checked his watched--it'd already been about forty-five minutes. And Avi had stopped by earlier, before she, Shadow, and Swift had been called off to routine testing: Spark was still unconscious. Satisfactorily detained, but unconscious, and therefore useless until further notice.

Con took a breath and uncrossed his arms, rolling his shoulders in a vain attempt to relieve the tension that had built up ever since they'd begun this stupid chase for Spark.

Stupid ex-sister. She was like smoke--you could only see or hold her for so long, if at all.

"I'll just start now," Con told Blaze. "You stay here and watch."

She nodded, and with that he entered interrogation.

Dylan looked around as the door opened and shut, letting the legs of his chair drop down to all four as Con entered the room. He arched an eyebrow over one haughty, blue-but-red-flecked eye.

"Finally," he said jadedly. He tilted his head slightly. "Did you learn anything from watching me sit here for forty-three minutes?"

"Not much," Con responded casually, leaning against the one-way window. "Just that you get really bored really quickly."

"Doesn't everyone?" Dylan asked innocently. He let out a sigh and leaned his elbows on the table. "But that doesn't matter. Had I not known you were going to come in eventually, I wouldn't've been bored for long. I probably would've just left."

"Oh?" Con blinked in mock confusion. "And how would you have done that? The door's been locked."

The fish hybrid scoffed and leaned back, tilting in his chair once again. "Barely. I practiced on those types of locks when I was seven years old. I woulda been outta here and on with my plan in twenty seconds. Eight if I had a pick."

"Pretty confident about that, huh?" Con had distinctly picked up on the word plan, but didn't jump on it just yet; if he talked around long enough they'd get back to it, and perhaps by then it would be easier to get out of him.

"Of course." Dylan flicked his head to get the hair out of his eyes. "You've watched my dry runs back in Salt Lake. I'm wicked at this kinda stuff."

Well, that was true. Privileged life forms such as the anti-flock and nearly three-fourths of the fish-kid population were sometimes allowed to sit in and watch tests on their fellow experiments. So Con was well acquainted with the fact that of the fish-kid population, Dylan Westerfield was the most talented. The apple of Salt Lake Aquatic Lab's eye. Their pride and joy. Their golden boy. The best of the best. Poster child for successful human/fish crossbreeds.

Con mentally shook himself out of the winding path of synonyms and nodded his head. "I've a got a question for you, Dylan."

"I've got an answer you're probably not gonna like, Constantine." Man was he cocky. It was irritating.

Con switched gears, and a light smirk pulled at the corners of his lips. "What's your deal with Spark?"

Dylan blinked, the legs of his chair falling heavily to the floor. "My deal?"

"Well, from what we saw earlier you two looked pretty. . .friendly."

The red in Dylan's eyes flickered, shifting and vanishing for just a moment, but then he smiled warmly. "What can I say?" he asked with a shrug. "As per my plan, her liking me was just a plus that was making it easier. A definite plus, too."

So he'd been using her. He'd never thought Dylan could be that mean--frosty sarcasm was the farthest Con had ever seen him go. "Again with that word," he said, reverting to his original tactic. "Plan."

"What of it?" Dylan asked tonelessly, beginning to look bored again.

"The fact you actually had one astounds me."

Dylan crossed his arms. "Of course I had a plan. A plan that you guys did a good job of wrecking." At Con's prompting look, the fish boy rolled his eyes and explained. "I was going to bring her and the Cali group in for you under the pretense that we were 'breaking in' to 'steal' a bunch of 'information' about Max's 'saving the world' crap. Now, all you have is Spark. Good going."

"We had Spark before you even came into the picture anyway, though. Was the only reason for busting her out to get her to lead you to the Cali group?"

"No. It was to get her to lead me to them and get information from her under the pretense that we were friends. Duh."

"So you planned to get close to her," Con said, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "And that--the closeness--would've magically allowed you to learn everything there is to know about her?"

