I was still sitting in the van, though I was no longer bound. Angel had been removed from my sight immediately after I agreed to whatever hell Captain Eyepatch had planned for me. I tried thinking extra loud, just in case Angel had woken up and could hear me. But the van was moving. She was not in it. I doubted I was in range.

About two hours after Angel was unloaded like a piece of luggage, the van got a new passenger, looking perhaps even more downtrodden than me: A guy about my age. He was tall and extremely tan, with thick brown hair. He sat in the seat next to me, not looking up, lost in his thoughts. His large, knife-scarred hands were curled into fists in his lap. I stiffened when I saw the two long slits cut in the back of his white shirt.

Was he another avian recombinant? I knew there were other experiments; we had freed some before. But none of them had seemed quite as, well, sane has he did. He noticed me staring and put his head in his hands, speaking in muffled tones.

"What did they have to do to get you here?" he said.

I laughed awkwardly. "Only blackmail me with the little girl I practically raised."

He smiled sadly, and I got the feeling that he was usually a cheerful guy. "That sucks."

"Yeah. Pretty much," I said, trying to make myself more comfortable against the hard, plastic seat that had been installed in the side of the van.

"I didn't know there was anyone else… You know, like us," he said, studying my back.

"You mean… You really have them? Just like mine?" I whispered, gesturing to the slits in the back of his shirt. He smiled and nodded. I carefully unfurled one of my wings, sliding it through the slashes in my own shirt and raising it above my head in all its feathered glory. His mouth dropped open, and I watched nervously as his eyes soaked in the brown and white feathers.

"I didn't… I didn't think…" he muttered, too shocked to form words into intelligible sentences.

"What?" I snapped, and yes, I'll admit it, I was slightly angry. I'm not a vain person, but having someone gasp and gag over my wings (which I believe to be my best feature) was a little much, even for me.

He looked at me strangely out of the corner of his eye. "Are… Are you Maximum Ride?"

I raised my eyebrows. "What's it to you?"

"I'm sorry," he said, clearing his throat. "I didn't mean to be rude. My name's Liam."

"Hola, Liam. Me llamo Max. What the hell is going on?"

Liam held up his hands in self defense. "I'm as lost as you are. But, Max… I've heard stories about the avians. Ridiculous things."

"Like what?" I asked suspiciously. Most people who had heard about us wanted to kill us, or use us for irritating government projects.

He lowered his voice even further so that I had to lean in to hear him. "You and your Flock totally destroyed the Itex plant in Germany. Your father is Jeb Batchelder. Your half-brother is Ari, who is expired. You saved your mom from Mr. Chu. You-"

"Okay, okay, I believe you." I frowned. "Where did you get all that stuff about… Jeb?"

"Jeb works on Echo a lot. He talks about you. She says you're his pet project."

"Echo? Who's that?"

Liam looked at me. "She's our leader. Like you, but with us."

"Liam, you're not avian." He nodded. I had guessed as much. "Then why do you have wing slits?"

"We're Chiros." When I glanced at him with a blank expression, he winked and elaborated. "Bats, Max. Bats."

I think my eyes popped out of my head right then and there. I didn't know if I believed him or not, but then he two sleek, brown wings out of his t-shirt and held them aloft. Whoa. I've always leaned towards feathers over fur, but they were pretty spectacular. They were bony and slightly leathery, with a five-inch-long spike of bone jutting out from the joint of each wing. I tentatively reached out a hand, and when he didn't slash my throat open with the bone-claw thingummies, I stroked the wing, marveling to myself.

"There are… more of you?" I choked.

For the next hour and a half, he told me about the Colony. They were surprisingly similar to us. I couldn't believe I had never known about them before. What other secrets had Jeb been keeping from me? Liam was equally interested in the Flock. He had only heard whispered legends among mutants about the flying bird-kids, so he was pretty skeptical about the whole "saving-the-world" idea.

Finally, Captain Eyepatch decided to show up again. Liam, who had been in the middle of an interesting story involving Blaze, an ancient wooden relic, and a box of matches, tensed up immediately and went for Eyepatch's throat. It took four M-Geeks and several whispered threats to get him to stand down. Inwardly, I was rejoicing. A little blackmail wasn't enough to get him down. Maybe we could get out of this mess after all.

"Amy!" he yelled at her. I stared at Liam. He had never mentioned knowing our captor. "You're such a-"

"Maximum Ride," hissed Eyepatch, cutting him off.

