Chapter Eight

Max POV

Knock Knock Knock.

Fang shoots up from the couch.

"Was that the door?" I ask Fang. It was so soft I can't believe he heard it. I cant believe I heard it. The others are still sleeping peacefully. He shrugs his reply.

"Pretend to be asleep!" he hisses, throwing himself back down on the couch. So I do the same and pretend to be asleep. What? Are they doing night experiments now? That's cruel! But, they don't knock, so it's possibly not them. Oh, please, don't let it be them.

The door opens, to reveal a white coat. Crap! In the moonlight I can make out some tousled hair, and a long white coat, that's all I can see.

"Max," it whispers. Jeb! I shoot out of bed, and walk over to him. "Good, you're awake. I hoped you would have come out of the anesthetic by now."

"Did you come to check on me, or something?" I ask. Still unable to see his face. Fang is still pretending to sleep.

"Or something," he says softly. "Max, have a seat." He takes me to the far side of the room, so the sleeping ones won't be disturbed. I plant my butt in a plastic chair, and he sits on the other.

"Max, how do you feel about your new roommates?" he asks, peeking out the window.

"My roommates? Oh, my friends," I saw, looking over my shoulder at them. "Yeah, I like them a lot." He nods his head, and looks at his watch.

"Good, good, I'm glad to hear that."

"Hey, Jeb? Why did you put us all together in here?"

"Well, didn't they tell you? There was overcrowding in the other sectors." he answers, giving me the same story as Gazzy and Iggy gave me.

"Oh, yeah, I guess they did tell me that." I say, looking out the other window.

"Now, getting back to the point," he says directing his eyes into mine, "You enjoy your roommates, they seem to enjoy you. How is your arm?"

"Oh, um, it's okay I guess. It doesn't hurt or anything. What did they do?"

"That's not important right now," he says, waving it off.

"And Fang's feet?" he asks. Fang's feet?

"What do you mean?" I can feel Fang boring holes into my back with his eyes. I turn around to glare at him for not telling me what happened. He's laying flat with his arms behind his head, staring at Jeb and I.

"Fang, shall you tell her?" Jeb asks, acknowledging Fang's presence.

Fang just stares at us. He's not going to tell me. He wouldn't if there was someone else capable of doing it for him. If his feet are hurt, he wouldn't tell me about it anyway. He's not one to complain, so I turn my attention back to Jeb.

Sighing, Jeb says, "Fang burned his feet earlier today. I see he didn't tell you about it. They are bandaged right now, I was wondering how his feet were holding up." I look to Fang again. Sure enough, his feet are both bandaged in white tape. How'd I miss that?

"So you did just come to check on us." I say. When he had said 'or something' earlier, I thought it meant he wasn't just here to check on us. It's making me nervous.

"No. Max, I'm sorry." he says, looking out the window again.

"Sorry? For what?" I ask. Just get to the point!

"Everything," he says standing up. "Max, wake the others. I'm getting you all out of here, out of this facility."

Fang POV

Getting us out of here? Psh. Yeah right. I actually snort out loud. Max and Jeb both turn to look at me. Okay, I can't help it. I laugh.

"What are you laughing at?" Jeb asks. I stop, but still smirk. Max comes over and sits on the couch by me.

"Jeb, what are you saying?" she asks.

"Just what I said, Max. We are leaving. Wake up the others," he says again. I narrow my eyes at him. Is he serious? What if this is trap? But of course, Max trusts him, so she goes to wake up everyone else. "Leave the lights off." Jeb says.

Max POV

"Nudge, Angel, Gazzy, Ig," I whisper, shaking them gently. Angel hardly even opens her eyes. She's too tired to wake up right now. I can carry her, I guess. Ig and Gaz wake up and get out of bed. Nudge sits up in slow motion. I think all her talking during the day wipes her out, maybe if we didn't let her sleep she'd be too tired to talk… Maybe later.

"What's goin on?" Ig asks, rubbing his beautiful, sightless eyes. Nudge and Gazzy nod their agreement.

"Okay, guys, be quiet. We're blowin' this place." I say, trying to contain my enthusiasm.

"What?!" Nudge screeches. I hiss at her to be quiet.

"Everyone, I'm getting you out of here. You can trust me. We're going to a place were you can be away from everything here," Jeb says, coming up behind me. Their eyes get huge and they all jump up, 'cept Angel and Fang. I pick Angel up off the bed and hold her against my hip. Fang comes up beside me.

"Well, we're ready. It's not like we have anything to get together," I say. My friends all gather around me, with expectant looks on their faces. They follow me like a leader. If I trust him, they will too. And I trust him.

"Right, yes. Okay, most of the other scientists have gone home, but not all of them have. So this is what's going to happen. You all need to be quiet. I am going to have to put you all in cages, just to get you outside. Once you are all in the cages, I'll load you onto a cart. If anyone asks, I will say I am taking you to sector E-4. Okay?" we nod. "I'll take you down a few passages that you shouldn't recognize, and then we will be exiting the building in a small parking lot. When we get outside, there will be a car ready for you all, and myself, to drive away in. Is everyone clear? Do not speak. And you mustn't look excited. I don't want to attract any attention." We all nod again.

"Okay, guys. Is everyone going to be able to do that?" I ask. They nod enthusiastically. "Right, okay, is everyone ready?" I ask, taking a deep breath. I really don't want to be stuffed into another cage, I can tell no one else does either. But it's our only way out. Again, they nod. Okay, enough with the foolin' around. Let's blow this joint! "Okay Jeb, take us to the cages."

"Follow me outside. Do not speak. The cages are all lined up outside in the holding room." He goes to the door and opens it a crack, looking outside. He must have left the lights off in there. "Okay. One at a time. Max first."

I take a deep breath, hand Angel over to Fang, and walk outside. He holds a cage door open for me to crawl into. I do, and he shuts the door gently. He walks back to the door and tells Iggy to come out. He leads his to the cage and helps him in. He goes back and gets Angel, then Nudge, and then Gazzy, and lastly, Fang.

One by one, Jeb loads us onto the push-cart. Lucky me, I'm right under Gazzy. He better not do anything while he's up there. Like leave me a special gift. Something is horribly wrong with his system.

Jeb begins to push us out into the corridor. I hope we don't get caught. What would they do to us if we were caught? What would they do to Jeb? They would probably replace him with someone terrible. Well, we can't turn back now. What kind of leader would I be if I went changing my mind in the middle of a humongous decision? Well, between escape, and not escape, I will always pick escape.

We ride the elevator down to the first floor, and down three hallways before we reach trouble. A white coat stops in front of us. I can feel everyone kind of start to panic. Okay, stay calm, Maximum.