"Not magically. Obviously," Dylan corrected impatiently. "She thought I liked her. Thought I was her friend. Naturally she would've told me stuff, 'cuz that's what friends do. But, because you guys came storming in way too goddamn early, we know nothing. So congratulations, Con, you've won Official Dumbass of the Year!"

Con tensed. "How were we supposed to have any idea about the direction this so-carefully-concocted plan of action was going to take?"

Dylan laughed once, the sound seemingly disbelieving of Con's stupidity. "I would've sent you an e-mail or something. Told you everything. And I was going to last night, but those Cali group freaks were watching my every move and I couldn't lift the laptop she stole."

There was a sudden pounding on the one-way window, and Con jumped, whirling around to face it. What the. . .?

Blaze caught the woman's wrist as she drew it back to bang on the window again. "Dr. Westerfield, stop, you can't. . .!"

The woman, Dr. Westerfield, ignored Blaze, wrenching her arm out of the girl's grasp. She pounded the window again and raised her voice so she could be heard through the glass. "Dylan! Oh, my baby, you're all right!!" she cried, her sapphire-blue eyes glistening with tears.

Blaze groaned and slapped her hand to her forehead. She glanced through the one-way window to check Con's and Dylan's reactions. Con's mouth twitched, as if he were trying not to laugh, while Dylan's eyes had gone wide, flickering erratically between red and blue, his face going paler than normal, if that was possible.

Blaze turned to glare over her shoulder at the man standing a little away from the window. "You said we had two hours!"

The man shrugged, his bushy brown mustache twitching. His pale green eyes held a distinctive flicker of fatigue, and he sighed, tucking a clipboard under his arm. "She's a worried mother, Blaze," he said, dropping his pen into the chest pocket of his white coat. "A force that even I cannot hold back."

"You're useless, Jay," Blaze muttered, then turned and pressed the button for the intercom into the interrogation room. "Con, it's his mom."

"Yeah, I kinda guessed that," Con replied wryly, smirking. "I thought Jay gave us two hours?"

"I did too."

"Constantine!" Marein Westerfield, Dylan's mother, snapped angrily as she slapped the window again. "You leave my son alone, he's been through enough!"

Con rolled his eyes and Dylan, who had been frozen to his chair, flinched as his mother hit the window. Blaze saw his lips form the words, "Oh my God."

"Dr. Westerfield, it's just a routine questioning," Julian Newell said in a businesslike tone. He stepped forward and tried to lay a hand on the tall, model-like woman's shoulder. She shook him off as if he were no more than an irritable fly, but he pressed on. "Con and Blaze found him with Spark and assumed he was on her side when he suddenly knocked her out and became cooperative. It was suspicious, so. . ."

"Of course you assumed he was on her side!" Marein said venemously. She flicked her hair over her shoulder and took on a prideful tone. "He was acting. My son has an amazing talent, just like his father's."

"You--Mom!!" Dylan protested from inside the interrogation room. The intercom had never been turned off, so he and a now-snickering Con had heard everything.

"Oh, honey, don't be so modest," Marein crooned, smiling fondly as if she thought Dylan could see her. "You know you can act. I'm sure that little wretch believed every single word you said to her."

"I. . .you. . .Oh my God!" Dylan let his head fall to the tabletop as Con began laughing outright.

"I see no reason for this." Marein turned to face Jay full-on, hands on her hips, expression sliding from one of motherly affection to one of barely contained rage. "Dr. Newell, you told me I could have my son back when Spark woke up. And she's awake now, isn't she?"

"Spark's awake?" Blaze echoed quickly, looking to Jay in surprise. In the interrogation room, Con went still and even Dylan brought his head up off the table to listen.

"I, er. . .well, yes, but. . ." Jay seemed to cower before Marein's simmering anger.

"Then let me have my son back," she said frostily, holding out her hand. Sheepishly, Jay reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver key, dropping it into Marein's palm. She whisked around and strode into the interrogation room, beelining straight for Dylan--she grabbed his wrist and unlocked the bracelet that encircled it, an electro-cuff Con had snapped on as a precaution as soon as they'd entered the Factory.

