Author's Note: Okay, my dear readers. I have a warning for you. Max will be a little less witty and a little more OOC in this chapter, but this is because she's still slightly stunned about what she and Liam did. Plus, fighting off creepy mutants alongside another said mutant is a bit frightening. :D Sorry if you don't like this chapter. But if you do, (or even if you didn't!), I would appreciate you telling me so. I worked so hard on this chapter, and I can tell you now that it is nice and long, just how they're supposed to be. I deserve a good, multi-review treat for this one, I think. The review button is calling you. You know it is…
~jennedy~
I woke up with my face pressed against topsoil. Immediately, I leapt to my feet and prepared to be attacked. But no one was there. I was in a forest, alone. A bad feeling churned in the pit of my stomach, and I looked up to the sky. Cutting off my escape was a huge dome made out of razor wire, 500 feet off the ground at its highest point. I felt panic rising in my throat and clenched my eyes shut, slowly counting to ten to calm myself. I had definitely been here before.
Keeping my eyes closed, I made a small coughing click in the back of my throat. My keen hearing picked up the echoes of the sound that were bouncing off everything in my path. In a strange, indescribable way, I could "see" where the trees were, where each stump and root twisted its gnarled way across the forest floor. And then, as I scanned the forest floor, I saw her, crumpled on the ground about 50 feet away just as I had been a few seconds previously.
My eyes shot open, colors flooding back into my perception. Even if her dark blond hair and pretty features hadn't given her away, the white School "uniform" would have. Her wings were clearly visible, tucked against her back without a t-shirt or jacket to cover them. Maximum Ride.
Oh, God. I thought. Even Amy Jenkins can't be this psychotic. I almost had an ADD moment at the thought of Amy, (Abe had updated me when the whitecoats weren't around to taser him), but I directed myself back to Max.
Quickly, checking over my shoulders to make sure I wasn't being watched, I made my way to her side. Her big, brown eyes were open, but she wasn't getting up. I squatted next to her for about ten seconds, starting to feel irritated. Was she just ignoring me? When I saw her eyes flicker over my face, then stare off into the distance once more, I let my temper control me.
"Get up," I snarled, dragging her to her feet. She protested weakly, instinctively bringing her wings up and out to make herself look bigger. Much to Max's surprise, I unfolded my wings and my right wing swung at her face, the claw in its joint carving a shallow cut into her cheek.
"What the hell was that for?" she yowled, and I put my hands on my hips.
"Come on, Ride. I don't know what they did to you, but I can certainly assure you that if you don't suck it up and get it together, neither of us will survive this."
Max's mouth fell open as she took my words in and really looked at me for the first time. I had to fight not to let myself blush as she gaped at me. The white School uniform matched perfectly with my skin tone, making me look like a walking corpse. I think she half expected me to leap at her throat and suck her blood.
"Are… Are you Echo?" she whispered. I took a stumbling step back.
"How do you know my name?" I spluttered, suddenly feeling exposed. The translucent whiteness of my skin and clothing seemed to stick out painfully from the soft, earthy tones of the woods.
"Liam," Max said quietly. "They made me go with him."
"What?" I breathed. A single thought trickled through my head. Why didn't they take me? Was I just not good enough? Was my expiration date going to appear on the back of my neck like it had for those Erasers I had been fighting a few months ago? I shook my head rapidly, sending my hair into further chaos and flinging the bad thoughts away.
"That- That doesn't matter right now," I barked. "We need to find our objective."
Max looked at me like I was crazy. "What objective?"
I raised one eyebrow at her. "You've never played this game?" She shook her head. I groaned. "They honestly…" I bit my tongue and quelled the urge to punch a tree. "Well, Ride, here's how it goes. The School sends either its best or worst prototypes to kill us in these woods. If they're mistakes, we kill them. If they're successes, they kill us."
"What happens if they kill us?" She looked a little apprehensive, not that I could blame her.
"Then we wake up three weeks later, paralyzed and aching all over but with no physical wounds to justify it," I murmured. When I looked up to check her reaction, Max was once again wearing the Echo-is-a-crazy-vampire expression. I rolled my eyes. "Look, newbie, I play this game a lot."
"When do we start?" she asked.
"The correct question is, when do they start." My head snapped to the side as a twig snapped about 100 meters to the left. "And I believe the answer is now."
~~~~INVISIBLE LINE~~~~
I froze as Echo stared into the dark forest, her bat's hearing picking up what I couldn't see. It made every nerve in my body stand on end to trust someone I had just met, but I really had no choice. The strange recombinant seemed to have some inkling of what was happening, while I had no clue.
