Hey guys sorry I haven't updated in a while, I just do it whenever I can but hopefully you'll still read! I just finished Maximum Ride Forever and laughed like oops I just did the whole pregnancy story line a book early! Maybe I'll do a rewrite of that one... if I ever finish this one first! Well, without further ado, here's chapter 10!

Max

It was well after dark when the door had opened again. I was lying uncomfortably back in my plastic crate. Although they had left the crate open, I didn't like the idea of sleeping in the middle of the room. I felt too vulnerable. I had been drifting in and out of sleep all day with nothing better to do to pass the time. I tried busting out of here through the window, but it was pretty solid. Also, there were bars on the outside of the window that would have been impossible to break anyway. On top of that, I hated to admit this, but I was too big to squeeze through that thing anymore. So I had to just sit tight and wait for someone to open the door and save me from myself. I had also lots of time to think. I thought about names for the baby. You know, if it even survived. I was starting to go so crazy that I played a game with it. I would say a name out loud and if it kicked in response then I would take that as approval and if I felt nothing, I would assume it didn't like it. I needed some serious help.

So far a list of girls' names we had complied was: Arden, Willow, Piper, Table, Plastic, Book.

For boys we had: Cooper, Sebastian, Hunter, Floor, Crate, Cabinet. Yeah we were so good at this game. Fang would be proud.

I was debating between walking another lap or seeing how long I could hold my breath when I was saved. As the white door creaked open, I shot upright and poked my head out of the cage. In walked a whitecoat I'd never seen before flanked by four hairy Erasers. No Ari. I was sliding ungracefully out of the cage, ready to flee out the door when all four Erasers jumped on me and restrained me, two of them brutally held me by my arms and one stood in between the whitecoat and me while the other was behind me so I couldn't slip away. All the older man with glasses and a white lab coat said to me was "This room is needed. You're being relocated." I fought back with all my might, but I was tired and weak, seeing as they hadn't fed me since this morning and my back was still killing me. "Stop fighting back." He said, sounding annoyed more than anything. "It's useless." I was filled with such rage at that moment I screeched loudly as he opened the door and standing on the other side of the door was another whitecoat who I'm assuming wanted to get into that room. The man looked startled, like he didn't know we were in there. I wasn't paying attention to that idiot, though. Because there on a table he was wheeling around a barely conscious, strapped down Fang. Oh no. They were really asking for it now.

My whitecoat gasped at the other, "What are you doing? They weren't supposed to see each other!" He snapped. The other just looked horrified at me. I had assumed the Max Death Glare. That was it. Something inside me snapped.

Fang looked at me, squinty-eyed. "Max?" He coughed weakly.

"No." I said coldly. And then a surge of adrenaline came over me. In one movement, I snapped out my powerful wings as hard as I could, knocking out the Erasers behind me and on either side of me. The one in front of me whirled around, but I punched him square in his furry nose and he leapt back with a pained yelp. Without a moment to spare, I grabbed the table Fang was strapped to.

"Hey." He mumbled and gave me a half smirk. God, he was adorable when he was sleepy.

"Let's get outta here." I used my wings to plow us down the hallway. I was going really fast and wanted to get out of here ASAP. People didn't even try to stop us, they were more concerned with dodging out of the way so they didn't get run over.

"Woah. Max slow down." I heard him pipe up, now more awake and alarmed.

"No way, Jose, we are getting the Hell out of here." I said, on a roll, literally. I suddenly had a plan. "Okay, listen, in the back break room here, there's a huge window overlooking the forest. I say we get going at a fast enough speed, I'll unstrap you, and then we hold on as the table breaks the window open. Good plan?" I didn't wait for him to respond as I looked at his paling face. "Good plan." I repeated. How did I know this? Well in my many hours alone in that room, I had plenty of time to study the detailed map they had so conveniently hanging around in case of emergency evacuation. As I turned the corner down the last hallway, people screaming and shouting and running all over, I could see the window ahead of us. "Ready?" I called. I gave one last final push then jumped on the table with him as it continued to roll at a fast pace. I set to unfastening him as fast as I could, but we were also going fast.

