A/N: Hey, I'm gonna need to hear from more of you, because though I refuse to be review greedy, I'm TERRIFIED of my writing skills nowadays and barely functioning with heavy anxiety SO.

Let's talk. Tell me what you think. Tell me what you like. Reviews are going to keep this story exciting for me.

I know the story is light right now, but keep in mind that it will get dark. If you read Reunion, think that. If I'm as good as I hope to be, it'll creep up on you. But I'm not that good so...stick with me. Hah!

Disclaimer: James Patterson owns the characters and any recognizable canon info. Thanks JP, for this chaotic universe you gifted us.

M

About half an hour later, we're in the air. It's a dark and cold autumn evening, and the wind is crisp but light. I zip my windbreaker all the way up and reach to tie my hair up with the band around my wrist.

They found the house. I'd really never even considered going back there. I never imagined there was any evidence there. In our minds, Jeb had broken us free from the School and taken us to safety. No studies, no tests, no data to collect. Maybe journals of Jeb's, if anything. But I could hardly see that being evidence.

Unless Jeb is eviler than I can even understand.

Now I have to wonder—why didn't we go back? Once the School got quiet? Once Jeb got quiet? We never imagined anyone would ever go back there. What would they even go back for? Unless he went back and started using it as a safe haven.

And if that's the case, why didn't we think of it?

The flight is too long for one night, but we got in the sky early. After hours of uneventful travel, I shout to the group, "If we stop here, we'll be close enough to fly the rest of the way in the morning. Just two or so hours," I offer, checking the screen of my watch for exact mileage covered. "You guys good for a while?"

A chorus of Yeah. Nudge doesn't respond. She's actually got her headphones in. She's flying slightly farther out, throwing off the formation a little and working harder on her own. I can't tell if she's specifically mad at me, or just the situation. I'm not gonna push it.

We fly through the evening, the sun going down steadily as we head towards our once-home. I am nervous to see the house after so long. Nervous and excited, for memories to come back. Hopefully good ones...distant memories of the E house were always fond. Right?

I think hard for a memory free of any hint of ulterior motive. You may not be surprised, but I was—it's hard.

Painful, exhausting memories of sparing with each other, Jeb watching closely. Jeb commenting on every move, correcting techniques. We've got to be prepared if they come for us.

Or happier times, like the first time Jeb introduced us to the idea of Christmas. An incredibly magically thing to us, the malnourished children freshly-freed from animal cages. Christmas had come at a good time for Jeb. We escaped the School merely weeks before Christmas. Celebrating the holiday meant gifting us with personal belongings—basically, just stuff—but it was our stuff. We immediately began to trust it was the real deal. We were home, we were safe. Jeb loved us. Jeb saved us.

He completely played us, didn't he?

I'm stumbling upon this existential crisis of mine when we designate a landing spot, a mile or so from a small but well-lit motel across from a strip mall. We tuck ourselves into out windbreakers, make sure we don't look too obvious, and walk out onto the street, towards the nearly deserted stretch of road. All the stores are closed. We cross the street without waiting for the light to change because this tiny town is dead.

I check my watch. It's 11:45. "We're about two hours from the house," I say. "We'll stay at the motel tonight. Is everyone still good from dinner?"

"You mean the ten minutes we had to scarf and eat before we had to U and A, Max? Yeah, absolutely stuffed."

I make a face at Nudge's attitude.

"If you're hungry, I will get you food." She doesn't budge with her attitude, so I scoff. "Go inside. Three rooms, two beds each. Four shining, thankful attitudes." I toss her my wallet and she heads towards the door with Angel and Gazzy in tow.

"Guys, this is fucked up," I say lowly, grabbing Iggy's arm as he turns to follow them inside.

"That's a little dramatic, don't you think?" Iggy rolls his eyes lightheartedly and grins. "She will be over it in time to be annoying about breakfast. Just don't fuck up breakfast."

"Not Nudge," I say flippantly. "Jeb. The house. Think about it."

Fang, standing to my left with his bicep brushing my shoulder, nudges me gently as he says, "He never stopped training and testing us."

"Exactly!" I hiss. I squeeze Iggy's arm harder, and he swats my hand away. "He always said it was in case they came. For us."

Enlightenment dawns on Iggy's face. "He was never on our side. Just pretending."

"Always," I repeat gravely, my voice unsteady. "Which means..."

Even the parts that were exclusively good about Jeb couldn't be remember that way. It wasn't just that he was a twisted man who had done maybe some good things to right his wrongs-Jeb used us as pawns. First as experiments, then training. He had a whole plan.

"Which means who knows what they found at the house," Fang finishes for me. "We need to be prepared." He nods towards the motel. I think he's expecting an argument from me, but he gets none.

"We're all walking into it tomorrow, whether we like it or not. We all need to be prepared." My shoulders sag as I say it, turning toward the motel. "It's instinct to try to protect everyone. But...we need to just stay strong through it. Together."

"Very mature, Max," Iggy compliments, falling into step with me. Fang walks just a few steps behind. "Let's see how long that lasts."

It lasts just long enough until I looking directly at the others, trying to say, Forget all the good memories you have of Jeb, because he never cared about any of us. It was all fake.

I shove down all of my Mom instincts and say firmly, "Guys, going into tomorrow—you need to understand that Jeb is not a good guy." I pause. No one is in crisis mode yet. They all seem pretty on board with this notion. "Not even partially. I know it's been confusing, and we've all had our doubts about his motives."

