I got lots of nice reviews last time, so thank you to everyone who bothered to do that for me! I was soooo happy =)
Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride or any of the amazing characters created by James Patterson
And.....on with the show!!!
I didn't waste time in rounding everyone up in the living room as soon as I could. My mom's eyes were red from crying and Jeb was trying (and failing) to comfort her. The flock look battered and tired, but by the way they sat, tense and stiff, showed that they were ready to continue fighting for Ella's sake. Iggy's hands were clenched in fists so tight that his knuckles were white. He looked angrier than I had ever seen him. As for Total, he looked on adoringly as Akila sat in her plush dog bed by the fire, eating and ripping up a small stack of papers.
"Total, isn't that the poetry you wrote for Akila?" I asked, gesturing suspiciously at the slobbery remains lying by her snout.
"Yes." He sighed dreamily. "As long as she's enjoying it, I'm happy."
I shook my head. Dogs these days!
I clapped my hands to get everyone's attention. "I'm going after them. No questions asked. They've already done enough damage to the rest of us and I will be damned if they do the same to Ella!"
"Max! Language!" My mother scolded through her tears.
Fang made a small grunting noise that counted as a chuckle by his terms. Yes, we all know how Fang cusses like a sailor in his mind and probably found my rare outburst amusing. "I agree with Max." He said, rising to stand beside me. "They might take pity on Ella because she's smaller and more fragile than we are but who knows what those psychos will do if we don't rescue her as soon as we can!"
I couldn't help it. I smiled. He was getting louder and louder everyday, breaking out of the Fang-shell he'd been trapped in all these years. Though I noted with disgust how Jeb flinched slightly at the way Fang called the Whitecoats "psychos". It only made me distrust him even further.
Before I continued I glanced at the clock on the mantle. It was 11:28. It had almost been an hour and a half since we'd been attacked. I sighed. So many mistakes had been made tonight.
For one, we had let down our guard after our false alarm with Jeb. Iggy had confided me that while Fang and I had been downstairs "chatting" with my mom and Jeb, he had convinced Ella to show him where the control panels that controlled the alarms were. I wonder how he did that? NOT (he went flirt-mode on her). Shudder. Anyways, as it turned out, the small box that contained the many switches and buttons which controlled the house's defense system was locked. Thinking quickly (and maniacally) those sweet little kiddos (namely Gazzy, Angel, Ella and Iggy) managed to convince Nudge to use her powers to unlock it. Which is exactly what they did. That was one reason why tonight had gone wrong. I didn't yell at them for it, though. As they sat there sprawled across chairs and couches in the living room they were just bleeding guilt. I just didn't have the heart to rub it in.
Yet another reason why tonight had gone wrong was the fact that we didn't use all of our resources. Perhaps you remember what my mom keeps in her basement, hmmm? GUNS. Yes, that's right. She had a truckload of guns just waiting for us if we needed them. By blocking the basement door, I had put my family in more danger. While keeping my mom in, I had kept the guns out of our way.
The last reason why tonight had gone so, sooooooo, wrong: ELLA IS GONE!!! I think that's enough reason for me to rant and rage!
Needless to say, my mom didn't need much, if any- convincing to let us plan our revenge and fly to wherever we needed to go to get her back. Iggy wanted to be head of this mission, and held this air of authority I had never seen in him before. He almost beat out my mom in the Ella-loving compartment and for once we didn't tease him about it. That doesn't mean he didn't blush though. He did plenty of that, trust me.
Within twenty-five minutes, we were out the door and in the air. We didn't want to waste anymore time, considering she'd already been there for about two hours. Coming from experience, being there for even a minute was enough to scar you for life. My stomach twisted in knots at the thought of what experiments she might be going through. There was a chance that they had only kidnapped her to lure us to their headquarters, but it was slim. All they wanted was her. As a normal human being with the X-Factor she was priceless. We still hadn't told the others about the special ability both Ella and I shared. Except for Angel. She had read our minds, but it confused her so she didn't ask any questions.