"Max! Hurry!" He croaked.

"Shut up I'm going as fast as I can!" I snapped back and had set his second leg free just in time for the table to go crashing through the window with an audible clash. In an attempt to stop the glass from slicing through me, I wrapped my wings around myself and Fang, but could still fell the glass scratching my skin and wings, bloody feathers floating about. As soon as we were suspended in air, we leapt off the table and up into the sky as it crashed down the ground. With a few powerful strokes, we were soaring upward and away from the window. I was overcome with a sense of giddiness and pumping pure adrenaline through my veins. I looked over at Fang whose face was still pale from shock. It was night, but my raptor vision still allowed me to see him pretty clearly.

"Ha." He let out a nervous laugh. I could see he'd acquired some scratches and I had, too. I could feel the stinging as the wind blew me around.

"We did it, Fang! We busted out of the joint!" I called as I swooped over to him and we engulfed in a big flying hug, our flapping wings overlapping to help stay in the air. He spun me around as I buried my head into his shoulder. He kissed my forehead and I looked up at him and beamed him a smile. He then leaned down and kissed me. I returned the kiss, happy to have him close again and alive.

When we let go, he brought his arms down the bump in my stomach. "How's my little one doing?" He asked as he tickled me all over. My heart practically burst. Despite coming off cold and silent, Fang was a puppy dog and he was going to be the best daddy ever.

"Oh don't worry, little Fangy Jr. here is fine. We are the best parents ever! I mean, whose parents are this cool?" I laughed, high fiving him.

"Oh we're the best." He agreed.

"Did you see what we just did there?" I kept going, still on the adrenaline high. "That was amazing!" I felt so much better now that I had proven I was still with it and not an old mom yet.

Our celebration didn't last long, though. The rest of our flock was still in there and we couldn't leave them.

He was the one who brought it up, "So what now? We have to go back in there and get the rest of them."

I nodded, "Do you know where they are?"

"I was in the underground cells with them. Dylan wasn't there, though. He had been injured when they showed up at the house and when we got to Itex, they met up with Dr. Hans and whisked him away to get him medical help." He explained, "But then our old friend ter Borcht showed up and told me I was going to die." He said it so casually because, well, it pretty much happened to all of us on a daily basis. It was kind of a joke at this point. "Then that evil German freaking tazed me and knocked me out. I don't know what happened after that. The next thing I knew I was strapped on a table and watching you kick some Eraser butt. That was pretty awesome, by the way."

I felt my face flush. Aw, shucks he thought I was a good fighter. But we still didn't know what happened to the others. Anything could have happened. "Well, I suppose we should go back and at least scout out the situation. I can't stand the thought of them being there a second longer." Fang hesitated and I know he was dying to tell me to stay put and that he should go check it out by himself before the both of us rushing into a possibly dangerous situation.

I didn't give him the chance, though as I soared out in front of him and back in the direction towards the school. Now that the high had worn off, I was exhausted, but I wasn't going to let it on. "Let's go!" I called as he trailed behind.

We made our way back to the dreaded facility quickly but carefully. As we approached, we surveyed the area from a safe distance. The building was enormous and it must have had about twenty floors and stretched the length of about 350 yards. The lights were blaring on the floor we had broken out of and we could hear confused and angry shouts coming from the shattered opening. "Shit." I heard Fang whisper as we flapped in place as close as we dared to get. "This is going to be impossible to get back into."

