Okay, here it is. The next chapter. Dun dun dun! >

The Gasman was the first to wake up the next morning. As he sat up, he noticed a neatly folded piece of paper about a foot from his... foot. He leaned forward and grabbed it, unfolding it carefully. As he scanned through the letter, his face got grimmer. He quickly got up and tapped Max on the shoulder.

"Max," he said, "I found out where Angel is." Max sat up immediately as Gazzy shoved the paper into her hand. Max would go anywhere... Her hands shook as she read the letter. It said;

Maximum Ride:

If you value the life of 'Angel', you will meet me in the forest behind the White House at 9:00 P.M. tonight. Come alone, or I'll kill her there.

Signed, The Devil Experiment

Max's face turned beet red, and she tore the paper into little tiny bits, but not before removing Angel's hair from it.

"I can't believe it..." she breathed. They were using Angel to get to her! She had no idea who 'The Devil Experiment' was, but she would rip them apart, Eraser or not.
"Tell everyone," she said to Gazzy. "And tell them I'm going. Alone."

Meanwhile, I sat behind a tree behind the White House, the girl about three feet in front of me, so I could make sure she couldn't escape.

Why are you doing this? I started. Who was that? Looking around, I saw the girl staring straight at me. Then I remembered she could read my mind, too.

'I have nothing against you,' I said mentally. 'Maximum Ride killed my best friend, Ari. I want revenge.'

Ari was your friend? He wasn't very nice to us, she paused. He stuffed me in a bag and took me back to the School.

'Ari? Did that? Ari would never do such a thing!'

Well, he did. I'd heard of the School from the other scientists. It was another lab, where the 'flock' had escaped. It was supposedly somewhere in Death Valley.

Max didn't mean to kill Ari. She was protecting herself. He was going to kill her. I started again. Ari? Kidnap or kill someone? I couldn't imagine it. Not my Ari. Not the little kid with a father that didn't care, not the seven-year-old man I knew. Not my Ari. And yet... I could believe it. This girl was almost as young as he had been. They don't lie.

This was about the time my sanity began to return.

Should I really go through with this? Kill Max? Is that what I wanted? What did I want? I turned to the girl. She was looking down now, sad. Could I really kill this person that she, and the rest of them, loved so much?

Yes... Yes. Yes, said a voice in my head. Yes. I had come this far. I was almost done. Nothing could stop me. Nothing.

And my sanity slipped back into oblivion, but perhaps not wholly. My conscience still clung on.

It seemed like an eternity before night fell and it was almost nine. I set everything up and hid in a tree, waiting for the arrival, and confrontation, of Maximum Ride.

Max trudged angrily through the brush, stomping small shrubs. She was MAD.

No one, and she meant NO ONE, was going to use Angel as bait for her. She'd rip them apart, limb-by-limb. She finally came to a clearing, where Angel sat, bound and gagged by an old dirty windbreaker. Max rushed quickly to her side, and she heard Angel trying to mumble something.

"Shush, Angel, I'm untying you." Finally, when she had undone the gag, Angel screamed, "RUN, MAX, SHE'S GOING TO KILL YOU!" It was a split second of shock before Max whirled around and saw malicious yellow eyes peering down from the treetops. Max immediately backed up to protect Angel. I revealed myself, completely transformed, and leapt from the tree and landed on all fours on the mossy ground, wings erect. Max was terrified, I could tell, but she was willing to die for Angel. Good.

I lunged forward, slowly and pretending to be off balance. Max moved, taking flight with Angel and rushing up through the trees. She hoped I couldn't fly. Big mistake. I rushed upward, too, breaking branches along the way. At some point Max had put Angel in a tree to free her hands.

Despite my size, I was incredibly agile in the air, at least as much so as Max. I flew up high, circled, and then dove suddenly and swiftly, hoping to end it now. Max managed to move in time, but not before I left a big gash in her back; not life threatening, but enough to hamper a little. I circled again. She was faster than I expected.

"You must be a new kind of Eraser!" She yelled from below. I grinned. "What do you want from me?"

"I'm no Eraser," I roared, "But Ari was! And you killed him! Now," I paused, readying for the last dive, "you'll pay!" I propelled through the air as fast as a bullet, claws reaching for Max's neck. Then, something pulled me off at the last minute. Her look of surprise, fear... Or was it surprise and sorrow? Did she, could she, regret killing Ari?

"I-I didn't mean to kill him," she stuttered. "It was an accident. I was trying to knock him out. I didn't realize..."

"No, you didn't." I turned, changing back to my normal self, my voice normal and high-pitched with sorrow.

"You couldn't understand. At least you fit in, fit in with you're flock... I didn't anywhere." I turned my head, tearstained face looking at her.

"You were born with those wings! You've always been like that. But me.." I turned my head away again. "I was picked up off the streets with the promise of flight. I never realized what would happen. My only friend was Ari." Then I lashed out, punching her in the nose. "And you had to kill him!" Weeping, I let myself fall. I couldn't deal with the sorrow, the disappointment in myself for not carrying out the death of the one who killed my friend. I was unconscious by the time I hit the ground.

R&R, people!