She made a clicking noise in the direction the sound had come from, swore quietly, and pointed to the sky. I nodded, at least understanding this point. Echo wanted an up and away.
"One," she whispered, rocking on the balls of her feet. I heard a rustle in the bushes, and then an earsplitting, feral screech. An enormous slate gray wildcat leapt out of nowhere and bounded towards us. "Two, three!" Echo yelped, and we were gone, rocketing into the air above the treetops as the cat yowled and slashed its paws at the air beneath our shoeless feet.
Echo brushed her white hair out of her eyes. "Well. That's a new one," she commented, watching the wildcat's body contort as it shifted back into a human form. His hair was the same gray color his fur had been, and his skin was pale, even if was nothing compared to Echo's.
"Are there usually any flying mutants?" I asked. Hopefully nothing would be able to reach us up here.
"Sometimes," she replied nonchalantly, scanning the ground for more enemies. "Usually they just shoot me out of the sky if I stay up here too long."
"Shoot you out of the-" All of a sudden, there was a loud bang from the building that surrounded the forest on all sides. I had been unable to see it from the ground, but from up here it was hard to miss. A bullet whizzed past my ear, and Echo sighed sarcastically.
"Just when I was getting comfortable." Motioning for me to follow her, Echo dived back into the tries, ducking around branches and nearly crashing about… oh, let's say a hundred times. I followed her, a bit slower due to the sanity that the batkid apparently lacked. We landed on the edge of a steep embankment. Echo was holding perfectly still, looking like a mirage in the flickering, filtered light cascading through the trees.
"Do you hear anything?" I hissed. She nodded, closing her emerald eyes and folding her paper-white brow in concentration.
I waited for a few moments. "You know, I would like some sort of warning this time," I whispered.
"It's right here. I just can't…" Echo paused, her eyes opening wide with fear. "Stay!" she ordered, shoving me into a bramble. I yelped and was about to chew her out when a large, olive green reptilian creature clambered down from a tree and took a slow, luxurious gait towards Echo. I noted the roiling masses of sinew under its leathery skin, and knew that this thing could move faster than it was going.
I stood up slowly, planning to creep up behind it and… well, I don't know. Jump on its head repeatedly? As of now, that was my best course of action. Echo slowly backed away, nodding to me as she saw what I was doing. She stopped and crouched down slightly to spring up into the air. The lizard hissed, and I saw its long leg muscles tighten as it watched her readying for escape.
"NO!" I screamed, but Echo leapt into the air anyway. The lizard sprang, wrapping its long, crushing forelegs around her. With a startled cry, she fell out of the air… and over the lip of the steep, craggy rise we had been standing on. I had to look away as Echo and the Ginormous, Monstrous Thing slid, bounced, and rolled all the way down the hill, flying through thorn bushes and over sharp rocks as they went. I braced myself to jump over the small cliff and fly after them, but just as I was about to go, a small, clammy hand clamped around one of mine.
I won't lie. I screamed bloody murder. I turned around to deck the person who was holding me. Before my fist connected with his jaw, I heard a whimper and another tiny hand came up to shield a small, thin face. I pulled my punch back. There was a sniffle, and the boy burst into loud, attention-grabbing tears.
I frantically patted his back, hoping he would shut up before some other freaky recombinant decided to come see what the fuss was about. "Sorry, sorry… It's okay, shhh…" His crying slowly subsided, and he wiped his nose on a dirty sleeve. His skin had a corpselike grayish pallor that was coated in filth. Tears had run thin, spidery tracks down his grimy cheeks, which were too thin for a boy who could be no more than Gazzy's age.
"What's your name?" I asked as he shivered and hugged himself, looking about as comfortable as a fox alone in a chicken coop with a gun-toting farmer.
"K- Karan," he mumbled, shuffling his feet in the leaves that coated the ground.
"What are you doing out here?" At this question, tears started pouring from his eyes once more. They were strange eyes- a deep, seductive sort of scarlet-mahogany. They were beautiful. I caught myself staring into them, and then snapped myself back to the present. What on earth was I doing, ogling at some kid's eyes?
"The white-coat men made me come out here," Karan sniffled. "And then the boy-wolf scratched me." I looked down, and saw a patch of wet redness soaking his left pants leg. Karan was determinedly leaning on his other leg, but I could see him swaying tiredly. My throat closed up. Who would force a child into this kind of thing?
"Let's get you somewhere safe," I said kindly, holding out my hand. He took it, looking up at me like I was his guardian angel. As soon as I did so, I realized that I had no idea where I was going. "Hey Karan… Do you know a safe place around here?"