I felt my heart sink. After all that trouble to get out, we were going to have to actually sneak back in. I did not want to go back in there and neither did Fang, but we had to get our flock back, we had no choice. I immediately went into thinking mode, but I was still so exhausted. "Okay, so they're in the underground cells of the building?" I asked and he returned with a nod. That was pretty much all we had going for us. "Alright, well let's just start by trying to find a way in then once we're in we can figure out how to get down there." I was thinking out loud, flying by the seat of my pants and Fang knew that but clearly had no better ideas because he kept his mouth shut and followed my lead. To be honest, it felt strange to have him obey me silently once again. There had been so much arguing lately as he had seemed to find his voice during all those times we had split up and he became leader of his own gang. I kept waiting for him to interject, but he just kept watching and listening to me intently.

When I'd finished speaking all he said was, "Let's go get our family then."

I smiled despite everything as I watched him swoop gracefully and with an elegant power towards the wretched building.

When we reached the ground, we stayed among the trees just yards away from the main entrance. We listened to the silence of the night and waited for movement. Nothing happened, though and the light above the single front door shone ahead at the empty dirt road that went from the building and into the dark woods. Next to the building, the road emptied into a gravel parking lot with a large concrete shed. The door was pulled down and by the size of it I assumed that trucks were parked inside. In the parking lot were a few cars that I figured belonged to the employees and in the back about five or six vans lined up. Further inspection revealed surveillance cameras on both the shed and the front entrance to the building next to it. I poked Fang and silently pointed each of them out; four total. In hopes of avoiding the cameras, we continued to creep around the other side of the structure. I nearly swore out loud as I noticed every window was small and barred like the ones in the room I was held. We didn't dare go all the way to the back as we still heard people moving about, dealing with the aftermath of our escape. It wouldn't be long before they came looking for us. In fact, I was surprised they hadn't already sent out a search team.

I was contemplating what to do when Fang tapped me on the shoulder. I whipped my head to the left to face him, wondering what he had found. As I looked in the direction he was facing, I squinted to make out what was emerging from the garage. My jaw dropped and I had to do a double take as I saw two dogs walking into the night and out of the automatic sliding door on the side. And they weren't just any random dogs-no it was a little black terrier with wings accompanied by a much larger Alaskan malamute. "Is that-" I began.

"Yup." He breathed before I could finish the question.

"What the-"I breathed quietly but then stopped as I could hear Total chattering on.

"Oh my dear, it's horrible you see. The nerve of them to want to kill an innocent child who's not even born yet, I say! And I don't know what they've done with any of them, but thank goodness they let me see you! Oh my love, we've got them all fooled; the scientists don't know I can talk or fly! When they dropped us off here, I kept my mouth shut and folded up my wings and they believed I was just a normal dog." He looked up at Akila lovingly and she just returned with a lick.

"I love you too dear." He nuzzled her back and Fang looked over at me, an eyebrow raised.

"What you don't love it when I lick your face?" I purred and it took everything in us not to start bursting out in laughter. We had to get Total's attention, though. I didn't dare shout out, but I had to speak loud enough for him to hear me. Thankfully, both the dog and bird genes allowed for good hearing.

"Total!" I whispered as loud as I had the courage to.

I watched him stop as he heard my call. I saw him glance around quickly as Akila's ears pricked and her nose began to sniff at the air. She whined and began trotting over to us. Total followed carefully, looking around for any sign of people.

"Max?" he called back softly once he was in the darkness of the woods.

"Yes, it's me and Fang, we broke out." I answered as the two dogs came up to us.

"My God! It's so wonderful to see you; I thought they'd killed you all." He ran over, Akila at his heels. He proceeded to lick our faces. I forced myself to let him have his moment of happiness and not shove him away like I would normally do when he tried to like, be a dog. I was relieved to see him and Akila in once piece as well.

When he finally stopped, he began to spout questions, "How did you get out? Where's everyone else? Are you okay?"

I held up a hand to stop him, "its fine Total. We busted out the back window when the whitecoats were trying to move us to different rooms. The others are still locked downstairs in the cells. We are trying to get back in and find them."