"Reportin' for duty, Cap'n," I barked back, military style but with a slight touch of an English accent.

She turned bright red with rage, the sudden coloring not doing much to improve her scarred complexion. "Track Eleanor Garrett until you see an opening to trap her. Then, take her by force and bring her to the parking lot of the Nashville Adventure Science Center. The van will be waiting for you. We will give further instructions from there." Eyepatch pressed a scrap of paper with an address on it into my hand.

"Aye aye, Cap'n," I replied, keeping a straight face. I watched with barely suppressed glee as she struggled to stop herself from smacking me and turned quickly to Liam.

"Liam. Accompany Maximum Ride and aid her as best you can." Liam, who had by now picked up on my joke at Eyepatch's expense, gave a guttural, cockney "Aye aye."

She didn't like that at all. I had a feeling she was getting tired of her Pirate Queen status. She got up in Liam's face, practically blowing smoke out her nostrils. "Listen, kid. A single word from me, and Echo gets it. Understand?"

His face went serious and he shook his head yes. My heart sank. Eyepatch totally had him under her thumb. Then again, she had me under her thumb to, so I shouldn't say anything. A M-Geek kicked open the door of the van and shoved us out into the glaring sunlight. I immediately started to spread my wings, but he grabbed my elbow and walked me away from the van. I decided to obey, seeing the grim look on his face. We got to a jumble of trees, and he let me take off as soon as we were hidden from view.

A robot slammed the van's doors shut as soon as the two mutants took off. Amy Jenkins smirked to herself, sliding her fingers under the black patch to massage the empty socket. Just the thought of Liam and Maximum Ride kidnapping a child sent her inner Joker into maniac giggles. Jeb Batchelder was too good to his avians… Well, at least her chiropteric recombinants would never get so out of control. Amy knew them as well as she knew Jeb Batchelder- very, very well. With a firm hold, and the proper 'persuasion,' Amy was sure they would be unstoppable. As she floated away on the daydream, one of her partners, a suspiciously good-hearted man named Evan Allen, coughed quietly. Amy whirled to look at him, a lecture on the tip of her tongue. But the idiot man actually began to speak.

"Dr. Jenkins… May I ask something of you?"

She rolled her good eye obnoxiously. "If you must, Allen."

"Why didn't you just force Maximum, Liam or Echo to do the job alone? Any one of them could have done it by themselves."

Amy laughed coldly, remembering exactly why she hated interns. "Well, Mr. Allen, this is a good example of why I am in charge and you are not being paid. I need to make them squirm. Echo hates being thought of as a weakness, especially someone else's. Maximum needs a little bit of corruption for her character. And Liam?" She snorted, flapping a hand dismissively. "He was just caught in the middle."

"Eleanor Garrett," I murmured, loud enough so Liam could hear me. I squinted at the paper Captain 'Patch had given me. "The address says, 884 Orchid Lane, Nashville, TN. Mean anything to you?"

He shook his head. "Can I see it?" I handed him the paper, carefully trying to avoid clubbing him with a wing. He stared at it for a few seconds, then flipped the sheet over. I blushed crimson. The other side showed an aerial photograph of the area we were in, with an x-marks-the-spot over one house. Unlike Fang or Nudge, or any of the Flock for that matter, he didn't make a sarcastic joke about my air-headedness. Liam merely ran his hand through his hair anxiously and doubled back to fly a circuit high over the network of roads. From this altitude, we looked like large birds more than anything else, so until we descended, I thought we were safe from prying eyes.

I saw the house first. It had red, terra cotta shingles and a large lawn, but didn't look extremely fancy from above. Liam noticed it too, and circled down over it. Just as we reached about 500 feet, my raptor vision detected a small, 3-person family getting into a car. They locked the door behind them, so I knew that they were the house's only inhabitants.

"Let's follow them," Liam declared, and we redirected our course to follow their white minivan. We actually had a slightly difficult time picking out the minivan from time to time, as many families tend to own similar cars. Right when I was about to suggest turning around and trying to follow a different van, the car pulled into a large park entrance and stopped. Liam and I landed neatly in the higher branches of some nearby trees, well out of sight.

The family consisted of two parents in their early thirties and a tiny, brown haired girl about 2 years old. As the woman set up a picnic on a bench nearby, the man and the toddler ran across the field, laughing happily. After every few steps, the girl's chubby little legs gave out, and she fell smack on either her butt or her face. Every time she fell, she bounced up happily and continued to playfully toddle away from her father.

