A/N: It's been awhile since I updated… AGAIN!! The teachers really piled on the schoolwork. If you haven't, go check out the other stories I put up while I was brainstorming ideas for this.

Disclaimer: Me owning Maximum Ride would be like… Nudge on Mountain Dew. The world would be total chaos. Nuff said.

Chapter 4

Nudge's POV

"NUDGE! Wake up!" Angel's voice woke me. That, and the small black object bouncing up and down on my stomach, causing me to wonder if I might see my dinner again in just a few moments.

I must've made a disturbing moaning sound, because Total stopped jumping on me and quickly scurried out of spitting distance – farther than I could project. Darn.

"Nudge, come on!" Angel snapped.

"Wha'?" I mumbled. "Wha's going on?"

"Max is gone!"

Normally it took me an hour and an unhealthy amount of coffee to wake me up completely, but those three words forced my eyes wide open and caused my heart to begin thumping double-time. I began hyperventilating. "What? Why did she leave? Did they take her? What will we do without her? Oh, my God, we're going to – "

Fang came into the room just then, interrupting my stream of uncensored thoughts. There was a scratch on his face, and he looked like he had been fighting, but his eyes caught my attention right away. They were determined, and I had never seen him so – so – mad.

"Don't bother with clothes," he commanded, eyes flashing. "We're losing time. Let's just go. We'll leave Total here."

"But, what – "

"I'll explain what happened when we're in the air, now let's move!" He left without a word, already itching to be in the air.

Quickly, I ran after him, colliding with Iggy. His arm held me up, and I gratefully took his hand. "What happened to Max?" I asked breathlessly.

He shook his head. "No idea. Fang's the only one who knows what happened. Guess he'll tell us when we're in the air."

The deck was busy. It seemed everyone had been up for hours except me. John hurried over to Fang and began talking earnestly. Fang said something curtly, and walked away. John looked taken back. Welcome to the frustration of Fang. Max said once that it was like talking had skipped a generation on Fang and doubled up on me. She always did have a unique way of looking at things. That was one of the ways that we had known that Max II wasn't Max; she just didn't have the same style.

I ran to join the rest of the flock, who was taking off. I was about to jump off the boat, but Gazzy pushed me off the railing and went first. I squealed. "Gazzy! I was going to go next!"

He smirked at me, already ten feet above my head. "Ladies first."

I squealed again and rose quickly into the air, making sure one of my wings cuffed his head. "Ladies don't fart every five seconds, Gasman."

"They also don't talk for ten minutes straight every time they open their mouths," he countered. "You better not ever join a nunnery, Nudge. After an hour of you, they would be drawing numbers to see who gets to lop off your head."

I stuck out my tongue. "That's nothing compared to you. I heard that nunneries don't even accept people who smell like hobos."

"Guys!" Angel snapped. "Stop! I want to hear what Fang has to say!"

Gazzy was twisting his fingers together anxiously. I nervously began to chatter. "Yeah, Fang, you need to clear up what happened to Max. I mean, did she like, get carried off by a plane or something? 'Cause then it'll be awhile before we catch up to her. Or was there, like, a speedboat? You know, that movie The Italian Job? That was really clever, the way they – "

"Nudge," Fang said tiredly. I shut up at once. He sounded…weird.

"Max wasn't taken," he said quietly, so quietly that I had to strain to hear, even though I was only a few feet away. To be fair, the wind was really loud in my ears. We were flying really really fast, so fast I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep it up for very long. But I knew Fang would keep flying until he found Max.

"She…wasn't taken?" Gazzy asked in a small voice. "Did she…?"

"No, no," Angel reassured him, but she sounded as unhappy as Fang. "Max isn't dead."

"Max…left." Fang's voice was so lifeless, toneless. I knew it was so he could conceal his emotion. Max was the only one he ever opened up to. But then the full impact of his words hit me.

"What did you say?" I asked, certain I had misheard. That had to be the shortest sentence I had ever said.

"She's gone, Nudge. She left. Last night."

