Author's Note: Consider yourselves lucky, folks. Today I've had enough time to update again. This is a rare occurrence. Do not get used to it! *evil glare* And please review. Those things make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :D
~Jennedy~
A perfectly muscled arm burst into my crate, deftly dodging Valkyrie's attacks and closing around my ankle. I hooked a hand through the back of my cage, holding on for all I was worth as the robot tried to yank me away to more horrible tests. My whole Colony was yelling and rattling their cages, agitating the other less stable mutants into a frenzy. I gritted my teeth and kept my fingers firmly locked in the wire as the tension on my body increased. Suddenly, the robot switched his grip, moving its other hand to my shoulder. It tugged sharply, sending a loud crack ricocheting of the white tiled floor. I screamed and briefly relaxed my grip, giving the robot the perfect opportunity to yank me from my crate. One of its companions locked the crate firmly behind me just before Valkyrie threw herself against the bars. With another calm tug, my captor snapped my shoulder back into socket and proceeded to drag me off down the hall.
"ECHO!" Liam bellowed, his voice sounding far away.
I tried to reply, but a hand was clapped over my mouth. We went through a door and down another hallway, taking us deeper and deeper into the belly of the School. I snarled and tried to club my guards with my wings, but to no avail; they certainly were not going to let me go. We turned another corner and a robot slammed open a door. The whitecoats inside looked up as if pleasantly surprised to see their favorite little bat recombinant. A feeling of dread seeped into my stomach as I saw the materials they had laid out: an IV bag, a needle, and several bad-looking syringes filled with black mystery liquid.
Following orders from the scientists, my lovely robot friends pulled me over to a hospital bed and lashed me to it with thick, leather restraints. My arms were pinned away from my sides, palms facing out. A whitecoat pushed a button and the bed rotated, grinding to a halt when it was perpendicular to the floor. I gulped down my fear and decided that maybe a little bit of insolence would get me some answers.
"Hey eggheads!" I cried, earning some peeved looks from the whitecoats. "Where's my man Jeb?" A whitecoat nervously adjusted his glasses.
"Dr. Batchelder will not be joining us today."
I pretended to consider this. "So, like, he didn't feel like watching my body react to your potions, or he didn't get the invite?"
No answer. I smiled girlishly. "You know, I could always sing for you…"
"Just tell her, Thompson!" snapped another scientist. "Don't let her start singing. She makes Ashlee Simpson sound like an angel sent from above!"
"I'm not that bad!" I protested.
"Yes, I-I'm afraid you are," Thompson stuttered. "Dr. Batchelder was not notified of this procedure."
I stopped to think. If Jeb hadn't been told, what they were going to do to me had to be totally and completely inhumane. Dread settled in my gut.
The whitecoats had finished rigging the IV, and a particularly dorky one approached me cautiously with the needle and a roll of medical tape in his hands. I clicked my teeth at him, laughing as he jumped nervously. But he finally worked up the courage to make his way to my right arm and stab the needle into the inside of my wrist. I flinched. Like usual, he spent about 10 seconds staring at my arm in wonder. Every new scientist ended up doing something like that, because my fantabulous genetically enhanced skin was so pale and translucent that pretty much every major vein could be seen through my skin.
"Come on. Is this seriously the first time you've seen an arm?" He frowned at me, miffed. Then he stepped back and rolled the IV stand closer to me. I groaned as I saw the black liquid roll down the tube and into my wrist. A painful feeling not unlike the one you get when your foot falls asleep spread up my arm. I closed my eyes briefly. So that was how it was gonna be.
"What do you want from me? Can you just tell me now and get it over with?"
Thompson smiled maniacally, switching on what looked like a baby monitor and placing it on a table near me. "We don't want anything from you, girl. We just want you to yell nice and loud for your Colony."
I bit my lip as pain flooded my body. Oh God. Oh God.
Thompson moved closer to me, hissing in my ear. "Scream, Echo. Scream."
I woke up with my head throbbing. My whole world was lurching from side to side, and I felt myself unable to get a grasp on my thoughts. As I slowly opened my eyes, a woman in a white lab coat bent over me and fiddled with something at my wrists. Wait- there were zip ties on my wrists! What kind of sick person would-
All of a sudden I remembered. I was Maximum Ride. I was saving the world. And now I was bouncing around in the back of a van, bound tight and clueless as to where I was going and where the Flock was.
"Hey!" I yelled, my tongue like a dry leather strip in my mouth. The woman looked up. She had golden brown hair that had been acting as a curtain over her face, and for good reason. As I took in her features, I winced. The skin was blotchy and covered with burn marks and scars. Her left eye was covered in a black eye patch, and I could see even more raised white abrasions going beneath it. She saw me staring at her mutilated face and glowered.
"Maximum Ride," she said, her voice hoarse and croaky.
"Who wants to know?" I answered crabbily. She sat back on her haunches and peered down at me superiorly.
"You have been requested for an assignment," the woman went on, ignoring my sarcasm. "You will follow all instructions or there will be consequences."
"Where's my Flock?" I screamed, not wanting to hear about any damned consequences. She shook her head, tsking under her breath.