At this point, I assumed that the woman was Eleanor. She had that secretive, mysterious look that most escaped mutants develop over time. I wondered how long she had been hiding from the School. Long enough to have a kid, obviously.

Suddenly, Liam drew in a sharp breath. The man had turned back and was heading towards the woman again, calling for his baby to follow him. "Come on, Ellie. Time to eat!" My stomach lurched. Ellie. Eleanor. Eleanor Garrett. Captain Eyepatch wanted us to kidnap a baby.

Liam's face twisted into an extremely pained expression. He knew Max was thinking the same thing he was, with very slight differences: Echo, or Ellie. Echo, or Ellie. He was torn to admit it, but he chose Echo. Hands down. No matter what they did to Eleanor Garrett, he couldn't let Echo get hurt. Max felt the same way about Angel, and she wasn't happy about the new job development either.

"Go over and talk to those people," he whispered. "Distract them."

"What should I say?" she asked, still agonizing over her decision.

"Ask them for directions to the Nashville Adventure Science center." Max rolled her eyes. "It's not like we know where it is, and we do have to meet them later."

Max dropped out of the tree smoothly and walked towards the picnic table, trying to appear as lost as possible. Eleanor was still playing in the grass by herself about 10 yards from her parents. As Max addressed the Garretts, Liam wondered if he should go for stealth or speed when snatching the child. He decided on speed. They probably wouldn't recognize his face if he was going fast enough.

Liam dove out of the tree, using his impressive wingspan to aid gravity in forcing him towards the ground. A split-second second before impact, he strained against the pillow of air under his wings and pulled up, snatching Eleanor off the ground like a bird of prey. As Liam strained to gain altitude before he was seen, Ellie recovered from the shock of flying and screamed, "MAMAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Trapping her in the cage of his strong arms, Liam clapped a hand over her mouth to cut off her scream, but the damage was done. On the ground, the Garretts looked around frantically for their daughter, forgetting all about Max and shouting Eleanor's name. Max slunk away quietly, then spread her feathered wings and flew up to join Liam and his prisoner. The little girl was still struggling madly, but there was no way she could get away from him; Liam knew from experience that he could hold a grown Eraser motionless in a bear hug like this one, and the little girl was obviously nothing against an Eraser.

Liam closed his eyes tightly as he felt tears dribbling down Ellie's face. Why was he doing this? The atrocity of his actions stunned him. He felt like a criminal, and with a little fur and some claws, he would be as bad as an Eraser. Liam imagined Amy standing next to him in her current derelict state and flinched inwardly. But then he saw her kissing baby Stella goodnight, and cooking breakfast, and teaching the little ones to fly. Liam shuddered. Had that all been a lie to get them to trust her?

"At least this'll all be over soon," Max said quietly. He nodded. "I- I found out where the Adventure Science center is."

"Good," he said. "Let's go."

Max followed the Garrett's directions to a large, modern building with several glass pyramids on top. She and Liam landed and searched the crowded lot for the white van. Liam set Ellie on the ground, keeping a tight hold on her tiny hand. She was too scared to cry, now, and had become a constant weight tugging on his arm. He hurried her along, afraid someone would recognize her and start yelling questions.

Liam found the white van and rapped sharply on the passenger's side window with his free hand. It rolled down to show the bored, scarred face of Amy Jenkins.

"Ah. Good," she said, noting the kid Liam was dragging behind him. "Get in."

They obeyed, handing Eleanor to a whitecoat and strapping themselves into the hard, plastic seats. The van started moving, and Amy turned to look at them. "You're done for now, mutants. We'll be returning to the lab shortly. I'm sure your respective bands of freaks have been worried about you."

Max was about to make a good comeback when a glass wall rose up between the whitecoats and her. She looked at Liam, puzzled. He shrugged, then stiffened. White mist had started to pour out of two vents in the ceiling. Liam felt dizzy, even though he was seated. Stars danced before his eyes, and he suddenly felt very tired. Then the world imploded into blackness.

Author's Note: *sigh* Not as good as the other ones, but it had to be hammered out. I'm gonna warn you now, I've already started to have writers block about the next chapter. To encourage me, review! Please, guys. I love reviews. They are awesome.

~Jennedy~