I don't own Maximum Ride!

I woke up cold. My watch read 5:01 PM.

Really got to work on my sleeping patterns...

Getting up, I realized my blankets were completely soaked with melted snow. Real smart, setting up camp on the downhill side.

More peanut butter for breakfast and away I went, using a swing set to get in the air. I left my wet blanket on the ground for some poor soul, I couldn't carry it around anyway, too wet and heavy.

The flying was just as great as I remembered it to be, not particular direction, just being free.

I wonder if my family has started freaking out yet. It's Wednesday, so the school probably called. I just hope they're ok.

Around 9, things went wrong. A blizzard hit, which was unusual down this far south. I couldn't get any higher than the clouds, and I couldn't land. It was either a dense forest or occasional lake. I haven't tried landing in trees, and didn't want to risk it. The ice had been pretty thin this year, and I didn't want to risk that either. Basically I was stuck in a hard spot.

An hour later, I was wet and cold. I hate being cold. The winds were merciless. They shook me and ripped out feathers. My braid whipped around and slapped me a few more times. And to top it off, I was tired. All my body wanted to do was close my eyes and fall asleep, whether I was in the air or not.

If I was any regular human, I would have already passed out. During flight, I got some beef jerky out of my pack and nibbled on it to try to keep myself awake. It wasn't really working.

Please don't let me just die up here, let it be somewhere warm and on the beach! I HATE the cold!

The cold had been zapping my strength, diffidently. Strangely, I wasn't cold anymore though. A warm, fuzzy feeling had seeped into me, starting at my fingers. Now, 30 minutes later, it had made its way all over me. I've been getting continually drowsier. Now, it getting extremely to carry a train of thought and flying just got harder.

Ice started forming on my wings and I felt myself losing altitude fast as my vision got all fuzzy. I quickly snapped out of it and rose back up. But about 5 minutes later I felt myself falling again, but faster. Fuzzy thoughts of panic flew through my tired, cold brain. But they left me right as they came.

So naturally, I did the only thing I could think of doing, I went into autopilot. I felt myself grow warmer and a blast of light escaped me as my mind left. Right as I blacked out, a flash of white and brown shot past my eyes. Then everything went black.

...aaa...aaa...~~~~~...aaa...aaa...

I woke up with a massive headache.

Falling, I remember falling.

My eyes shot open to a cozy scene. 6 backpacks were thrown in the corner of a small cave. A fire was made in the middle with 8 blankets around it. I was on one, under a blanket I didn't recognize. It was nice and warm though. My pack was set down next to me and I noticed it had been searched through. Surprisingly, nothing really hurt except my head. My fingers and toes were slightly off color, but other than that I was fine. The blizzard still raged, but this cave was cozy and worm. Whoever made this fire knows how to make it right.

All alone, again. My captors were either invisible, which I could believe, or they went out into the storm, which is very stupid.

Getting up caused my head to hurt, and everything was really stiff. I stretched out my wings then wrapped them around me the best I could to keep in the warm. I was having a hard time staying warm.

The snow outside made it hard to tell if it was daytime or not and I couldn't find my watch.

After the initial panic was over, I started to get really bored. In all the books, you can skip over the boring parts of the story, but in real life, it can get pretty boring.

Finally, finally, after an hour, I heard a very familiar sound. The sound of huge wings beating.

Max POV:

So last night, we saw this brilliant flash and a white streak falling to the ground. Nudge thought it was a flying star, Gazzy thought it was an exploded airplane, Angel thought that it was Santa's sleigh crashing. It ended up being a fellow freak, one with wings, and she could glow. After she didn't wake up, we decided to go eat, even if it was 6 below.

We've been in this weather for weeks now, searching for, well... just searching for something really important. We were used to parkas now.

The only thing open at 2 AM was the local heart attack. By the time we got back, the temperature had dropped another 10 degrees so the flight was not fun at all.

The strange new girl was by the fire with Gazzy's blanket around her. Lucky for her, it was a new blanket.

When we landed, she was frozen stiff, and it wasn't from the cold.

"Who are you?" she asked.

Everyone, including me, was shocked she could talk. And the fact that she had a pretty funky accent. Her "are" sounded like "aar" and her "you" sounded like "yew." It was kind of a mix of southern and British, if that makes any sense.

"Who we are is not important." I replied with steel in my voice.

"oh Max," began Iggy," lay off already. Can't you see she's scared?"

Oh, yeah. Iggy can see now. Not perfectly, but he does have more flashes of vision than blindness nowadays. We're hoping he's get all his vision permanently soon.