Con rolled his eyes and left the room as Marein attempted to smother Dylan with a hug. (Needless to say, Dylan squirmed uncooperatively and mumbled out weak protests.) Blaze discreetly pressed the off button for the intercom into the interrogation room as Con closed the door behind him. Then the two of them looked to Jay expectantly.

The scientist sighed, rubbing his temple, where gray hairs were starting to grow in, mingling with the wispy, light sandy brown that covered the rest of his head. "Go see what you can get out of her," he said tiredly, stepping back and gesturing toward the door. Con and Blaze both nodded curtly before leaving, going straight for Spark's containment cell.

Jay stepped closer to the one-way window and studied the proceedings within. Marein Westerfield--God, was she a piece of work--fawned relentlessly over her son, Dylan, who looked exceedingly uncomfortabe as he tried to wriggle out of his mother's grasp. Jay suspected that the boy knew the real reason behind Marein's worry: that she was going to lose her leading evidence that her recombinant group was superior to the others. The new Director of Itex was holding a conference in London next month, and all whitecoats around the world had been scrambling to latch on to one of the three main superpowers of human-animal recombinant DNA life forms: bird, fish, and cat.

Whichever representatives of each group passed the testing successfully would win their branch of Itex billions and billions of dollars in grants for further research and experimenting. It was vital that all rouge hybrids were rounded up and given two choices: cooperation, or death.

I was very aware of the chill of the cement floor beneath me as I finally and groggily returned to the world of conscious people. (Not always the best world to be in, but hey. Stuff happens here.) The cold seeped through my clothes, down to my bones, and I surpressed a shiver.

So cold. . .and oh, God, my head. . .

The pain in said head was another thing I was very aware of. Funny thing about pain--she's a stupid little bitch that has become way too familiar for my tastes. I think she may be stalking me.

And the third thing I was very aware of? The memory of Sy whispering, There goes my plan. Right before he whipped around and smacked me so hard I saw stars. Socked me in the stomach so hard I nearly puked up my breakfast all over his shoes. (He'd deserve it, the jerk.) Stole my gun and slammed it between my wings so hard I fell, cracking my head on the ground so hard I lost consciousness.

I opened my eyes slowly, my head throbbing as I struggled to sit upright--I had to struggle because I had magnetic bracelets (same as the ones they'd stuck on me after kidnapping me out of the bottom of Salt Lake) binding my wrists together behind my back. Similar devices kept my ankles stuck together.

Swallowing all desire to fidget and squirm and vocalize my pain like some small frustrated child, I looked around my newest prison.

It was simple. Boring. Plain black walls, gray cement floor that was slowly making my ass go numb, depressing fluorescent lights, definite eau de creepy air that set my teeth on edge. I shivered--part from cold, part from uneasy nerves--when I saw the ever-so-subtle three-by-five foot one-way mirror-window thing beside the doorknob-less metal door in the corner.

I sighed and cast my eyes downward, leaning against the walls of the corner I'd been dumped in and bringing my knees close to my chest so I could assume an upright fetal position. It was then that I realized I was no longer in the clothes I'd been wearing upon waking this morning--jeans, blue t-shirt, and red hoodie. Rather, I was dressed in the attire of the Goth kid forced to dress out for gym: nylon shorts that came to my knees and a nylon workout t-shirt, both black. My feet were shoeless, clad in thin black ankle socks.

Really. They'd even taken my socks.

I rested my forehead on my knees and began to wait. And wait. At one point, I briefly wondered if I was in for another world of pain, equivalent to what accompanied the forced wearing of a dress, or what I'd received back in Utah. The two came pretty close, at least on my list. But that's beside the point.

Suddenly, I heard a faint boom, like that of a distant, very heavy door falling shut. I barely had time to brace myself before the door of my cell flung inward so Con and Blaze could stride in.