"Wait!" Iggy suddenly called.
"What?" I grunted out, irritated. We had just started picking up some speed!
His sightless blue eyes bore hard into mine. How he even knew where my eyes were is beyond me! It must have been the fact that we were completely surrounded by white clouds. "We don't even know where they took her! How are we supposed to find her if we don't know where we're going? You're supposed to be the leader Max, but you have no clue what you're doing!" He put in his head in his hands in his frustration.
Fang flew over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey man, it's gonna be okay. We'll find her." He looked over at me and smiled, and I could've sworn that the sun broke through the clouds at that moment.
"What about the clouds?" Gazzy asked, looking up at me.
"Huh?" I said dumbly.
"You just said something about Fang smiling and the clouds and…??" He trailed off, confused.
I looked to Angel for help.
You just said that last part out loud,
She informed me. Well, crap! I definitely didn't mean to do that. I looked over my shoulder to see Iggy and Fang holding their stomach mid-air from laughing so hard. Glad to see that Iggy got over his depression by having a laugh at my expense!
Fang suddenly swooped down closer to me. He put a hand on my cheek and whispered in my ear, "You're blushing." With that, he took off following the rest of the flock as they headed for a nearby clearing to land in.
I scowled as my blush deepened and I raised my hand to the spot where Fang had put his hand. Just then, a familiar voice decided to drop by for a visit.
Max, focus on the task!
Well I would if you would just tell me-
That was my intention.
It interrupted me. That was strange. Not to mention rude! The voice didn't usually interrupt me like that.
Ok, continue please Oh Great Voice.
I said, hoping it would tell me how to get Ella back.
She's in Texas. In a building being run by a man named Mr.C in Dallas. As a warning, the whitecoats there are particularly hostile, so be cautious. Also, it would do you well to look for D.P.
With that, the Voice stopped speaking and wouldn't answer any more questions no matter how many times I tried to get it to come back.
I landed on the ground next to my flock fairly gracefully and told them everything I'd learned in the past few minutes.
"So she's in Texas?" Iggy repeated. "Then let's go!" He eagerly spread his wings and headed into the clouds above. We followed him east for a few minutes when Nudge decided to bring up another part of the Voice's message that didn't seem to make sense to any of us.
"D.P?" She asked, twirling a dark ringlet of hair around her finger and chewing loudly on some pink gum. Well that's Nudge for ya!
I shrugged. "That's what the Voice said."
"Oooh! Do you think it meant like Dr. Pepper? Ya know? D.P like Dr. and Pepper!" She grinned, convincing herself that the Voice wanted us to arrive at the scene armed with only cans of fizzy Dr. Pepper to protect us.
We all looked at each other, shaking our heads.
"Well, I don't know what it meant by that exactly, but I'm sure we'll figure it out when we get there." Well at least I hoped we would!
**************
Not much later (thanks to our awesome flying abilities) we arrived in Dallas, Texas. Unfortunately, we just couldn't go any longer without catching a few Z's so we found a nice, though not very clean place to rest up until morning. None of us slept well due to the fact that we kept thinking about whether Ella was okay or not and feeling guilty that we were sleeping instead of rescuing her. But honestly, if we had kept going we wouldn't have made it. So, in the morning after a fitful night on the dirty ground, we began our hunt for this unnamed building supposedly run by a "Mr.C" (A/N to those of you who have read MR5 you will know who Mr.C is. I just didn't add his actual name in here because it didn't show up in my last chapter for some unknown mystical reason). We weren't having much luck so we resorted to asking people on the street. Most of the adults just looked at us strangely, thinking we were a bunch of misfits and didn't even bother answering us. I didn't blame them. We were a bit frantic and didn't mind randomly questioning people in alleys, coffee shops and street corners, with a less than mature attitude in our hurry. So for that reason, we decided to ask a few kids instead. They were less suspicious.
