Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah..you know I'm not JP.

Standing before me was the last thing I ever would have expected. Nudge and Angel were still standing by me. But the rest of the flock was gathered around Dr. Martinez and Ella. From behind them I could see something was poking out. What the…

I moved in so closer so I could see them. My mother and my half-sister turned around. And sure enough, they had wings. I've seen plenty of mutants in my life, but I just never expected my mother to join the club. I mean, hadn't I complained enough to her how much my runaway mutant bird kid life sucked? Behind the two of them I could see Jeb smiling away like an idiot. I should have known. Jeb was the only person alive with enough evil in his blood to bring my mother and sister into this horrible, secret world my flock and I were forced to live in. I felt my face twist in anger as I stalked towards the cretin. Someone started pulling on my arm and I yanked them away.

"Max, what are you doing?," I heard Nudge say. I turned to look at her but she actually looked scared when she saw how mad I was. "Max, what's wrong? We thought you'd be happy. See, now they can come with us and Dr Martinez can keep us safe."

What?! Not that I didn't love my mother, but did the flock really think that we needed her help to take care of us? I had been taking care of five kids just fine for years now. I just know that Jeb has something to do with this. I turned back toward him and saw his face. He was still smiling away like this was the greatest thing that's happened to us. I swear, when I lay my hands on that jerk ohhh he's gonna get it. I started stalking back towards him again when I felt my arms being pulled together and someone holding me back. I didn't have to turn around to know who it was.

"Fang, let…me…go."

"Nope," he said easily. Leave it to him to keep up with the one-word answers.

"Why not?"

"Because if I let you have your way I'm pretty sure you would pummel Jeb to the ground and we can't have that," Fang said. That was pretty long for Mr. Silent.

Angel came over to us. By now the flock had gathered in our own little circle while Dr. Martinez and Ella looked confused. Jeb finally had realized something was wrong so he looked slightly concerned. Notice the slightly part.

"Max, what's wrong?," Angel looked up at me with her famous puppy dog eyes. "We thought you'd like having your mom and sister with us."

"No sweetie it's fine. I was just a bit startled," I replied.

Fang let go since he knew I wasn't going to kill Jeb….yet. He was the only one who knew I was completely NOT okay with this whole mom and sister with wings prospect. He gave me a look that said we'd talk later. I was trying hard to block my thoughts from Angel so she woudn't find out even though I knew she would eventually. I just didn't want to ruin the moment.

Obviously everyone thought this was a great reason to celebrate so I looked around at my surroundings for once. We were in a big grassy clearing surrounded by trees. It looked pretty secluded. I saw a table full of food and a grill next to it. There was even a cake that had wings made of icing on it. Goodness gracious. It's like Jeb brainwashed everyone. Yeah let's all have a fiesta because two more people have joined that mutant freak world!!! I put on a fake smile and decided to be civil. Ha, Maximum Ride attempting to be civil. Good joke.

I walked over to my mom and Ella. Not knowing me for long, Ella didn't see through my fake smile. Ella jumped on me and made me fall to the ground. She obviously wasn't used to her new superhuman strength.

"Oh my gosh, I'm sorry Max. This is all so new to me. But isn't this awesome! We can all fly around together and go places and-" I had to clamp my hand over her mouth to shut her up. She was definitely hanging around Nudge a little too much. If you know what I mean.

"Yeah it'll be great," I said. Back to that fake smile.

Even though my mother hadn't been around me until recently she knew something was up. My mom gave me and hug and murmured in my ear, "I'm sorry you're upset. It'll all be fine." I started to say something but she shook her head. We didn't want to ruin this for Ella.

Iggy, spatula in hand, shouted "Let's eat!" And with that everyone merged into a line in front of the table. Everyone but Jeb piled several hamburgers on their plate. Thankfully, Iggy had know to cook enough for a bunch of starving mutants. Once we all didn't have our mouths full, we started talking about what was next.

"Well, the Voice still wants us to go to Cape Cod. And to be honest, I don't have any objections to the idea. I mean, where else do we have to go?" I said to the flock, which now had eight members. I was gonna have to get use to that. I had no choice.

"I'm in," Fang said, always the one to back me up. In the end everyone went with it, especially Ella.

"Oh my gosh you guys this is gonna be so great! We're gonna fly all the way to Massachusetts and-"

I cut her off. "Ella."

"Yes."

"You're starting to turn into Nudge."

"I'm sorry Max."

We all stayed in the clearing for the night and went eventually Jeb left. Where he went, I don't know. But I really don't want to know. He's probably spying on us right now. Even though it had only been one evening, it was just plain weird to have my mom present. I mean it kind of felt like we we're being supervised. I don't know, I'm probably just overreacting.