Let me just begin this author's note by saying I am a total douche at updating, and this is the second time I've updated on a Fall holiday. And unfortunately, I am such a douche that yes, I would make you wait several months for a... a... *Sob* a filler.
Funny story- I was IMing two people at once when I was writing this; one was KaylaAnonymous, my real-life best friend/epic beta who submitted Zelda, the other was this guy I go to school with. I was typing paragraphs to Kayla one at a time, and I accidentally sent one to the guy. The guy who had never heard of fanfiction, or Maximum Ride. It was terrible. I'll put a * next to the paragraph it was, so you understand just how terrible it was.
Three Years Previously...
She is running as fast as she can, branches tearing at her ankles with every step. Her breath comes raggedly, sharps huffs creating steam in the early-morning air as her bare feet pound the ground. How long has she been running? It's seemed like forever. She can't keep this up much longer. She shoots a terrified glance behind herself, not knowing what she will see. Her heart pounds with fear, knowing that if she returns to that place, she will die. Her life will end before it had a chance to really begin. But nine years of experiments, pain, and torture has made her desperate - She must escape.
She hears gunshots. Howling. A bullet hits a tree next to her, sending splinters of wood ricocheting off. In the distance, her superhuman hearing detects low-pitched growls. No! She can not go back! She trips on a branch, falls. Her hands fly out to break her fall, a rock cuts deep into one of them. It doesn't matter. Crying with fear and exhaustion, the girl scrambles back up and surges forward, a burst of terror-fueled energy powers her to take one more step, then another. Another. She's running again, with no idea where she is or where she should be.
A pain in her side. Her throat feels raw. Her legs throb and her hand is bleeding openly. She doesn't care. The growls are getting louder. She tries to run faster, but she can't. She's reached her limit. She's slowing down. No!
She falls to her knees first, then the rest of her follows. She lies there, panting, trying to ignore the sound of her blood rushing. She is tired. So tired... Her eyes start to close.
Footsteps. Voices. Getting closer. What are they saying? Does it matter?
A hand roughly grabs her shoulder, jerking her upwards. The touch releases a floodgate of memories, broken images and sequences that make no sense together. A flourescent-lit hallway, hazy and distorted through her drugged eyes. A man's voice, rattling off stats. People in white coats, children in cages. Her eyes snap open. SHE CAN NOT GO BACK!
Fangs spring out of her gums, venom dripping from them as she turns to face the half-morphed Eraser. She sinks her fangs into his wrist, he screams in pain "What the hell?". She bites down hard, scrunching her eyes shut. The Eraser screams again, bloodcurtlingly, as the poison enter his bloodstream. She lets go, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as her fangs retract.*
A click. A gun. The other Eraser. She looks up, only to find herself looking down the barrel of a rifle. The Eraser growls at her, but the effect is ruined by the nervous glances he keeps shooting his twitching, screaming friend. He's afraid, but not backing down.
She turns on her heel and runs, fueled again by the will to live. She doesn't want to die. She can't go back. A shot rings past her ear, hitting the dirt in front of her. She darts to the left, zig-zagging through the trees. Her feet falling hard on the ground again, the exhaustion beginning to return. She shakes it off. No!
What is that? Up ahead. The sky. A clearing. A clearing! She runs faster, bursting through the treeline just as another bullet whizzes past her. She leaps, unfurling her bright-colored wings as she's in the air. She flaps down hard, then up again. Clumsily, she rises above the trees to see the sun peeking over the horizon. She's flying.
She's free.
Snow POV
"Run". Verb. Three letters, one syllable. It's a pretty small word, wouldn't you say? It's a pretty common word, don't you think? You probably don't look too much into the word "run". You probably use it everyday, without really thinking about it. But the impact this word, this tiny little word has on my life, and the lives of everyone around me... Well, let's just say it's significant.
Because that's what we do. We run - Debatably, the day we started running was the day our lives truly began. We run away. We run for our lives. We run until we can't run anymore, and then we fly. We run because of fear, because of the will to survive.
"Run" is also the difference between us (Livvie and me), and Zelda, Energy, and Rhaksha. All of us ran - It's just that some of us waited for the "Ready, set, GO!", and the rest made their own starting line.
Either way, it didn't matter. One month, three years, a few weeks, or however long Energy had been out, - She didn't say, I didn't ask - we were all in the same boat now. Rhaksha was the youngest of us, but she had the most experience. Not to mention - get this - retractable venomous fangs. Zelda had been out the least amount of time, but she knew how the enemy worked. And Energy? Well, she was an amazing fighter, plus there was the fact that she had a nine millimeter. Major asset, I tell you. Livvie - I don't think I've mentioned this before, but she had this power she called "phasing". She could... Er, walk through walls. It was impossible and scary and I have no idea how she did it, but she did.
As for me, well, I didn't have any powers. I wasn't really anything special at all, in fact. But for some strange reason, the others started naturally deferring to me as the leader. I don't know, maybe I was their pity case for not having a cool power or fancy gun obtained under shady circumstances (Again, she didn't say, I didn't ask). However it happened, the point was that it did.
We were headed west - to California, flying high over small-town Ohio, right on schedule. Meeting Rhaksha had gone surprisingly well - no one threatened to kill us, at least. Admittedly, this was because Rhaksha and Energy had met and formed something of an alliance, if not a friendship.