"But what… what happened?" Iggy asked, his tone showing his worry.

Fang was silent for almost a minute before he replied. I was nearly imploding at this point. "I thought she was acting… weird earlier today," he said slowly. "Ever since that telephone call…"

"You're right!" I couldn't contain myself any longer. "She dropped that glass, and ran into the room, and then she was like, I had a panic attack – "

"Yes, Nudge. That's what she said. I don't know about the rest of you, but I didn't believe her."

"And I couldn't read her mind," Angel put in. "It was just a huge jumble, worse than Gazzy's room back home."

"Anyway," Fang said, now beginning to show signs of impatience in his flight, "I was on the deck tonight because I had this feeling that she would do something crazy. And just after midnight she came up on deck with a backpack. And she left."

"Max…gone?" Gazzy said brokenly. I was stunned myself. Leave us? Why? I couldn't live without this messed-up family of ours. Was Max tired of caring for us?

"I'm sure it has nothing to do with us, guys," Angel reassured us. But she sounded lost, lonely. She loved Max so much. Same as me. Same as the guys, even though they tried to be all tough as nails, like Max was. We needed to find her.

"Angel's right," Fang said. "I'm positive it had something to do with that phone call. She loves all of us too much to leave us by choice."

"It must have been something pretty bad then," Gazzy said slowly. Fang nodded. Automatically, we all increased the speed of our flight. Glancing at the others, I saw my own resolve mirrored on all of their faces. Fang's face scared me, though. He, of course, had total determination written in every line of his face, but there was also anguish there. I quickly looked away. I knew Fang would do everything he could to get Max back. He would only stop once he was dead.

So quietly I wasn't even sure I heard it, Fang muttered, eyes burning straight ahead, "I'm coming to kick your ass, Max."

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Max's POV

I flew as hard as I could for as long as I could, eventually just becoming numb. I knew there was no way they could catch me; the miracles of super-speeded flight. And there was no way Angel could know where I was going, since I didn't even know. Nothing new there.

The Voice managed to keep up a stream of insults and admonishments all the way to – wherever I was going. But as I distanced myself from the flock and my old life, it seemed to fade a bit. Kind of like the Voice of Reason that I had left behind as soon as I had known how to swear impressively. So, a pretty young age.

Finally, I could almost not hear the voice anymore. So it didn't take nearly sawing my arm off, it didn't take microsurgery, it took tearing my heart out and stomping all over it. I filed that valuable piece of information away for future reference.

The Voice spoke to me once more. It sounded as though it took a huge effort. Max, you need to turn around. Right now. It's not too late.

It's way too late, I thought back bitterly.

If that's the way you feel… then I can no longer help you. You're on your own, Max.

Good! I thought back savagely. But no sooner had I thought that then I was hit with a blast from the past: my old friend, Let's Smash Max's Brain With Sharp Objects Until She Begins Hitting Herself Just So She Can Lost Consciousness.

The pain exploded in my skull, like there was a train ramming back and forth inside my brain. Immediately my wings forgot how to flap; I clutched my head in sheer agony and whimpered. Just a bit, though.

Some distant part of me was aware how fast the ground was hurtling up to meet me, but I couldn't be bothered with it. Or rather, I could. I awaited the ground in anticipation of the release of pain it would bring.

Suddenly, I hit a hard but not-as-hard-as-the-ground-hard surface. At that moment, the pain became too much for me, and I welcomed oblivion gratefully.

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When I woke up, all the muscles in my body were sore. I checked the inventory, flexing each muscle as I came to it. Yep, bruises were patterned all over my body. Maybe some sprains.

I tried to remember what happened. Leaving. I quickly moved to the next event. Flying. The Voice… pain. A lot of pain. And then falling… and yet I wasn't dead?

I opened my eyes slowly, already expecting to see the stark white of the School. But it was a house. I was in someone's room, and the blankets were pulled securely up to my chin. Aware that I wasn't alone, I cast a sideways glance at the little girl watching me so intently. She was probably a little older than Angel, and probably couldn't read minds, but she reminded me of the six-year-old I had left behind, probably because of the innocence they both projected.

