Savory smells wafted through the air as Iggy worked his magic.

"Remind you to always find you first if I lose you guys again," I said around a mouthful of food. Iggy was the best cook in the world. I don't think I'd had food this good in a long time. The meat was well cooked, well skinned, and well seasoned. It was, well, excellent. Newt, Chuck, and Iggy didn't hesitate before falling to the chow like animals. See what a few days disconnected will do to you, we're eating deer meat off of sticks!

Optimum didn't dive in like everyone else. Sure he politely accepted his shish kabob, but he only took teensy wimp bites.

"Haven't you ever eaten stuff like this before?" I asked.

"Wha-"

"You're barely touching it, if you not hungry someone else will eat it."

"I'm hungry, I just. I'm not like you guys I take most of my energy from the sun."

Well tickle me pink and call this a shocker. "No kidding?"

"Nope," he shook his head.

"Show me."

Optimum got up and spread his wings. Under the afternoon sun they seemed to glitter like they had sequins on each feather. Then his eyes started to glow with sunlight, which was…..creepy. Chuck, Newt, and I gasped together.

"What's going on?" Iggy demanded.

"Optimum's wings have, like, sequin-y things on them that are gathering sunlight and his eyes are glowing and it's really creepy," Chuck said with his eyes bugging out.

"Solar panels," Iggy supplied.

"Yeah I guess that's what they are," Chuck said after giving it a moment's thought. He reminded me so much of Gasman sometimes. It made my heart ache for my flock, even Fang. Even though I was mad at him, even though he was an egoist that deserved to be taught a lesson. I swallowed hard trying to keep some lonely tears from falling into my food. Even though I guess that would only add to the salt factor.

"It's okay guys, be all gung ho like me. I know what I'm doing there's always a plan."

My head snapped up and I stared at the part of the woods where that voice had come from, because the voice belonged to me!

"Yeah listen to the leader, guys. When something cool happens maybe I'll blog it. You guys are pretty boring though," Fang said.

"Stop talking my ears are bleeding!" Iggy yelped. But not clearing Iggy, strange out in the woods Iggy.

Nudge giggled, "He only says that to me."

I looked at the others who were staring at the woods, even Ops.

"G-guys?" I asked in a husky whisper.

"Shush I think I heard something," Nudge said.

Nudge saying hush, these were imposters for sure. I got off my log and got into a fighters crouch.

"Hush? Hush? He's been talking all day and you've been accompanying him. If we stop now we might not be able to start up again."

"Total?!" clearing Iggy exclaimed before I could stop him.

Crashing sounds came from the woods and Total flew into my arms followed by Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel. Fang, wasn't there. I mean I would've understood him not getting into a mushy hug or anything, but when we finally pulled away a quick scan confirmed that he wasn't present. Disappointment bloomed in my chest, but was quickly overthrown.

"Do I smell food?" the Gasman asked his eyes big. Total had already leaped out of my arms and was trying to pull a hunk off of a deer kabob.

"Yeah, I call them shish ka-deer. Help yourself."

Everyone fell on the food, like, well ravenous wolves bent on eating until there was nothing left to eat. This didn't take nearly long enough, barely five minutes.

"Is that all?" the Gasman asked in a whiny voice. Then he caught sight of Optimum, who was still charging. "Who's that?"

"This brat called Optimum that thinks he's a big old 'alpha' with some sort of family connection to Max." Iggy spat, which I guess showed his opinion on the matter.

"Well it's true," Angel said matter of factly while she drew in the dirt with her kabob stick. "Jeb said something like this might happen. He told me we should be prepared to be secondary eventually. Y'know 'cause he'll take Max away and they'll go save the world while they rest of us are terminated. He said I might be good enough to be considered a Ride and I could go with them. Angel Ride. It's a pretty name." She started a new drawing.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. Ops was going to take me away, the rest of the flock was going to be killed, and she was just telling me this now?! The mind of a six-year-old, I will never understand.

I was glad I wasn't the only shocked one though. Everyone, but Angel and the Gasman were frozen. I looked from Iggy's horrified expression to Nudge's then I caught sight of Newt and Chuck looking equally upset. Why did those mazers care about me? I have no idea.

"There not mazers, Max," Angel said. "They call themselves Gladers because they used to live in a glad. Well, not really, but that's what they called it."

Gosh, I love her dearly, but sometimes she just gives me the willies. Newt and Chuck looked like they agreed 100%.

I was feeling a little sick. I didn't know if Optimum could hear us when he was in his trance-y type thing, but the sooner we got some space between him and us the better. If Jeb thought I was going with him as opposed to Ari he had another thing coming. In fact, Ari might be bad on the outside, but Ops was just as bad on the inside despite his outer appearance. He was a monster with wings. Were all my clones this bad?

"Okay guys gather in," I said in a hushed voice.

Everyone gathered around in a football huddle and I laid out the plan.

"Ready?" I asked. Everyone nodded. "Stack'em up."

Everyone stacked their fists and we tapped the back of our hands. It was kind of a bedtime ritual, but right now I just needed something familiar.

