Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride. Can you hear me now?

After checking out of the motel and having breakfast, the flock and I returned to the woods where we landed and took off, heading south for Arizona.

It was about 9:00 a.m. I figured it would take us about six hours to get to Ella's house, including a stop for lunch and bathroom breaks.

During the flight Iggy came up to me and asked, "So, you still never told us who this Asch person is we need to find."

"He was someone I met while I was away," I said, "He's an avian-human like us although, we didn't have the most peaceful of meetings. I guess he knows what Itex is up to now."

"What do you mean 'not the most peaceful of meetings'?"

"I mean, every time we met each other, we ended up fighting each other."

"So how do we know we can trust this Asch person?"

"I think we can. It looks we were on the same side the whole time. I just didn't see it at first. I know it's a little confusing now. But when we meet him, everything will make sense."

"All right Max. We trust you."

So after a long flight that had no problems and no Erasers for a nice change, we made to Arizona at about three-thirty in the afternoon.

After some searching through my mind for exactly where Ella and her mom lived, I finally remembered and headed towards it.

I was so excited that I would get to see Ella again. It had been a long time but I hoped she still remembered me. But then again, a girl with wings who saves your life is kind of hard to forget.

We found the house and came in for a landing at the front. We came to the door and I rang the doorbell.

After a moment, the door opened and Dr. Martinez was at the door. "Can I help you all?" she asked.

"Dr. Martinez," I said, "it's me Max."

She stared at me intently for a few seconds and then said, "Oh my gosh, Max, it is you. It's been so long, I almost didn't recognize you. Who are these people with you?"

"It's my flock. They're like me."

"Oh, well, come in, come in. Make yourselves at home."

So we went in, and I introduced Dr. Martinez to each member of the flock. We all came and sat down in the living room and then she called down Ella.

Ella came down the stairs and into the living room. When she saw me, her face instantly lit up, "Max!" she cried. She ran over to me and gave me the biggest hug. The only one who gave me hugs like this was Angel. "Oh, I can't believe it. It's really you."

"I know," I said, "I missed you too."

She let go and we all got into conversation about what we've been doing and how we've been. And then we got into our mission to save the world… again, and find our missing flock member.

After telling them about how we needed to find Asch, Ella and her mother looked at each other, as if they remembered or knew something. Dr. Martinez got up and went into another room.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"It's just that, about a month ago, somebody came over here," said Ella.

"What? Did they threaten you? Oh, don't tell me Itex found you and threatened you."

"No, no, nothing like that. Somebody came over here saying they were a friend of yours and figured you might come here."

"Who?"

"He said it would be best if we didn't know his name. But he had red hair. And he had this weird tattoo around his eye." She made a C shape with her fingers over her right eye."

She was describing Asch. Why would he come here? And how could he have possibly known about Ella and Dr. Martinez?

"He also said to give you this," said Dr. Martinez, coming back into the room with an envelope in her hand. "And to keep us safe, we shouldn't open it."

She handed me the envelope. On it was written MAX, just like the note we found in the manor.

I opened it up and pulled out what was inside.

"What does it say?" asked Nudge.

"It doesn't say anything," I said, "It's a pair of maps."

"More maps?" asked Iggy.

There were two maps in the envelope. One was a map of the entire west coast. It had a red line drawn in marker on it from the location of Ella's house to San Francisco. The other was a map of San Francisco. That one had a red line drawn on it that was relative to where the line on the last one ended. It went to a point where there was a drawn circle. Next to it, there was a note that said, "Here I am, Maxie."

It became clear. It was Asch telling me where he was.

"What is it Max?" asked Gazzy.

"We know where to find Asch," I said, holding up the maps, "these are maps leading us to Asch. He's in San Francisco." I looked over to Ella and her mother. "The person who we're looking for is the person who gave you these."

"Why would he give those to us?" asked Dr. Martinez, "Why not just find you directly?"

"He must not know where I am, so he figured that I would come here eventually. But how he knows that I know you is beyond me."

"This just keeps getting more and more confusing," said Nudge.

"I'm sure once we meet Asch, everything will become clear."

"So then, I guess you're gonna go over there right away, huh?" asked Ella, sounding disappointed.

"Yeah, we have to. This is really important."

"Oh, but you'd never make it to San Francisco before dark," said Dr. Martinez, "Why don't you stay here for the night?"

I thought about it for a minute. I didn't want to burden Dr. Martinez even more.

"I'll make you my cookies."

"Okay," I said instantly, "but only because you insist."

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Jeb Batchelder sat at his desk on his portable computer, going through every tracking system Itex had. Any and all tracking that was on Max and the flock was gone. For the first time, he had absolutely no idea where Max was.

Anne Walker came up behind him. "So, what's the story?"

"There is no story," said Jeb, "anything that was on Max and the others is gone. That geyser fried it all."

"He's proving to be more trouble than I thought."

"What do we do now? No doubt Max knows about us by now. The Erasers we put into the virtual world didn't work and now it's shut down. We can't find her; we got no way of anticipating her next move. And who knows what the Counter-Breed is up to."

"Calm down."

"Tell me what I can do and I will."

Anne walked up to Jeb and closed the computer. "We are going to wait. Wait for Max or those ShawCorp degenerates to make their next move. And then we can strike. So just relax."

Jeb let out a sigh of frustration, "All right."

"Speaking of striking, there was something I wanted to talk to you about."

"What?"

"I was thinking about reintroducing Boost into the Erasers…"

"Anne, no. I told you, the side affect is just too great."

"But it increases their performance dramatically. It would be a lot faster to catch them when they have the opportunity. And we still have some left. Not all of it was stolen."

"Look, it makes them half-formed permanently. That's why Ari looked like the way he did, because he took it without my permission. We can't afford for the public to see them like that. It's too big a risk. No more Boost."

"All right, fine."

"So… what do we do while we wait?"

"We make sure all of our plans are proceeding accordingly, it's what we do best Jeb. We just move along."

"I know you're talking about my son, I got the hint months ago. He's gone, I've moved on."

"Just making sure," Anne said as she left the room.