I watched them all from the back of the group as we flew. Rhaksha was tanned, like the others, but had waist-length black hair with silver streaks and bangs, green eyes and an average height.
"Hey!" I looked over to see Energy motioning to a small cube-like building on the ground. I squinted, then realized it was a gas station. Food? she mouthed. I glanced at Livvie, Zelda, and Rhaksha, saw them nod in agreement.
"Land behind the building!" I yelled over the wind, and we all began to descend smoothly. I felt my feet touch solid ground and folded my wings against my back, pulling an oversized sweatshirt out of my backpack as the others did the same. I turned to them. "Ready?" It would, technically, be one of our first interaction with humans. Everyone nodded back gamely.
We walked around the front of the building, where a lone guy was pumping gas into a pick-up truck. He eyed us suspiciously beforing turning his back. Rhaksha pushed open the door to the building and a bell tinkled quietly overhead. I followed after her, Livvie, Zelda, and Energy behind me. An acne-ridden teenager - Dirk, according to his nametag - glanced at us boredly, then turned up the music on his iPod. Jeez, I thought. Friendly place.
We headed straight for the food aisle, though there wasn't much there. Everyone started grabbing bags of chips, cookies, and waters. "Hey," Rhaksha sidled up to me and whispered. "Do we have enough money for all this?"
"Uh..."
She nodded. "We'll have to run for it." I nodded back, then whispered directions to Livvie, who passed it down the line. I turned around, looking for granola bars, when something caught my eye - a stand of newspapers. Blaring the headline FLYING KIDS SPOTTED OUTSIDE ORLANDO, FLORIDA.
Wha-at?
I grabbed a paper, scanning the page. A blurry photograph of six large, awkwardly-shaped birds flying through an overcast sky occupied most of the space. Except that they weren't birds. They were kids. A subtitle ran under the headline, asking THE SAME AS SEEN IN NEW YORK CITY RESTAURANT IN JUNE?
June, I realized. That was when we escaped. A million thoughts burst into my head at once about the mysterious kids who'd rescued us - They were still out there. In Florida.
Just then, Zelda tapped me on the shoulder. "Ready?" She whispered.
"I was born ready," I replied. I glanced back at Dirk, who appeared to be listening to music still, not paying attention. "Be casual."
Zelda opened the door, put one foot on the sidewalk, and then Dirk finally caught on. "Hey!" He yelled nasally, standing up. "You have to pay for that!"
"Run!" Someone yelled - Energy, I think - and Zelda bolted, with Livvie and Rhaksha right behind here. Energy and I brought up the rear just as Dirk made it around the counter, his shoes slipping on the linoleum floor. Pick-up truck guy was gone, I noticed. Zelda ran to the edge of the parking lot, us following her, Dirk following us.
"Come back!" He yelled, his voice cracking. Zelda reached the side of the deserted intersection, turned back to look at me questioningly. Do we fly here, and risk having Dirk go to the media with claims of flying out-of-towners with strangely-colored hair, or do we go on foot until we lose him? It was obvious to me - we could outrun the wimpy teenager any day, but from the look on Zelda's face I knew what she was going to do. She turned, unfurled her wings and jumped into the air.
The others followed suit, I, thinking Screw it, the damage is already done, did the same. Behind me, I Dirk went silent. I twisted around in the air to look back at him, and couldn't help laughing at the expression of pure 'WHAT?' on his face. His mouth was like a perfect O. Admittedly, the theatrics had been worth it just to see that face. I turned and flew after the others, who were exclaiming victoriously a few hundred feet above.
We ascended another thousand feet and swept around in a slow circle, headed West again. As we flew off into the setting sun, I realized I was, well, happy. Which was completely illogical, I mean, I knew what I was up against. But still, that was the first thing we'd really done together as a Flock. It wasn't much - Petty crime, anyone? - but it was more than nothing. And the look on that guy's face...
I wiped the sweat off my forehead, squinting through the unforgiving Death Valley sun. When Zelda talked about the lab out in California, she failed to mention the fact that it was freaking HOT there. I'm not even joking - the average temperature for July was one hundred fifteen degrees Fahrenheit. The hottest it had ever gotten in New York (in my lifetime) had been 102 one Summer, and I'd been underground for that.
I watched as Energy raised the Institute-issue binoculars (courtesy of Zelda) to her eyes, focusing on the nondescript block of a building about two miles away. It had been four days since the grand theft junk food spree in Ohio. Now we were outside the School. It seemed harmless enough to me, but Energy and Rhaksha were definitely on edge. If it was anything like the Institute inside, though, I understood why.
The thought struck me like a ton of bricks. Going into another Institute? I didn't know what we'd see - cages, Erasers - Oh God. What if we were captured? I can't go back there, a place like that. Can't. What the hell was I even doing? Trying to take down Itex? Heroic bullshit. Could never happen. Not from me, anyway, no matter how much help I could get. In the end, we were all still just kids, no matter how much we'd been through. Could never even touch Itex, never.
Then, I saw the other angle of it. A place like the Institute, you knew what was in there - people who need to get out. Get away from it, before it killed them. I'd been in a place like that, not too long ago, and someone had obviously had the guts to help. And they'd lived to tell the story, I realized, remembering the newspaper I'd seen.
Was there really any question on if I could do it? Absolutely. Was I going to do it anyway?
You bet.
RnR?
Apologies once again!