He nodded eagerly, "Okay good. I see." Then his voice got quiet, "Is the b-"

I interrupted his question as Fang froze beside me. He must have been wondering what they had been doing to me in that room anyway. "The baby is fine."

He sighed in relief. I continued, though, "But you need to help us get back in and rescue the rest of the flock."

"Yes, yes. We must." He agreed seriously. "So far, we've only been allowed in the garage. He nudged his head over to the building they'd emerged from. It goes pretty far underground actually. We've only been on the top floor. They put us in a room with a bowl of water and kind of just left us there. They think we are useless and have nothing else left to do with us. Plus the workers kind of have a soft spot for Akila. She's been here for a while." He nuzzled his wife. "They throw us scraps. But that's the thing. I think there's some sort of underground tunnel connecting the main building to ours. There's always people appearing and disappearing. Plus we've never been downstairs so anything could be down there, really."

As he spoke, hope flared in my chest and I looked over at Fang who met my eyes with the same excited expression. "Total!" I gasped, "We have to get in there! You have to show us where it is!"

He looked over at me uneasily, "I don't know…it's dangerous. We could get caught and I don't think any of us would escape that time."

This time Fang stood up, "Then we just have to make sure we don't get caught."

We all looked up at him. Fang rarely made such authoritative statements so when he did; we had no choice but to listen.

We followed the dogs around the outskirts of the building, beyond the scope of the lights and cameras, until we reached the garage building. "Alright," Total began, "There is a doggie door around back that's unguarded we could slip through. They had it made for Akila so she could go in and out as she pleased." We nodded as we approached the door big enough for an Alaskan malamute to squeeze through. I silently prayed to myself, grateful it would be big enough for my pregnant butt to fit through and that it wasn't the size of say, a Scottie. "We'll go first and see if there's anyone in there." He said as he slipped in after Akila.

He came back a few moments later. "It's all clear. By the looks of it, they've all probably left to go look for you two."

I shimmied myself in, Fang just behind me. We stood up in a lit garage with a few more white vans in it. "This way," Total began to trot off towards an open door. We followed him into a room with computer screens everywhere. It looked like a security office or something. I scanned the screens. Most of them were images of the silent woods, but some were of corridors with rows of doors lining them, one of a now empty lab, another of the window we escaped out of. By the stillness of the other screens and the rooms that looked as if people were in just a moment a go, it seemed as if everyone was looking for us. In the final screen, I saw the basement. Fang pointed to the screen, "Look. It's where the flock and I were kept."

I took another glance and there they were locked behind metal bars. I gasped as I took them all in. They all sat in the dirt looking sullen. Nudge looked as if she had tears in her eyes. They were talking but there was no sound on the screen. I watched intently and they all appeared to be there, but there was still one missing. Dylan.

"Where's Dylan?" I asked Fang, "is he okay?"

I ignored the eye roll I received when he responded, "Like I said, he did get shot but the evil doctor is taking care of him. I don't know where he is, though." He frowned as he watched the screen.

The place seemed pretty empty and I assumed the guarding wouldn't be too intense. They were locked behind bars in some creepy basement. At least it wasn't more of those claustrophobic freaking dog crates.

"This way!" I heard Total call and we followed him into the next room. It was a small room with nothing in it but a light above and a wooden trap door in the center of the floor. Bingo. "Well here you are." He announced.

Fang and I bent down to examine the door. With his strong, large muscles he was able to pry the heavy wooden door up by himself. "Okay, let's just focus on getting the rest of the flock and once we find them, we can all look for Dylan. We can't leave him alone in there; he is one of us now." All Fang did was nod in response. "Total," I addressed the little dog; "You stay here and watch the screens for danger. We will come get you once we've freed the others. In case anything happens, do not let them know you're a mutant and they'll let you live." Total nodded solemnly as Akila came up and gave us each a lick on the cheek. With that, I began to climb down the ladder to whatever lay below.

Hope you liked! Please review to let me know if anyone is still reading, I'd appreciate it! Thanks :)