Was it just me, or is she glowing again?

"My name's Iggy and this is Max, Nudge, Dylan, Gazzy, and Angel. Oh yeah... and Total..." Total shot him a look as he pointed to us all in turn. "Do you have a name?"

She looked shocked and for a second, the glow faded. "Of course I have a name! But how do I know I can trust you? And who's in charge?"

I stepped forward. "That'd be me. And yes you can trust us; we're against the evil whitecoats also."

"Wait, what whitecoats?"

"You mean you didn't come from a lab?"

She laughed. We didn't.

"Wait... You mean a lab. With white coats and sterile equipment. Of course not! I came from my house with my mom, and dad, and cat."

Total didn't look very happy. "Great, all we need is another cat person."

I was going to correct him, we're all dog people, but the new girl beat me to it. "You... you just talked!" her already huge eyes widened even more.

"Yeah, and so did you. How come everyone's so shocked when the dog talks? I can't help it! I came from a lab!"

"But... But..." she composed herself, something I've done too many times to count "you're serious about this lab thing, aren't you?"

"You bet, more than we want to be. But how did you get weird? You are a mutant, right?"

I saw the back of her blanket twitch and the glow come back.

"What about you? You've got to be off your trolley to think I'm just going to say anything without persuasion. I'm not stupid enough to kill myself!"

I immediately gave the signal to my flock and we all whipped out our wings, including Total.

Her eyes widened again and she slowly shook off her blanket and extended two wings also. They were kind of a combination of Mine and Iggy's. She had brown and black specs like me, but her feathers were colored much whiter and tanner. Not as dark as Nudge but not as light as Gazzy or Angel. More like Iggy or Dylan's .

Her skin was a little lighter than her wings, a light tan. There were a few freckles on her face and arms. She spent a lot of time outside. A large scar ran up her leg, plus a few more here and there, she can be pretty tough also. Right now, all I was picking up was confusion and fear from her, she had no idea what was going on. See how much I can tell about people by their looks?

She had large-no- un-proportionally large blue eyes. They were dark blue on the outside and then a shocking, electric blue near the pupil. I found myself staring at them; so many secrets seemed to swim in the deep pools. The whole time I was studying her; those eyes never once left mine. She didn't even seem to blink. It was if she was looking into my very soul.

Basically, the new-be looked like a scared girl of 14 or 15 that could rip your head off any time she cared to.

After my evaluation, Nudge walked up to her. "are you ok? You look terrible. Not saying you look bad or anything... just, you know, sickish. I mean, you did have minor hypothermia and frostbite and all and mfb!" "Nudge! You're scaring her!" said Iggy as he clamped a hand over her mouth. It's true; she did look a little taken aback at Nudge's motor mouth.

"Was I... was I really that bad?" asked TNG (the new girl)

"Well... yeah. You were passed out for about 7 hours. Your body temp was 9 degrees colder than it should be. It was pretty dicey at first, but you're ok now." She visibly relaxed. "two questions though- what's your name, and why were you in that storm?"

Strangely, Iggy was being really nice to her. Normally his attitude was "make me mad and prepare to be seriously injured." But now it was more like "I still don't really trust you, but I think I'll be nice to you because you're scared and I kind of got attached to you while treating you, and you're kinda pretty." She looked about the same, skeptical but more comfortable around him. Maybe I was because he was the one who stood up for her in the first place, maybe not. Who knows?

Oh I think you know Max.

Will you shut up Voice? Man it gets on my nerves!

Sorry Max, but I'm only saying, maybe it's time for Iggy to get a little more attention for a while.

Hush.

"Well... my name is Allyson. I was normal, now I'm not. That was only my second time flying, and I don't know how to land in trees. I was stuck in the air. That's all you need to know."

He held up his hands. "Hey, no need to get all defensive, I'm on your side. So you were normal, as in not born this way?

"right. I was a regular human, just your average Joe. Then 6 months ago, all this happened. That's all I know."

Her eyes started to droop as her stomach rumbled. He walked over to her slowly and touched her, trying to calm her down. "you hungry?"

She smiled and a weird look passed over Iggy's face. "I'm always hungry."

"Let's get you something to eat then" he helped her up "we do need about 4,000-4,500 calories per day you know..."

"oh," she laughed," that explains a lot!"

And that my friends is how Iggy adopted a new person to our flock.

Ta-da! A new chap, sorry for the wait! I won't update anytime soon, going on vacation!
review please