The girl blinked once. "She's awake!" she called softly, causing me to flinch. A woman hurried into the room then, closely followed by another girl around my age. They were obviously a family; all had the same shade of mahogany for hair, and the same bluish gray eyes.

The woman cautiously approached the bed. "How are you feeling?" she asked carefully.

"Um, like I fell out of the sky and hit the ground face-first," I replied, then instantly regretted it. I mean, what if they, by some miracle, hadn't noticed the wings?

That theory was immediately dispelled when the three of them simultaneously glanced at my back, then quickly looked away.

The girl my age stepped around her mother. She smiled uncertainly. "You landed on our trampoline."

The smallest one giggled. "You bounced really, really high. Higher than I could ever go. I'm Carrie, by the way."

"And I'm Shay," the older girl put in.

"Margaret." The woman moved closer to the bed. "Do you want to tell us how you got those wings?"

I blinked. Well, that was rather blunt. I was about to reply in the rudest way I could think of, when Carrie climbed on to the bed and pulled away the blankets. She stroked my feathers gently, so gently, as though frightened she would pull them out. She was like a human version of Angel. The Angel how she would have been had the whitecoats not gotten hold of her.

I shook my head to clear it. The vision of the small curly-haired blonde girl next to me dissolved into the reality of the brown-haired child staring solemnly into my face. "Some kind of genetic experiment," I told Margaret.

"Really? Your parents allowed that?"

"I don't know who my parents are. I escaped from the lab four years ago, and have been on the run ever since."

"Why did you fall out of the sky?" Carrie asked.

I evaded her gaze. "Headache," I mumbled.

"Well, there's no question about it," Margaret said briskly. "You have to stay with us, at least until you recover. I'll go get you some food from the kitchen." She left the room. Shay sat down on the edge of my bed.

"Sorry about my mother," she apologized. "She can be very… straightforward. And bossy. But she's a good person, don't worry."

I smiled. "I like your mom."

Shay smiled back in relief. "Good. What's your name?"

"I'm Max."

"Why do you guys get the cool names?" Carrie pouted. "Shay… Max… and I'm Carrie."

"My full name's actually Maximum," I told her.

"Well that's just great!" she said, throwing her hands up in the air. "Maximum and Shaleighla! Oh, and don't forget Carrie!"

I couldn't help but smile. What a drama queen. Shay's thoughts seemed to echo mine.

"Carrie wants to be an actress when she's older," Shay said, rolling her eyes when her sister wasn't looking.

"I'm going to be the next… Marilyn Monroe," Carrie said, using her breath to blow strands of hair out of her face as though the wind were blowing on her.

"Better not say that when Mom's in the room," Shay warned. "She'll start stealing your pee and doing random tests for drugs."

"What's this about drugs?" Margaret demanding, reentering the room. The grilled cheese sandwich on the plate was carried closer and closer to me…

"I just said we gave Max drugs to help her get well," Shay improvised quickly.

"Max? That's your name?" I didn't answer. I plucked the sandwich off the plate Margaret had handed to me and devoured it in two huge gulps. Yum.

"Um… I eat a lot," I explained. Bemused, Margaret left to fetch me more food.

"Oh, I do, too," Carrie assured me. The little starlet fluttered her eyelashes dramatically. "I'm hungry all the time."

Shay turned a laugh into a cough. Carrie paid her no attention. "Do you want to go outside with me after you finish eating?" she asked, dropping the movie star persona and becoming Angelic again.

"Yeah, sure," I said. I had thought I would never belong anywhere besides with my flock, but these people were welcoming, and this seemed to fit, too. I smiled at the two girls, who were eager to return it, Shay even patting my knee. It was nice to know I wasn't as scary as I sometimes made myself be.

A/N: And so Max meets some more people… and the Flock looks for her… what will happen next?? review with your thoughts/ideas!