I approached a little boy wearing a blue hat and green sneakers at a park. His mom was sitting on a bench gossiping with one of the other ladies while this little boy ran freely around. Sheesh! Great parenting, Lady! Even I, a mere teenager, take care of my kids better than that.
Yeah, you're a good mommy,
Angel told me sweetly. I smiled at her from where she sat on one of the swings nearby. I didn't mind that she called me mommy because I sometimes found myself calling her my "daughter" in my head.
Ok, back to my task!
"Hey there, kid." I said to the little boy calmly, hoping not to scare him off.
He looked up me with green eyes and a trail of mud smeared across his cheek. "Hi".
"Well, um, I was wondering if you've heard of a man named Dr.C??"
He blinked at me and started ripping pieces of grass out of the ground and dropping the handful of grass blades into his lap. "Yep." He popped the "p" loudly and continued his destruction of the shrubbery.
"Where? Where have you heard of him?" I tried to keep my voice normal but it was obvious how desperate I was.
"The place with the pretty pictures." He explained, and suddenly dashed off after his friend.
Hmmm…what could that mean? A museum? Or maybe a gallery?
I rounded everybody up and we headed to a nearby diner to borrow a phonebook. While everyone else ate like ravenous pigs, one of the waitresses was nice enough to let me sit on a stool by the cash register to use the phone. I flipped through pages upon pages in the borrowed phonebook looking up different museums and galleries until I finally found the right one. It said: Mr.C's Art Studio. Aha! So it was here after all. I quickly jotted down the address and joined the others at the booth they were occupying.
"An art studio?" Iggy asked through a mouthful of toast.
"Yeah." I muttered. "Let's go!"
*********
We followed the directions before arriving at a humongous brown building in the middle of nowhere by a dusty road.
"Lovely." I commented, noting the faded wooden sign in the front and the old, rusty door at the entrance.
Before I even had to say anything, Iggy was marching up to the door and knocking loudly. "Open up!" He kept repeating.
We stood behind him, alert and ready for anything. Soon enough, the big doors opened to reveal a man with dark hair and green eyes. He wore a lab-coat looking thing, which was pretty mysterious. But this white coat was splattered here and there with different colors and he wore converse on his feet so I didn't want to jump to conclusions. He looked confused to see us standing there, but let us in hurriedly.
As soon as we entered the room, we were in awe. Every single wall was covered floor to ceiling with artwork. They were bright and creative and…hypnotizing. I was surprised to find that most of the paintings were unusual, despite their beauty. Some were of dragons, others of fairies, and quite a few were of mermaids. There was one particular drawing that caught my attention. It was of a giraffe with wings. I guess what made me notice it was the wings, like an engineered avian giraffe instead of an avian human, like me.
"Have you come for the paintings? The tour starts at two 'o clock." He said brightly, taking in our ragged appearance with interest rather than disgust.
"Ummm…no actually." I answered.
"Max, look!" Fang called from across the room. He stood before one of the mermaid paintings, pointing at it.
"What is it?" I walked over to where he stood and stared at the spot where he was pointing, right at the corner. The signature at the bottom was a simple abbreviation: D.P. My eyes widened. The voice said that D.P. would be of some help to us, so now that we knew that D.P. was a person (and not a soda pop), we just needed to find him.
I turned around to the unknown guy again, who was standing by an easel whisking a paintbrush back and forth it enthusiastically.
"Excuse me? We were wondering if you knew where to find D.P. You know, the person whose name is at the bottom of these paintings?"
The guy grinned goofily at us and stopped his painting. He gestured proudly to his nametag. "That's me. My name is Dominic Perea and I think you have come here with something other than artwork on your mind. And I think I can help you."
How was it?? I know it was shorter than other chapters, and not much happened, but LOTS of stuff will happen in the next chapter! Plus, Dominic will be a major savior for the flock, so watch out for him in my next update :)
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