"Max, Max, Max. To think Jeb always thought so highly of you. I can see it will be hard for you to comply."
"Got that right, lady," I quipped. "Any other brilliant realizations surfacing in that big ol' head of yours?"
"You will do what I tell you to do, Max," she said calmly. "Or I'm afraid Angel might have to visit my partners specializing in brain surgery. They're just dying for a sample of hers."
My heart dropped to my toes. Angel. They had Angel. I tilted my head as far as I could in all directions, hoping she wasn't there, hoping it was all some cruel trick. But there she was, lying limp and motionless on the ground, her blond curls mussed and dirty.
The woman had a cell phone in her hand, preparing to dial a number. "Shall I notify my colleagues to prepare for surgery, Max? Or are you willing to do me a little favor?"
Angry tears filled my eyes, though I refused to let them fall. Turning away from her, I closed my eyes… and nodded.
Liam huddled agitatedly in the front corner of his cage. He had a horrible feeling about Echo. Worry twisted in his stomach. What were they doing to her? Sometimes, when they took her away like that, she came back almost comatose. That was when he wanted to throttle the whitecoats. He could clearly imagine himself bursting out of the crate and disemboweling a feeble, puny scientist with his wing-thumbs. But every time he tried, the reinforced metal door stopped him short. Anger blazed in his mind.
Suddenly, a noise clicked into eardrum. As a bat hybrid, he and the others had advanced hearing far out of the human range, and even Jag, who could no longer echolocate himself, could pick up tiny sounds from very far away. The Colony was silent as the footsteps grew closer.
It was a woman in a white labcoat. She was tall, with a mane of golden-brown hair tied back in a ponytail. Her face was scarred, and she wore a black eyepatch. Liam's mouth fell open. How was this possible? She was dead… Wasn't she?
"Hello, children," the woman said, her voice sarcastically sweet. "How are you this fine day?"
"Amy?" choked Liam. "What- How-"
She smiled at him, which had a very frightening affect considering her ruined face. "Oh, Liam. I know it's hard to accept that I was with them the whole time. But it was my assignment to look after you, just like it was Jeb's assignment to look after the Flock. For a time."
Liam was stunned into quiet as easily as if she had buzzed him with a baton. Amy Jenkins had freed the Colony from the School 4 years ago, and raised them. Liam had thought she had died in the forest fire that destroyed their house in Northern California. But apparently… he had been wrong.
"Wat in de name of Gawd happened to yah face?" Blaze asked, his bizarre accent sticking out like a sore thumb.
"Blaze, darling, the fire was staged by my coworkers to help me get out of your company," Amy explained as if talking to a two year old. "But I got trapped in the upper levels. I survived, but barely." She grinned. "Did you miss me?"
"I thought I did." Stella's voice as broken and hurt. She had been 2 when Amy "died," and still had nightmares about the fire.
"Aww! Poor baby Stella!" Amy mocked condescendingly. Rage built in Liam's throat. He couldn't believe he had trusted her.
"Does your husband know you turned into such a bi-" Liam caught Valkyrie's angry look and paused in mid-sentence. She gestured to Blaze and Stella. No need to teach them new words. "I mean, does he know you turned into such a… umm… banana head?"
Amy caught the implied cussword and scowled at him. "Jeb Batchelder doesn't even know I'm alive!" She saw Blaze about to insert a witty retort and spat, "Shut the hell up, you freaks! I actually came here for something, you know. And it's something you might want to hear."
She switched on a small, black device resembling a baby monitor and held it in her hand expectantly. A crackling voice came through the line. "Come on, mutant. Scream or we might just have to double the dose!" Someone groaned quietly, fighting to keep their voice low. "We won't give you a band-aid if you bite through your lip, Echo." Liam slammed himself against the cage. Echo. Echo was being hurt. Foul cursing came out of the monitor. "Someone get a napkin, the stupid thing punched through its lip!" Liam snarled, muscled hands straining against the cage door. "Get another vial. We need to strengthen the stuff or she'll never crack." There was a pause. Then a slow, drawn out scream. "There we go, girly. Tell your friends just how much it hurts." The scream cut off. Echo's strangled voice blared out of the speaker. "No, no! Don't listen to me! Don't listen to-" she shrieked again.
"STOP IT!" Liam yelled. "Stop hurting her!"
Amy bent over and looked him right in the eyes. "If you want them to stop, you have to agree to a little something." Echo's screams reverberated down the hall, making hairs stand up on the back of his neck.
"What?" he whispered. "What do you want?"
"You will go on a recruiting trip," Amy said. "You will do whatever you are told to do. And you will come back here when the assignment is done, with no complaint and no rebellion. Do I make myself clear?"
"Tell Liam how much it hurts, freak," spat a whitecoat. "Don't listen to them!" Echo screeched. "They can't tell you what to do-" her voice broke off into another yell.
Liam felt pain of his own stab at his heart as her screams went on. He wanted to obey her, but he couldn't. He couldn't just sit there and listen to her suffer.
"I'll do it," Liam whispered.