My head snapped up as they came to stand a few feet from me, making me feel small as I sat on the floor. I also felt a bit claustrophobic with them blocking the way to the door, but refused to let it show on my face.

I allowed a second of glaring hatred to burn through my expression before I sneered in a Southern accent, "Well, well, if it ain't ma big bruver an' sister. Come ta give me a good beatin' agin? Er are ya just here ta say howdy?"

Blaze twitched, her fists curling and her eyes flickering silver, but Con merely arched one of his eyebrows at me, the ghost of a smile playing about the edges of his mouth. "We should kick the crap out of you for what you did back in Salt Lake, but we have orders to follow and scientists to impress."

"What I did?" I echoed, wrinkling my nose a little. "Refresh my memory."

"Trashing our rooms. Stealing our stuff," Con said offhandedly, inspecting his fingernails. He tensed slightly. "Making us look like idiots."

"I'll atone to the first two, but that last one was all you, Connie," I responded warmly. I took pleasure in the way he flinched involuntarily, the way Blaze's eyes fairly glowed with angry silver light. "Nothing I do could ever make you bigger screw-ups."

"Heh." Con smirked coldly. "Well, I was going to give you some friendly advice, but now I don't think I will."

"Oooohh. Trying to take advantage of my curiosity. Nice move."

"It's not so much advice as it is a. . .warning," Blaze suddenly said. I looked at her, slightly astonished--for some reason, her voice wasn't filled with fury and contempt and frustration like it normally was. It was actually in the realm of neutral calm, of slightly concerned bystander. It creeped me out.

"A warning," I echoed. I looked back and forth between them, where Con had wandered over to lean against the wall, where Blaze was standing uneasily still, fists clenched tightly at her sides. "You two, of all people, want to warn me."

Con's jaw twitched, but Blaze nodded curtly. "Yes."

Le gasp! Was Blaze actually capable of some other emotion besides hate?!

(Note strong use of sarcasm.)

I hesitated. Then, as it was always wont to do, my curiosity got the better of me. Despite the fact they were probably playing me, I said, "All right, I'll bite. What's this so-called warning you wish to bestow upon me?"

"They're going to try to break you," Blaze said, her tone clipped and somewhat forced. "Turn you into a snivelling little lapdog that'll do whatever they want."

"They want to turn me into you guys?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Will you shut up?" Con said suddenly, looking at me with disgust. "You don't know us. You have no idea what rules we're breaking right now."

I smirked.

They just made it too goddamn easy.

"You're right in one. I don't know what rules you're breaking. But don't know you?" I shook my head. "Nah. I see sad, self-absorbed, angst-ridden human kids like you every single day. Difference is they're a bit lower on the scale 'cuz you actually have a bad life, whereas they usually don't. But still, it's exactly the same."

Blaze's knuckes were slowly going white, and if Con's jaw clenched any more, he'd turn his teeth to dust. Both were glaring like they really could kill me with their eyes, but because that isn't actually possible (I don't think), I went on, malice thick in my voice and spite burning in my eyes.

"You think nobody understands you, that nobody gets the exact level that is the horror of your problem. You tell your friends--God forbid you have any--every single little thing that makes your life hell, daring them to take pity just so you can lash out at them and tell them you don't need it. You think that by bending over and taking it, you can call yourself tough, though you'll burn and burn with shame and self-pity every night as you lie alone, awake, and miserable in your bed. You bottle everything up, slowly building your rage, until you get a half-legit excuse to let it out in an explosion that you will regret. You will feel guilty about it later, because you do enjoy the little things in life. But you will refuse to apologize because you're too good for that, aren't you, and you would rather die than give anybody the satisfaction of seeing you vulnerable and weak, even though that's all you really are. Vulnerable, weak, and sad."

There was a short silence, and I took a breath. I studied Con and Blaze, and took some satisfaction in the fact that I had indeed rattled them. Angry tears glistened in Blaze's eyes, and Con looked as tense and unmoving as a statue of Atlas carrying the world.

