Chapter Four: Friend or Foe?

(Ionnae POV)

Of all the places in the world why here? I pick a little town that doesn't even exist on a map and that's where Erasers decide to show up. Curse you Bitter Hill Nebraska. I knew three years was too long to have good luck.

And now Rex knows I'm alive. The School will either think he's crazy or think he's an idiot for assuming me dead after my little cliff diving escapade… so there was no water, so what?

Oh, crap. If they believe Rex they're going start wondering how the heck I survived my little cliff diving escapade. There are three options. One, they think I'm indestructible or something. Two, they think I didn't actually fall all the way down but found some hole to crawl in or something. Three… Considering that three is what did happen let's hope that their logic gets in the way and says that it's not possible, though I did hear somewhere that it's impossible to prove that something's impossible… GAH! Think straight, Ionnae, think straight. This is not the time to—

Oh, crapcrapcrap! Forget what would happen if they guess at option three, the option four I just thought of is a heck of a lot worse! If they thought that— NO! It doesn't matter if they think that! I will NEVER let them hurt Rob and Ray. No, never again. I will do everything in my power to— I don't exactly have a lot of power, do I?

Alone, probably not. But what if I had some friends…

"Where do you think you're going kids?" A very evil, defiantly Eraser, voice said.

Three years is defiantly way too long to have good luck.

(Max POV)

We were leaving. Despite the fact that we still had no clue where we were, it seemed like a good idea. We would run across a town that was on a map… eventually.

Iggy and Gazzy were discussing bomb plans while they walked, Nudge was babbling to no one in particular, and Fang was looking out for more Erasers. Angel and I were all looking at the singer, or Ionnae, or whatever her name was. How do you come up with a name like Ionnae in a place like the School? It was kind of weird.

Ionnae was walking as though she was deep in thought. Her hands were still in the pockets of her windbreaker, her backpack was only over one shoulder, and she was staring straight ahead but didn't look like she was actually paying much attention to what was there.

I looked down at Angel, assuming that she was listening. She looked up at me and nodded.

'When I came in she was thinking about how three years was too long to have good luck' Angel told me.

Well, that tells us about how long she's been away from the School.

'Uh huh. Then she was thinking about whether or the Whitecoats would believe Rex that she was alive and something about cliff diving.'

Cliff diving?

'Uh huh, but without any water.'

O-kay then… Anything else?

'Then she was thinking about how the Whitecoats would think she survived the cliff diving thing.'

I think she might have jumped off a cliff. I looked sideways at Ionnae and saw her clench her teeth and her eyes got this kind of scary fierce determined look in them. Angel?

'She's thinking that she'll never let them hurt Rob and Ray.'

That brought up an interesting question, Who are Rob and Ray?

'I don't know. Maybe they're her flock and she got separated from them or something.'

I was about to ask Angel another question but I was cut off by, of course, an Eraser. Isn't that just our luck? The minute that we take one step out of town more Erasers pop up.

"Where do you think you're going, kids?" One of the Erasers asked.

His voice seemed to snap Ionnae out of her thoughts. She glared at the Eraser, "We think we're leaving." She had ditched the evil-sweet voice she had used on Rex and now sounded just plain angry. She took one of her hands on of her pocket and looked like she threw something at the Eraser that had spoken. A bright flash of white light exploded in the Eraser's face causing him and the Erasers on either side of him to stagger backward and rub their eyes. Whatever it was that she had just did didn't seem to work as well as Ionnae had hoped because she muttered, "Ah, crap," and something that sounded like, "stupid sun." and took off into the forest.

As peeved as I was at her just leaving like that I had bigger problems to handle right now, like Erasers… half of which I realized were gone, probably following Ionnae into the woods.

The three that had been temporarily blinded had their sight back and were really ticked off. Seizing the moment I leaped forward and landed a flying kick in an Eraser's face shouting, "Flock! Fly!" over my shoulder.

After smacking a couple Erasers around and Angel making the rest run around the town shouting, "The British are coming! The British are coming!" We managed to take off.

(Ionnae POV)

Are any of them following me? They'd better be. That's the whole point.

I stopped and scrambled up the nearest tree. I started gathering ammunition, twigs and sticks mostly, and pulled my lighter out of the side pocket of my backpack. I heard the Erasers coming through the trees. They're not exactly built for stealth.

When the, now morphed, Erasers were under my tree I lit one of the sticks on fire and dropped in on one of their number's furry head. He proceeded to run around screaming as his fur caught fire and then ran smack into another Eraser spreading the flame to him.

Roasted Eraser anybody? Really? Nobody? Oh, well. Doesn't exactly sound appetizing to me either.

FOCUS YOU IDIOT!

The Erasers, the non-burning ones anyway, seemed to have noticed my presence and were trying, miserably, to climb up the tree. Animal fact of the day: wolves aren't made for tree climbing.

I dropped a couple more burning sticks on one and shot a flash of light in another's eyes startling him enough to make him fall out of the tree. Apparently that was all I was capable of right now. If it had been night that light would have hit him like a solid mass or, if I wanted it to, a blade. But nooo, during the day it was just bright light. Stupid sun.

FOCUS!

I looked down from my perch. My Eraser friends no longer seemed capable of fight. Joy. However, at the base of my tree sanctuary with a gun was Rex. Not joy. I scrambled farther up the tree as fast as I could until I thought I might be out of range of the gun or hidden enough that he couldn't get a good shot off. If Rex wanted me he'd just have to climb up and get me.

That would be a sight. Rex. Trying to climb a tree. Back in the day when he was just a normal little kid I'd raced him to the top of a bookshelf. It had five shelves and the top of Rex's head came up to the third one. I'd sat on the top shelf for over an hour watching him try to get of the second shelf until a Whitecoat came in and yelled at us.

FOCUS!

"Hi, Rex!" I shouted down at him. He growled at me. I figured I'd probably messed up whatever his plan was, "There's such a nice view up here. Wanna come up and see?" I asked acting like we were still friends. He fired the gun. Whether it was aimed well or not I don't know but it didn't reach me.

I jumped from my branch to another tree, grabbing a branch above my head to steady myself. I heard Rex shouting. At me or at some Eraser I didn't know. Using the same method I jumped to another tree and another until I couldn't hear Rex shouting anymore.

I climbed a little higher in the tree I was now in and found a spot well hidden from the ground. I put my lighter away in my pocket for easy access incase I needed to drop more flaming branches on Erasers and pulled out my atlas.

I flipped through the pages and, once again, attempted to locate Bitter Hill Nebraska.

First I would like to apologize for taking to long to update. I thought for awhile that I'd written myself into a corner and was going to have to start over again so I'd decided to focus on my other story and my fictionpress story and sort this one out later. However, now my other story has hit a block and I relocated my inspiration for this one. (A.k.a. my copy of Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment, which had been on loan for six months to a friend of my mom.)

Hopefully things go a bit smoother, however I can't make any guarantees.

Thank you for reading and also putting up with me.

-Ebony