The flock snapped out their wings in one, almost, fluid motion and we took a running start into the air. It was one of our better ones I must admit.

"Hey! Excuse me, are you just going to leave us?"

I looked down and saw Newt and Chuck glaring up at us. Oops. Just than Ops eyes opened and he took one look at the situation and sprang into action.

"Never mind, go, we'll fight him off," Newt yelled as he charged at Optimum. I didn't doubt he'd last five seconds, but what choice did we have. With my nearly united flock I did a sprint speed pace until we found a cave in the side of a cliff around mid-afternoon. We seem to find those a lot.

"This isn't so bad guys, it seems like we've been here-or at least a place like here before. Gee I wish I could remember."

"I might be able to read your mind, and see all those thoughts you can't remember." This was just Angel's creepy day.

"Wait, you can remember stuff. You remembered about Jeb."

Angel smiled, "Of course. I never forgot it like you guys did. I guess you just can't mess with my brain." Angel started twirling around like a ballerina then picked up a stick and threw it for Total. Our little black dog chased it yelling, "Yippeeee!" at the top of his lungs.

"Be quiet Total, unless you want my weird stalker-slash-kidnapper-slash-brother to show up and take me away," I said half joking.

"I'm here for Maximum, I'm going to kidnap her and take her and we're going to save the world together and then settle down as a nice family," the Gasman said in a stiff robotic imitation of Optimum's voice.

The others cracked up. It was just the flock again, no Gladers, no Erasers, no Fang. I really wished Fang would come back so I could hug him, and then punch his lights out. Maybe even skip the hugging part.

The sun wasn't even close to setting, but Gazzy, Nudge, Angel, and Total all curled up on the cool ground and fell asleep. I wished I could do the same.

"Did they seriously just fall asleep?" Iggy asked.

I nodded than remembered he couldn't see me. "I'm nodding Ig."

Iggy nodded and slowly started fanning his wings to create a breeze.

"There over there. 6 O'clock," I told him

"This isn't for them, it's steaming in here!"

That was true enough. It was a sauna near the mouth of the cave. Near the back where the little ones where sleeping was nice a cool, it was like the difference between and oven and a refrigerator. There wasn't anything I wanted to do more than curl up in the cool gravel spreading out my wings and take a nice, cool, nap.

But there was dinner to think of and we didn't have anything to eat. It's not like Newt and Chuck would show up with another deer. Just thinking about that made my mouth water and gave me the push I needed to get up and hurl myself off the edge of the cave into the thick air.

Ever have on of those days when the air feels like it's pressing down on you? Well this was one of those days. And flying makes it worse.

My wings beat as sluggishly as they could without falling out of the sky, although the air felt thick enough that it would slow the fall like syrup, ha Max, the fly in the ointment. Honestly that's what it felt like. Sweat was dripping down my face and sticking my hair to my skin.

"Hey! It's one of them!"

I looked down and saw a group of boys staring up and pointing at me. They all had weapons and not the clumsy sharpened stick spear. Oh no, they had some compound bows and arrows, guns, rifles, swords, spears, random dangerous pointy things. And they looked like they wanted to use their extermination weapons on me! My suspicions were confirmed when a bullet whizzed past my ear.

"Can we talk this out?" I called down. A gunshot sounded. "No?" I swooped low into the trees behind them. Reason 1.f or cover, reason 2. they would need to turn around before they hit me. I whipped through the trees branches lashing my face and arms. I could even feel a few feathers get ripped out as I made a dangerously sharp turn. I was panting and my lungs were burning but I could hear the boys chasing my yelling and crashing through the woods. The occasional thunk or crack of a weapon hitting a tree only made me go faster.

Finally I couldn't hear them anymore. I gratefully landed in a tree and straddled the limb while I caught my breath.

"I'm gonna need a vacation after this," I muttered between gasps.

Max, this is your vacation.

Well it isn't that kindly little voice. What do you mean by that? My oh-so-convenient-but-surprisingly-reluctant-to-be- useful voice didn't answer. What kind of vacation is this? A very bad one. I'm gonna need a vacation after this 'vacation.'

Hunger finally made me get up, and I got up with a plan. You don't sit around doing nothing where I come from….which is? We'll work on that later.

I took flight landing a good distance away from the death cult. I slowly crept through the woods darting from tree to tree until I was on the edge of their camp. And let me tell you it was a camp. They had tents in organized rows, fires, food stores, weapons, and who know what stored up in those tents. I bet sleeping bags and extra clothes. I'd have to come back later with the flock, we should be able to take this place no problem. But for now I'd have to settle with a weapon and food. No way was I catching my own when they had some right here.

I saw a big old gun propped up on a tree and slowly took it. I followed that with a knife that had this funny sheath that went around your thigh. Then slit the back of an unoccupied tent and filled my backpack with food, clothes, and some more weapons. Then I snuck back out, put some distance between myself and the exterminators, and did an up-and-away. It was kind of clumsy because of the extra weight, but I managed.