I hadn't called anybody out like that since. . .Bianca Drake, at the beginning of last year. Having been "popular" in middle school, she'd set out to conquer high school by being bitch to anyone and everyone who openly showed their distaste of her i.e: me and most of the people I could call a friend.

Wait. . .no. I never really called her out about it--I just caught a wild skunk and put it in her locker.

Then threatened to really make her high school life hell if she didn't get over herself and stop being a ditzy bitch.

We're frenemies now.

So, actually, I'd never really called anybody out that viciously before.

A part of me felt a bit guilty, but the more dominant part felt oddly satisfied. They'd tried to kill me numerous times. They deserved a wake-up call.

It was Con who broke the silence. He pushed himself away from the wall and looked down at me, face carefully blank, speaking, softly, slowly, trying to keep his voice under control.

"They're going to break you," he said. "No matter how long it takes, no matter how much it takes, they will break you. I hope you resist, because that will make it all the more painful. And I hope I'm there when that stupid rebellious streak in you finally crumbles and dies."

Notice he never said I was wrong about him? I did.

My lips curled in another smirk. "I hope you're there when I bust outta this place," I replied, just as softly. "I can't wait to see your face. The horror in your eyes as you realize you are the one who's going to get blamed for it will be something I'll treasure 'till the day I die."

He twitched, and I could just see the incredible restraint it took to keep from hurting me in some way. I knew he wanted to. I was asking for it. But, as I guessed he would, he didn't hit me, or kick me, or anything. He just couldn't bring himself to give me the satisfaction of knowing I could get to him.

Con turned abruptly, abandoning a silently trembling Blaze, and made to stalk out of the room when the door flew open before he even touched it.

Now it was my turn to be rattled.

Standing in the doorway was Sy.

I expected him to look different. I wanted him to look different, so I could delude myself into believing he hadn't really done this to me, that this was a different person watching me with carefully guarded eyes.

But no. He looked exactly the same. Dyed black hair, sapphire-blue eyes, flawlessly fair skin. He looked. . .so. . .familiar, so much like the kid that'd cared enough to be more concerned for my well-being than about our disappearing, so much like the kid that'd pulled me up and along when I'd been laughing too hard to run, so much like the kid that'd said he'd been more scared for me in the week or so he'd known me than he'd ever been for anybody else in his entire life.

But not two minutes after that last thing, he was knocking me out and making sure I ended up here.

I clenched my fists to keep the rest of me from trembling. As of right now, I hated Sy. Hated him. Hated everything about him. Everything from his secondhand shoes to his dyed hair to the loose thread hanging from his sleeve. It was eerily easy to build up enough rage to get my hair crackling with electricity.

The guarded look vanished from his eyes (which I now hated) and a half-smile spread across Sy's lips (which I now hated). He watched me for a second with all the cockiness of a successful traitor before flicking his gaze up to Con, who'd stopped his attempted exit from the room.

"Already getting to ya?" he asked lightly. I saw Con square his shoulders, and Sy laughed once (a sound that I now hated). "I should've reminded you that she doesn't take to everybody as well as she took to me."

Bastard. Jackass. Dick. Son of a bitch. Colorful obscenities roiled through my mind as I glared at Sy, hating him with every fiber of my being.

Sy stepped into the room, leaving the door open as if he expected Con to leave. I'm sure he came close, but finally, he just shut the door again. To Sy, he said, "You escaped your mom?"

Anger flashed over Sy's face. "Tch. She only wanted to be sure I could still test out for next month."

Next month? Test out? My hatred of Sy faltered for a second as I tried to make sense of the words. What was he talking about? Was something happening next month? Something that had Itex so intent on getting me back that even Sy had come up with a plan to capture me?

"Heya, Spark." I slowly lifted my eyes to look up at Sy, who had come to Blaze's side and casually dropped an arm over her shoulder, using her as an armrest as I myself had done to so many of my own friends back home in Colorado. He tilted his head and smiled down at me. "Have a nice nap?"

