Hello everyone. Thank you for reading and reviewing. I really appreciate reviews, they help me get the drive to write more. This chapter is pretty short but the next one will be BIG in both size, drama, and plot.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed thus far!

I do not own Maximum Ride, this story is for entertainment and I make no money off of it.

Fang POV:

I woke earlier than the rest of the group. Sleep had been elusive. Of course I hadn't slept on anything so comfortable as the flock's sofa in a long long time. Go figure. That's just how luck rolls with me. Really though I couldn't sleep because I knew Max was in danger. It made my wings itch and my skin crawl. I had spent the morning going over the facts and all I could think of was to talk to the people we knew (and trusted) to see if anyone had heard anything about Max. Unfortunately this probably meant talking to Jeb first since he probably would be the only one of us to hear through the mad scientist circles if someone was trying to auction off one pissed off Maximum Ride. After that we could talk to the CSM's scientists, but really we had no leads. Everything had been fairly peaceful in the past six years. Well, peaceful by my standards. Which entailed mild world saving, school-like facility breaking into, and a nice cold can of whup ass everyone once in a while needed opening. Normal.

However that also meant we were seriously lacking evil dastardly villains to attack and spring Max out. In fact my list was pretty much empty. Brain case guy was gone with the storm. turned into a sniveling monster, whose body rejected itself and he died from an overactive immune disorder a few years back. Like I said before, villains tend not to have a long life expectancy around Max.

Maybe we should look for Dylan too. What if he wasn't dead, just kidnapped too? He could be the first victim, and the first lead. As much as I hated to admit it, we might have to save his butt too. If he wasn't dead.

I had to brush off my giddiness at the idea that Dylan might be dead. Was hopefully dead.

Less competition right? Ha. Ha. Kidding.

Not.

The only thing we had was the hope that maybe Dylan's and Max's disappearances were somehow connected, and by investigating Dylan we might find Max. If he hadn't died years ago. If we could find where he had been. Or was. Or wasn't. But no birdkid body had been found and plastered all over the news so at least we knew he did

"How do we know he isn't dead? I thought he was dead." Gazzy complained again as we flew towards *gag* Jeb's to hash and thrash out more information.

"Well no avian American corpses have sprung up on the news, right? We'd totally hear about that." Nudge (ofcourse) was more than willing to talk and rebuff Gazzy's cynicism. I still think he's too old to be so jaded.

"Fang, do actually think Jeb will know more about Max and Dylan?" Iggy shot me a "look".

"Maybe. We don't have any leads though. And maybe he can infiltrate some evil-circles and fid out more? He was a whitecoat after all."

"So what? You were a dependable flock mate after all."

"Ouch."

Nudge looked uneasily. I had to agree. Me and Iggy had been really close, obviously, because we are brothers. We would stay up and talk. Even about topics neither of us would share with anyone. Like how Iggy owned a porno mag he couldn't even look at. Or how I hated people so much I wished the world would end. That was before Max decided to save it. Then I was all gung-ho for world saving. I am that whipped. We mostly shared guy stuff. Brother stuff. Things Max would yell at us and call us chauvinist pigs over. Hell, I would probably call us pigs over it too. Stuff like girls, and futures, and breasts, and cars, and breasts, and NASCAR, and freedom, and breasts, and girls.

But now? Things were chilly as the arctic ocean.