A/N Next chapter, as promised. Okay, so I caved to my OCD and deleted the author's note from before - it was just annoying me too much that the chapter numbers weren't matching up. :P There are a few parts in this which may be considered a little freaky by some people. At least, I found it a wee bit freaky to write, but that might just have been the way I was picturing it in my head. You've been warned!

That night was a tense affair. I couldn't stand to be near either Fang or Dylan, and they weren't exactly cuddling up close with each other, either – when you're spending the night in a fairly small cave, having three people avoiding each other isn't the most comfortable situation in the world. As the temperature dropped, we lit a small fire close enough to the entrance of the cave so that the smoke could escape, but not so close that it would be immediately visible to anyone happening to stroll by (so it was unlikely, but paranoia is a funny thing). Despite how hyped up I felt by all of the confusion and the negative energy writhing around in my head, I soon felt myself drifting off, curled up against a rock. The last thing I saw was Nudge's silhouette sitting at the cave opening as she took watch.

Can 'to nightmare' be an action? Because I definitely didn't dream whilst I was asleep – I nightmared hard. My head was full of flitting images, most of them not quite clear or complete, but all of them carrying a sense of dread with them: I was running through a white corridor, the walls warping and shimmering as I went, blurred and echoing shouts coming after me; giant chocolate-chip cookies wearing white coats leaned over Star, poking at her injured arm, then they turned into Erasers and drove an oversized hypodermic needle into her shoulder; I stood in a black space, staring at two doors in front of me which bore the faces of Fang and Dylan; Gazzy's wide blue eyes swam into view, and when his mouth moved he sounded like the Voice – put the pieces together, Max. You can't win the game if you don't put the pieces together – then suddenly I was facing a massive puzzle which assembled itself into a picture of my mom, Jeb, and Ella; I was balanced on the top of a mountain, jumping out into space only to realise that my wings weren't there, and then I was falling, falling towards the jagged rocks below that looked like scalpel blades as children shot at me from all sides-

I jolted upright in bed, gasping, my hand over my heart. I couldn't help checking my nightgown. No red laser dot. No bullet holes. I fell back on my bed, limp with relief.

Wait… I tensed again. This scene was familiar, somehow. I'd done this before – the waking up from a nightmare, the making sure it really was just all in my head. And I was meant to be in a cave in Death Valley, not in a bed somewhere. I lay frozen, only my eyes moving as they darted around, taking in my surroundings; after a moment I realised that I was back in Colorado, in my bedroom in the E-shaped house Jeb had taken us to when we escaped from the School. My heart pounded against my ribcage, sending too much blood to my head, making me dizzy. What was going on? Had it all been a dream, everything since Angel was taken the first time? Could dreams even last that long, stretching out over months of imaginary events and encounters?

I pushed myself slowly up into a sitting position, scanning the room. Everything was still and quiet. After a few minutes I slid out of bed, then my feet seemed to work of their own accord; I was still staring around the room, but it was as if the rest of my body was following some pre-programmed routine, and before I knew it I was standing by the door in my old sweats.

'What the hell is going on?' I murmured, the muscles all over my body bunched up, waiting for something to become clear. My hand reached out for the handle, and I pushed the door open, stepping out into the hall. The early-morning light shone through the huge windows as I walked cautiously along, fighting down the unease that was rising inside me, then I whirled sharply around when I heard a creak behind me.

'Max?' Nudge stood in the doorway to the room she shared with Angel, looking worried. 'Can you come and check on Angel? I don't think she's very well.'

I looked at her blankly, utterly lost, unable to follow what was happening.

'Max!' She waved a hand in front of my face, bringing my attention back to her face. 'Come and look at Angel? She's ill or something.' She frowned. 'You might be too, actually – you look really pale.'

I nodded mutely and moved past Nudge, back towards her room. The door swung open, and I was faced with a bombsite; rubble lay strewn across the floor, the ceiling completely caved in. The wardrobes had been completely splintered by large chunks of rock – where the rocks had come from, I was beyond guessing at. A lamp had been smashed onto the floor, the torn ends of the electric cords giving off weak sparks. I stared in horror at the room, and my eyes were drawn to the corner where Angel's bed was, the curtain that usually covered it lying shredded on the floor; the bed was buried under a pile of collapsed roof and rocks. A wave of panic engulfed me, and I scrambled across the debris-littered floor, struggling towards that corner. I reached it, my hands grasping at the heavy weights that hid the bed from view, eventually clearing down far enough to see a small blonde figure crushed underneath the mound.

'She doesn't look too good, does she Max?' Nudge said from behind me, her voice mildly concerned. I suddenly became aware of a keening sound in my ears, and I realised it was me, screaming, screaming so hard it felt as though my vocal cords were about to snap.

That was when I woke up for real, my terrified breaths echoing slightly through the cave. Nudge, the real Nudge, was hovering over me, her face worried.

'Max, are you alright?' she whispered, making sure not to wake the others. 'You were twisting around, all jerky like one of those puppets with the strings, and you kept making noises and it was really weird and kind of scary and are you okay? Are the brain attacks back? What happened?' Her large brown eyes stared at me, and I rubbed at my temples, scrutinizing the cave, looking for anything out of place, anything that could mean I was still dreaming.

