Disclaimer: If I owned Maximum Ride, Jeb would not be the Voice and Doctor Martinez would not be Max's mother. Oh, and the new cover wouldn't be so ugly (check Fang's blog if you haven't seen it).

You have to wake up. Nudge's voice was the first thing Angel heard as she slipped back into consciousness. Nudge's hand rested on her cheek. Angel was laying on some kind of hard, uneven ground. She opened her eyes to further explore their surroundings.

But her eyes didn't open. It was as though her eyelids were made of stone, or glued down, or sewn shut. Open, she urged her eyelids, feeling slightly silly at needing to command herself to do something so very simple. Nothing happened.

We need you, said Nudge's voice, sounding desperate. Angel tried to move her hand, to reach out and help, but nothing happened except for a taunting twitch of her fingers. Nudge sighed and turned away.

Now Angel was awake, at least in her head. Why was she like this, imprisoned in her own body? What had she done, what had happened?

And then everything came flooding back like an epiphany. The bad people thinking bad thoughts; her and Nudge and Gazzy unfurling their wings in the middle of the crowd, flying away; the explosion. But they hadn't been fast enough. She'd had to take matters into her own hands, or her own mind, to be exact.

Angel knew that it had been a risky move, to try to move people with her mind. Now she wondered exactly how successful she had been in this telekinetic attempt. She knew Nudge was alive, so now she stretched her mind out to find Gazzy's. Angel was jolted by a sort of soreness that throbbed in the connection, making this simple task more painful than it should have been.

She located Gazzy's mind through the pain. He was scared, sad, and hungry, but he was alive. It seemed like Nudge was talking to him, trying to reassure him.

Max and Fang were together. Fang was worried about Max, and Max was worried about everyone else. Angel wanted to send out a thought to let her know that the three of them had survived, but she was afraid. If it hurt just to sense other people's thoughts, which had always been second nature to Angel, how would it feel to try to send a thought?

She relaxed her mind until the pain subsided and then reached out for Iggy.

There was nothing. Iggy wasn't anywhere.

As grief and shock enveloped her exhausted being, Angel slipped back into darkness.

"I'm hungry," said Gazzy.

Nudge was hungry too, and to tell the truth, she didn't really know what to do about it. There weren't many places to find food by the outskirts of a destroyed city. And they couldn't fly away to find food because they couldn't leave Angel, who was still out cold. At least she was still breathing.

But of course Nudge couldn't say all that to Gazzy. "We'll find something," she said. "Don't worry."

"How?" he asked, frustrated. "We're in the middle of a, like, giant blown up place! What are we going to find for food?"

"I don't know!" Nudge shouted back. "I don't know, okay? I'm not Max. I'm not your leader. I didn't sign up to take care of you during… during this! I just wanted to take you and Angel to the freaking zoo, to have fun, and then we'd go back and Max would be in charge and she'd take care of everything and we'd sleep someplace warm and have water and food and be happy! But that's not what happened, and everyone else is missing and maybe even dead and I don't know what you want from me!"

She was crying now, big, ugly, shameful tears. Gazzy turned away, embarrassed and maybe even a bit humbled. Nudge felt completely and utterly hopeless. It had been hours, hours of sitting in the black dust waiting for Angel to wake up. Everything depended on Angel. If- when- she woke up, they could find out about everyone else and even if that didn't help they could fly away to somewhere better. That was what Nudge wanted to do- fly away from everything. But she couldn't leave Angel and Gazzy. It was her job to take care of them.

Max is okay.

"Angel!" Nudge shouted, unable to control herself. She glanced toward the girl's body, but she still appeared to be sleeping. "Angel?" Nudge asked again, more tentatively.

Fang's with Max, Angel spoke again.

"Nudge?" Gazzy asked. "What- what's happening?"

"Angel's awake! But…"

Only in my mind.

"Only in her mind," Nudge repeated, parrot-like.

"Why isn't she talking to me? Why just you?"

Head hurts.

"Something's wrong," Nudge said softly. "That's why her body's still asleep."

Hurts, Angel said again.

"Has she talked to the others?" Gazzy said urgently.

Ig's gone.

Gazzy gasped, and Nudge knew Angel had spoken to him as well. She felt strangely empty. She blinked quickly and opened her mouth, but found she had nothing to say. Everything was just so surreal.

Max and Fang are okay. They're together. Going to rest before I talk to them.

Max. Nudge latched onto the word. They had to find her. She would make everything alright again. Nudge blocked all other thoughts from her mind. Angel was going to talk to Max and Fang. Even if the flock had been broken beyond repair, it was best that the remaining pieces try to hold together.

Author's Note: Well. I'm very sorry. My excuses are pretty much the same as the last time, except with an increase in the amount of homework. I'm going to try to get a couple of chapters ahead during break. Sorry again. I personally am not very fond of this chapter. I thought it was going to be easy, and, surprise! It was hard. That always seems to happen to me. Go figure.

Thanks to Ozymandyas, RippedIntoPieces, red, up and coming writer, senoritasophia13, therealme1123, and Ride on silver wings for reviewing! I really appreicate your feedback, particularly that of my "constant reviewers:" senoritasophia13, therealme1123, and RippedIntoPieces. Thanks so much! But here's the deal: I'm not updating again until I get 10 more reviews, amounting to a total of 63. So if you read this and don't review, you are a very bad person, and you will get leprosy (read The Ten Commandments for Fanfiction Writers if you don't know what I'm talking about).

Also, I would very much appreicate it if you would read and review my oneshot, The Rift. It's good, according to the other people who've reviewed.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it!