A/N: I am discontinuing the story. Sorry.
APRIL FOOLS!
But I am sorry for the long wait. Anyway, I've decided this will be your fan fiction to heal from the disappointment of the fourth book. Heal after TFW! HEAL!
I felt like I was being drenched in ice water from the shock. I hadn't liked whoever this was before, but now they had really crossed the line. Kill him? My best friend? No way, no how, mister. Or miss. Whoever he/she was.
Are you kidding? I asked, trying to blow it all off as a joke. I squeezed my eyes shut to concentrate better, feeling like I was having an out of body experience or something. I'm not doing that. You must be insane. Oh, wait, you are insane! Now I remember. You haven't exactly made me believe that you're not some psycho sitting in a room having a good laugh at me.
This isn't a joke. He has become a threat.
To who? To me, or to you? I'm not doing it, and as far as I know, you don't control my arms yet, so good luck trying to make me do it. I obey the people I trust – keyword, trust. I don't trust you.
Whatever you say. But my word still stands. Bye, Max…
I opened my eyes to Fang waving his hand in front of my face. "You okay?" he asked. "The second voice again?"
"Yeah," I said shakily. "Yeah, the voice."
"What did it say?"
My face shut down. Normally, I would tell Fang everything – everything. I don't think that there's a single thing about me that he doesn't know. I told him every bad dream, every fear, asked him about nearly every decision – but this was one thing that he was never, ever going to find out about. "Nothing important," I said, maybe a little shakily.
Fang just looked at me.
"I swear," I reinforced. I could tell that he didn't believe me, but he just shrugged and turned away.
"You'll tell me eventually," he said, his back turned. "So whenever you're ready."
My eyes narrowed. "Whatever, bird boy." I flashed back to that voice saying, 'He has become a threat' and inched away just by a bit. I immediately felt guilty for even thinking that. Fang wasn't a threat. This second voice couldn't be trusted.
Right?
I groaned mentally. One more thing to add to my list of things to think about. I could practically feel all of the pressure starting to press down on me, and it was going to give me the worst headache ever. I glanced at Fang one more time and curled up like a cat, trying to make myself more comfortable. I closed my eyes…
…and one hour later was still trying to get to sleep.
It was going to be a looong night.
The next few days passed by in a bit of a blur. I didn't get any surprise visits from the voice, but I was tense the whole time and snapped at everyone, to the point where Iggy asked me, "Do you have PMS or something? What's your deal?" He couldn't see the death glare that I was giving him, so he must have sensed that I would strangle him if he kept talking, so he wisely backed off.
Plus, to add to everything, we were back in America, the last place that I wanted to be, considering how much we get recognized here. I drove my flock to exhaustion moving from place to place, paranoid that we would be recognized and our pictures would be plastered all over the news again. I think they hated me.
Actually, I'm pretty sure they did.
Now, we were over Ohio, and I was starting to relax a little bit. (Well, as much as I could with all of the things that everyone was loading on to me right now.) You know how I said starting to relax? Well, first of all, Nudge started talking. That made me tense right back up again.
"Max, what are we going to do now?" she asked. "We haven't really done anything for like, three days, and I'm not complaining or anything, but it would just be nice to have…I don't know…a purpose, you know?"
"Yeah, Nudge, I know exactly what you mean," I sighed, rubbing my temples. Just when I was starting to think about exactly what I was going to do next, the second thing wanting to contribute to my migraine stepped forward.
Max…you know driving you crazy is really fun.
I closed my eyes wearily. Shut up. I'm not listening.
Do you remember what I said a few days ago?
I opened my eyes again. How could I forget what they had said back then? It already felt like a million years ago, and every second of those million years I had been thinking about what that voice had said. Asking me to forget that would be like…like…like asking me to forget that Jeb had left us two years ago. In other words – impossible.
It still stands. Kill him, Max. It would be easy.
"I'll be right back," I muttered to Fang.
"Wha-" But he didn't even have time to finish his sentence before I was in the air, my wings out to grip the air like a dog grips a steak with its teeth. I poured on the speed and was away in seconds, gone, gone, gone. I left my thoughts behind with the rest of the flock and let the tension that had been coiling every muscle melt away. Flying almost always helped me get rid of everything I was worried about.
When I had been gone for about half an hour, I decided it was about time to head back to the rest of the flock. Don't get me wrong – I wasn't avoiding my fam or anything. I just didn't want to have to think about everything – how to stop global warming, how not to snap and hurt someone, how to shut the voice up about killing Fang (like I was going to do that!)…god, the next time you think about having the weight of the world on your shoulders, imagine me standing next to you. Then imagine me sending you the biggest and worst death glare that you have ever seen.
When I touched down back to where the Flock was, stumbling slightly, five worried faces stared back at me. "Oh, thank god, you're back!" said Nudge, but I held up a hand – please not now.
"Okay, Nudge, in answer to your question," I said, "I think that we should find out some more about the whole global warming thing. If that's how Itex is going to carry out their By-Half plan, then we've got to do something, right?"
She nodded, her whole mood brightening up at the thought of doing something. I remembered when she always wanted to stop and relax – maybe I was rubbing off on her a bit too much.
Nah!
"So are we staying here? In the U.S?" Angel asked. "I really want to stay in the country, Max. I don't want to leave again. I just to stay in one spot. I want a home again."
I glanced at Fang, about to tell her that we couldn't, it was just too risky. He met my eyes and shrugged, as if to say, It's your call. I made the mistake of looking at her and whipped my head back around as fast as I could. God dang it, she'd given me the stupid puppy eyes again! She knew I couldn't resist the puppy eyes!
I sighed. If there was one fatal weakness that I had, it was those damn eyes. Even without her mind puppet power, she could make me do whatever she wanted as long as she just glanced at me. Why did she have to be so persuasive? "Fine," I relented. "But the first time we get recognized, we're out of here, got it?"
"Yes!" cheered Angel. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
I gave her a half smile. "Welcome."
"Okay, so where do you think we should go first?" I asked Fang.
"Well, China's out," he said. "None of us want to go to California again. What other Itexes are there in America?"
"Looks like we're going sightseeing," said Iggy, grinning. "Let's do it!"
I rolled my eyes. "We are not sightseeing. We're on a mission. Okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say."
"Iggy…" I said warningly.
He turned his head in my direction. "What? I said okay."
I cracked my knuckles and sighed for the umpteenth time. It was going to be a long few days, and I was not looking forward to them.
Max? asked Jeb.
Yes, father dear?
I could practically feel him bristle at the sarcasm. Is that voice still there? I'm looking into it, but I'm not getting much. It's harder than it seems to find information around Itex without getting caught, but I've got some.
Alright, so quit
patting yourself on the back and tell me what it is!
The American Itex has nothing to do with it. It's one of the foreign countries.
Great…one down, two million to go.
Maximum Ride, this is your life. Get used to it – or you'll never survive.
A/N: Definitely not one of my best chapters, but it's intended to move the story from one phase to another. Yeah. I hate this chapter, but now we are basically in Part 2! Yay! Phase 1 – complete. There'll probably be a part three as well…yeah, it'll be long. :D
So, apologies for the delay and the iffy chapter, but it's going to get better and WAY more exciting!