Maximum Ride is property of James Patterson. Kisha, Deveann, Jamie, and Saber are property of ME! Kumali is property of Jwan!

Alright you guys, now you will either hate me or be really really sad, both ways I win. It's taken me a while to write this and just when I was all depressed and everything, just when I was in the mood my cousin forced me to play a 3 hour long card game. (Sigh) Oh yeah, and Saber is… being supportive, a new side to him. Gosh, I am hungry. Anyhoo, here we go.

Deveann's POV

I heard the commotion and ran to the entryway. Kumali was staring out the door, her jaw dropped. Max was coaxing the others to quiet. I saw a silent tear stain Kumali's cheek, and then I noticed who was missing. "No." I whispered, staggering forward. All eyes were on me, as time seemingly stopped, if only for a moment. The room was silent and only the wind was answering my silent question and rejecting my mental pleas. I pushed through the crowd and looked out the door. "No!" I screamed at my observation. Kumali touched my shoulder in a sympathetic manner. In the woods across the street were three Erasers. One seemed as though it had had a rather unfortunate encounter with a guillotine, another was missing limbs... and a had a chunk out of the side, the last I only knew was an Eraser from it's company, it was like ground Eraser, just a bloody stain on the grass. Kisha's handy work, there wasn't a doubt in my mind about that fact. I slammed my fist into the framing. No words were said, I felt their warmth leave me, my ears nearly oblivious to the pitter patter of their evacuation. My screams and moans from within my mind blocked out even the sweetest of calming sounds from the real world.

"I'm here... if you need me." Fang's voice sounded like it was coming from far away, but I knew he was closer than that. I let my hand fall to my side. To my horror a shuddering sob escaped me. My knees quivered and caved. As cried out on sorrow when my shins painfully collided with the concrete porch. Tears poured down my face drowning the ground. I slammed my fists into the rough stone over and over again shouting incoherent words. I felt deaf. I felt many things; most obnoxious of things was my pain. It bawled in my head, making my ears want to bleed.

I hadn't a clue such pain could be caused by one thing alone but... as sudden realization occurred to me I felt my lungs shatter with my voice. "NO!"

She's gone.

Fang came out onto the porch along side me and closed the door behind him. "I'm gonna-" Bile dripped from my fangs even as I prepared to warn him. The vomit stung my hands. I screwed my eyes shut. Kisha was gone and she wasn't coming back. Because of the School. The School took my Kisha away. The thought repeated as an echo in my mind growing fainter and fainter each time but singeing my heart with more force than the last. I shook my head trying unsuccessfully to unscramble my thoughts and figure out the situation but eventually gave in to my body, feeling that I understood all I needed to at the moment. My Kisha was gone and I wasn't. I felt a small piece of me longing for some familiarity. My sub-conscious seemed to remember a way that I'd dealt with sadness and pain of this magnitude and desperately cried out for it.

"You'll get through this." The encouraging words had no effect on me. It took a while for me to realize what I wanted was for Kisha to rest my head on her shoulder like she always did and stroke my hair. I'd always thought that I'd hated that. It made me feel like a child, more so, it made me feel weak, helpless. It reminded me of Kisha's unwavering dominance. She would plaster me to her and she'd hum into my ear. I figured that her taking care of me meant I was less of a man. Now that I calculated it, with my whining, irrational behavior, senseless attachments, and odd tolerance of all things girly I was surprised Kisha saw me as a man, not a boy, not a woman with the way I'd cried my tear ducts dry. I dry heaved and felt a hand on my shoulder. "You're shaking." Fang told me. "And you've convulsing like that for the last five minutes." My body was in so much searing pain I could hardly distinguish one pain from another. The only thing that could be worse than such unbearable pain was to be numb, completely numb, just as Kisha had been to many times before. It was like a state of death, as she'd so graciously informed me. I understood now, why her mind was always on death, she was in a constant state of living only half of a life. Our species needs warmth, it needs the touch and assurance of others, something Kisha was deprived of. Only once in a while was she ever able to feel anything, her wounds had been healed and she wasn't fighting. I liked to think I was her time away from death but my presence must have brought on the unease of her seemingly temporary time with us and smacked her across the face with realization of how limited that time was.

"Gah!" I hissed in a breath tasted the blood and felt it drip off my lip and into my vomit below. The scent bit at my nose. I missed the sweet scent of candy Kisha gave off. I wondered how blood had come to accumulate in my mouth. I finally figured out that I'd been biting my tongue the whole time. I opened my eyes to see the sun had sunken into a deep red.

"I can't believe she would do this to you."

"Shut up." I snapped, then I sighed. "I understand we she ran away, I just wish she hadn't…" As it began to drizzle I stared out at the woods, wondering if Kisha could feel the cold drops on her skin.

The next chapter will be in Kisha's POV. It's a good thing I wrote all of this ahead of time. You know when I said I got New Moon? Well, that gave me the idea to start writing this. I made up this scene long before I started writing this fic but I began writing bits and pieces of this chapter about a month ago. I wrote the whole thing together a week or so ago. Anyhoo, please review. Kisses!