'It's okay, sweetie, I just had a nightmare,' I said softly, looking back at her and forcing a smile. 'I'm fine.'

She sat back on her heels, her face clearing in understanding and relief.

'That must've been a really bad one, then. You looked like you were being electrocuted or something – I was just about to wake everyone up 'cause I didn't know what to do. What should you do if someone's going all crazy in their sleep and you can't wake them up? Do you have t-'

'Nudge,' I interrupted, closing my eyes. 'I'm sorry I scared you. It's probably just because of how intense everything's been.' I opened my eyes again, looking at her with a more genuine smile this time. 'Don't worry about me. I'm fine.'

Nodding, she gave me a quick hug and went back to her spot at the front of the cave to finish her watch. I leaned back against the wall, feeling my heart rate slowly dropping back to normal. For a while I just sat there, not wanting to fall asleep again in case more dreams came to haunt me, but eventually I felt myself sliding down the wall, slipping into sleep once more.

I didn't dream anymore that night, but when I woke in the morning I was still feeling a bit frazzled .The whole thing had been like flipping through a scrapbook of everything that was tormenting me at the moment; things like where my mom was, and how we were going to manage to take the School down, and whether we'd ever get the chance to live safely like we had during those years in Colorado.

Sucking air through my teeth, I steeled myself before addressing the group, making my voice strong and confident.

'Today's the day, guys. The plan right now is to get in close to the School, scout out what's happening, what kind of defences they've got up. I don't think that we all need to go along for this one-'

I was cut off by a bunch of protests, and quickly held my hands up to quieten everybody down.

'Max, getting left up here would suck so much,' Nudge said.

'Doesn't it seem like we shouldn't be breaking everyone up again?' Kate asked, shrugging one shoulder slightly.

I looked at the resolute faces surrounding me, then sighed.

'Okay. But you all need to keep in mind that this morning is just recon work – I don't want anyone doing anything stupid, you clear?' It was a pointed question, and Iggy's jaw dropped in mock indignation as he sensed the words being aimed at him.

'I object! Everything I do is done with careful planning and consideration of the consequences.' He nodded his head as if to say 'so there', and I raised an eyebrow.

'So what exactly was the point of blowing up the parking lot the last time we were here?' I asked wryly.

He grinned.

'Well, that was just fun. Gotta have fun, Max!'

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head despairingly as we left the cave, making our way around the curve of the mountainside until we could see the School nestled in the foothills, looking completely innocent from the outside.

Something seemed to happen to Ratchet as we neared the building; he seemed to be getting more and more jittery, his eyebrows were furrowing beneath his sunglasses, and his hands pulling at the hem of his shirt.

'Ratchet? What's wrong?' Holden asked – clearly I wasn't the only one who'd noticed some strange behaviour.

'I'm not sure,' Ratchet replied, looking more genuinely troubled than I'd ever seen him before, and what with his gang history and all that was kind of a big deal; it took a fair amount to shake him. 'Something doesn't feel right, but I can't pin it down, y'know?'

By the time we were flying the four non-winged members of our group down the side of the mountain, he was so tense and fidgety that Fang almost lost hold of him in mid-air.

'Woah! Seriously, man, what's going on?'

Ratchet shook his head, tossing it from side to side in frustration.

'Don't know. That's what's got me so wired – something's up and I don't know what it is. I just know something's not adding up somewhere in my head.'

We landed in the bowl of the valley close to the high wall created by the mountains surrounding it, and at that moment Ratchet let out a stifled shout of realisation.

'There's no noise,' he breathed, looking stunned. 'There are no sounds coming from that building. None at all. Shit, why didn't I notice that?'

Fang clapped him once on the shoulder.

'You did. You noticed. Now we just need to work out why it's so quiet.'

We set out towards the School, keeping low and staying close to the edges of the valley. Ratchet kept a keen watch on the windows of the looming building, muttering under his breath, but once we'd crept up to the fence surrounding the complex we didn't need him to explain anything to us: the place was deserted. Nothing moved in the windows, there were no figures in white coats dotted around the grounds, the parking lot was empty… Everything was completely still.

'What?' whispered Star incredulously, her normal, indifferent demeanour pushed aside by bewilderment. We all stared around at each other, wondering what the hell was going on, then it was as if we all came to some unspoken agreement: moving warily, keeping our eyes on the School at all times, we cleared the fence and ended up standing right in front of an entrance into the building. Still nothing happened.

'Huh… Good thing we didn't come a long way for this,' Star said into the silence, the sarcasm evident in her voice.

'What do we do now?' Dylan asked, looking up at the grey stone wall.

I bit my lip, my eyes flickering around between the door and the faces of the group around me and the empty windows.

'Maybe there's something inside,' I said. 'Something that will tell us what went on here.'

'So we're still breaking in?' Kate clarified.

'Guess so, and we might as well go in now. You wanna get the door?'

'Sure.'

The moment Kate's foot made contact with the door, the moment it was ripped off its hinges by the impact, I knew we'd been tricked. Ratchet gave a jerk like he'd been shot, his face twisting in pain and his hands flying up to grasp at his headphones as he tried to block out a sound that no one else could hear. A huge, hairy shape appeared in the doorway, fangs bared in a terrible grin.

'So nice you could drop by,' Ari's clone laughed. 'Welcome to the madhouse.'

A/N Let me know what you think! :)