I briefly considered not speaking to him, then deemed that as too childish. "Have a nice time of stabbing me in the back?" I asked sweetly.

No emotion flickered through his eyes. Nothing to show he had any guilt, any remorse, any. . .anything. Nothing to show I'd ever had any effect on him. Nothing to show he'd ever cared about me even a little.

He chuckled and stepped away from Blaze, coming closer to me. He looked down at me with a cocky smirk on his face, hands in his pockets, and I looked down, staring at my feet. Don't say anything. Don't let him know you're hurt. Don't let him know you're just waiting for him to leave so you can cry and beat yourself up for believing all his crap. Don't. . .

"Oh, come on, Spark," he finally said, sounding slightly amused. "You didn't really think I liked you, did you?"

I tensed, refusing to respond any other way. I watched as one knee came down to the floor and sensed Sy's eyes on me. I heard his sleeve rustle as he raised his hand, reaching for me. . .

Clenching my fists and bracing myself against the back wall of the room, I bunched my legs and snapped them out into Sy's torso as hard as I could.

I've always been a better kicker than a puncher, stronger in the legs than the arms. But I was still surprised when he flew back nine feet, all the way across the room, cracking his head on the black wall just below the one-way mirror; Con's eyebrows shot up in alarm and Blaze snapped out of her trance and whirled, a fearful look dancing in her eyes.

For a second Sy just sat straight against the wall, eyes shut tight and mouth pressed into a thin line, an expression of barely-internalized agony; then he moved as if to stand up and let out a low hiss, slumping back against the wall and clutching his ribs.

I never thought I'd get so much joy out of causing someone pain.

"Don't you dare try to touch me," I snapped at him, glowering as angrily as I could, trying to convey all of my twisted emotions into as few words as possible.

"I think I heard a rib crack," Con said, holding out a hand to help Sy up. He ignored it and struggled to his feet on his own, stumbling slightly once upright. Then his eyes found me and I noticed that there was a fair smattering of ruby red in the blue I used to find so intriguing.

"Dylan. . ." Blaze tried to say, her tone concerned, but Sy ignored her, too, as he staggered back across the room to where I still sat, chin raised defiantly and bound legs raised slightly in defense, awaiting whatever it was he was going to try to do to me.

Sy lifted his shoe-encased foot and brought it down over my own sock-clad feet, slamming them down and pinning them to the floor rather painfully. Then, as I rocked forward from the movement, he reached down and grabbed a fistful of my shirt, pulling me up to my feet before letting me go and drawing back his hand and. . .

Crack!

My head snapped to the side as Sy backhanded me, and I nearly fell over, my hands' desperate clawing at the wall the only thing keeping me upright. I did slide halfway down the wall, though, before I regained my senses and braced my back against the wall to stop myself from falling to the floor. My cheek stung so bad I wanted to cry out, but I would never give him that satisfaction. Instead, I kept my breathing was forcibly even, and I did my best to keep myself from visibly shaking.

"Touch me again," I said, head still turned, voice soft, steady, and dangerous, "and I will kill you."

"I should say the same thing to you," Sy said, finally betraying some emotion. He sounded pissed. And when I turned my head to glare at him, eyes and cheek stinging, I saw he looked pissed, too. Good.

"Let's get out of here," Con said lazily, nodding his head toward the door. "We've done enough for today."

Blaze stepped forward and lightly touched Sy's shoulder. He scowled at me and allowed her to turn him around; then, wincing, he moved gingerly toward the door, Blaze sticking to his side like static cling. Just before they left the room, Sy glanced back at me, and I threw him the filthiest look I could muster. He rolled his eyes and looked away.

Con was last to the door, and as it closed behind him, he said eight words that brought about an icy-cold, pupil-dilating, hyperventilation-invoking fear in me, a kind of primeval and instinctual fear I hadn't experienced for ten long years.

"They have to start testing her soon anyway."

this chapter was fun to write. all wonderfully epic and emotionally trying and whatknot. was it fun to read? or is "fun" the wrong word?