Gazzy and Angel both start to look frustrated about now. I feel like we all are. At some point in each of our lives, we trusted Jeb whole-heartedly. And personally, on varying levels after Angel's abduction.

But to equate every fatherly moment we had with Jeb over the years to the fact that he is a sociopathic, ethically lacking genetic scientist? Someone should pay me for walking five other mutants and myself through this kind of therapy.

"It's starting to look like Jeb was in charge of the whole thing," I say. "Which means whatever good we remember about him...we can't trust those moments. We don't see the whole picture." I pause again, my throat tight. "We should have never trusted him."

They trusted him because I trusted him. I was always drawn to Jeb, and the special treatment he welcomed me to in the midst of sheer torture was the perfect bait for him. My child heart was full of confident love for Jeb, like the father I fantasized he was. I spent my formative years convincing Fang to trust Jeb, too.

Eventually, we lived together in those cages long enough to trust each other. And once they trusted me, they trusted who I trusted.

Angel taps my ankle with her toes. "Stop tracing every problem back to yourself somehow. Jeb's a psycho on his own dime. I wish we hadn't been his guinea pigs."

"I wish he never had the chance to have any," Gazzy says. "I mean, who regulates this stuff?"

I nod. "Exactly. What he did is definitely illegal. Big time. Which leads me to another thing."

I look at Fang, a look that conveys I don't know how to approach this one.

"They're going to want statements," Fang says softly. "We are all going to be asked to testify, probably. We're going to have to dig up old stuff."

Angel frowns. "Why? Like they're going to do anything."

"Yeah, this isn't just going public as a mutant," Nudge says with concern on her face. Thankfully, the rotten attitude has left the building. "This is putting dark, private scars in public record. Stuff we haven't even dealt with yet."

I sit next to her, taking her fidgeting hand in mine. She sighs. "It's not like I feel like any of us are on the verge of a breakdown, but all we do is push stuff down, pretend we don't feel things."

I look down at her hand twisted tight in mine. She's right. We all have stuff we need to seriously work through, and we've trained ourselves our whole lives to push it down.

Pain is just a message.

Soon enough, anything in the way of surviving was a message. One that could wait. One that didn't matter. Bring that speeding train down to a halt and all you have is a bunch of aging mutants with issues.

"Alright, so we need to hit the hay. But before we do, can we just make an agreement right now that this is where we start to end this thing." I sigh heavily with the lat word. "I'm ready to be done. Aren't you?"

Tired smiles and one Hell yeah from Gazzy, and we split ways for bedtime. I walk through the joined rooms, checking doors and locking the latch over each front door. I keep the connecting room doors open and retreat into my shared room with Fang.

While everyone else is turning off lights and growing quiet, Fang boots up his laptop and opens a can of soda from his backpack.

I peer out the window at the dead street. "I can't believe I jumped to fly out here without recon. Who knows what kind of threats are here. We're close to the house, I recognize this side of town. I used to go to a pharmacy near here. For Gazzy's flatulence problem."

I spin to look at him. He's holding the soda halfway to his mouth, watching me.

"It's just...the memories are already ambushing me."

He sets his drink down. "Good ones?"

I shrug, shaking my head. "I remember being at the grocery store and thinking I'd lost one of Jeb's credit cards. Only one I had with me. I started bawling. In the store. The woman suddenly realized I looked underage and asked who drove me to the store that day."

Fang frowns. He rolls the desk chair over to me. I reach down and take his hands, flitting my fingers through his. "Or when I brought Angel to town with me after she begged and begged, only for her to ask about a man on the sidewalk. He was painting a restaurant sign but had stopped to look at us. I got paranoid, absolutely freaked."

"You never even made it to the store," he says quietly. "You made it back to the house, both in tears. I went."

I chew my lip and nod. "It's just a past I expected to stay buried. Good or bad—it's hard to not question it all now."

Fang shakes his head. "We question Jeb. Only. Not the moments together. As a Flock."

I know he's right, but this second voice in my brain is screaming So what!

It was all orchestrated, all studied.

None of it was real.

For a small second, everything good is stripped away from our childhoods. All the good I tried so hard to generate and savor. We had hard lives, but we tried to make the best out of them. The only goal every day was to stay alive and be together. If you take away the good moments, what is there worth saving?

"We've been through insurmountable trauma," Fang murmurs. "I'm surprised we haven't been admitted. Like a...raised with wolves situation."

"Because we would only do worse in more isolation," I say, ignited. "Are you serious?"

"Not admitted for study, Max. For mental health issues. Luckily Jeb got us out right in the midst of those formative years, made sure we were educated." He looks at me pointedly.

Luckily. As lucky as he was that Christmas is in December.

"To think we never realized it was all fake."

Fang shrugs. This realization doesn't shake him to his core like it does for me. It doesn't make him question everything; his life, his struggles, his purpose. It only reaffirms what he has probably suspected for years. "We didn't want to believe it was fake. We wanted to believe it was over and we were saved."

I nod. "I know, I know."

"Okay, then stop thinking so hard. We all need to be prepared," he reminds me gently. "But we can't worry about things that aren't real. Wait till we see what we're dealing with."

And, you know what? I want him to be right this time, so badly.

But I can't trust it. It feels monumental to me, and so I am preparing.

In my own way.

I'm going to worry about whatever the hell I want to worry about—and while I'm at it, I'm going to brace myself for impact.