The scrawny little thing nodded his head eagerly, tugging on my hand. "This way, Max!" he chirped. At the time, I didn't even stop to think why he knew my name. I just let him pull me through the woods. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
We had been walking for about five minutes when, with a pang of guilt, I remembered Echo. And the Ginormous Monstrous Lizard Thing. And the cliff. "Oh crap. Karan, we have to go back."
"But why?" he whimpered, looking terrified again.
"I have this friend, and I think she's in trouble." Karan trained his weird red-brown eyes on me, and the whole forest around him shimmered out of my focus.
"We have to get to safety, Max. Echo will meet us there," he said quietly.
"But-"I argued feebly. Then, slowly, like darkness settling over a valley, I began to understand his reasoning. The reddish tint to his eyes bored into me. "Okay. Let's go."
He pulled me onward, silent and sure. I may have imagined it, but it seemed like his tiny hand gripped my hand with a strange ferocity. My whole body began to feel tired, fatigue working its way into every muscle like a parasite. I stumbled after Karan like a dog, asleep on my feet and too much so to argue about our path.
"How much farther?" I gasped, skidding to a halt in the dead leaves. Karan stopped reluctantly and turned to look at me for the first time in a good while. I was starting to feel irritated; the way a grizzly bear is irritated when it is rudely awoken after its hibernation.
"We're almost there," Karan said with certainty. He smiled at me, his little gray face lifting my spirits slightly. I felt like I was falling into his eyes, falling into them and swimming there as calmly and comfortably as a fish in the blackest of deep ocean waters. Karan's slightly pointed teeth gleamed, and he continued onward.
Sure enough, within minutes he was dragging me up a small hill, urging me on with the promise of a permanent rest within minutes. Embedded in the hill was the mouth of an enormous cave with ceilings at least thirty feet high. It was as black as pitch inside, and though I was scared to death at the thought of not being able to see, one comforting glance of Karan's glistening eyes quelled my fears.
The scruffy child led me about one hundred and fifty feet back into the cavern, around a corner so the light could no longer dig its fingers into our shelter. Karan settled into a niche in the floor and began scraping 2 stones together until a spark flickered and caught on a pile of wood that had already been assembled. I didn't even wonder how it had gotten that way. I spent those few minutes marveling at the beauty of the fire's reflection in his eyes.
Suddenly, Karan straightened up, in a very similar way to- To someone, I thought weakly, I had known once. My muddled brain couldn't quite remember who. "What is it?" I heard myself ask.
"A bad person is coming," whispered the boy. "They want to hurt us." I nodded rapidly, understanding his wishes immediately.
"I'll stand at the corner and be ready to attack," I mumbled in monotone.
"Yes, you will," Karan said firmly, but I head the tremor of fear in his voice, even if I didn't pay it any attention.
After a few seconds of crouching in the darkness in wait, I could hear the person approaching. They were limping slightly, one foot dragging heavily on the ground as they walked, and I could hear their shallow, labored breathing. They approached the corner. I felt a rational though slide through the haze that blanketed my mind: What if the person wasn't bad? What if they were just hurt?
I looked up at Karan, and he glared at me, the red in his eyes sharpening and flashing in the firelight. Pain blossomed behind my eyelids, and I fought not to cry out. Within milliseconds, I was once again braced to murder the person staggering around the corner.
They rounded the bend, and I jumped out, fists coming down towards her head. But somehow, she was quicker than I was. "Max! What the-"She yelped, jumping back and up, glossy white bat wings flapping frantically to get above me. I growled and sprang up in the air, latching onto her ankle.
She shrieked in pain, and I knew that the foot I clutched was fractured, perhaps broken. I yanked on it viciously and she moaned in agony, but miraculously stayed in the air. Karan stood in front of his fire, eyes practically blazing, a mahogany-scarlet inferno.
"Land, Echo," he ordered, and the authority in his tone was unmistakable. The intruder shook her head and gritted her teeth through the pain, her canines biting through her tongue and sending blood spilling over her bottom lip. A droplet of blood splattered on my forehead and I flinched, the warm wetness startling me. What on earth was I doing?
Echo kicked feebly at my hand, pain twisting her white face. "Max… Why are you doing this? Max!" I took a moment and actually thought about it. Why was I doing this? Well, obviously because Karan wanted me to. But what had Karan ever done for me? He had taken me to this nice cave… But Echo had saved me from a wolf-kid, sniper fire, and a Ginormous Freaky Lizard Thing. And Echo was… through the confusion of Karan's hold on me, I struggled for the word. Echo was… my friend?
I let go of her foot. With a gasp of relief, she soared over head and dove down at Karan like a blade of muscle and air, kicking him in the chest with her good foot and sending him sprawling to the ground. As I hurried over, she crouched on his chest and delivered a solid right hook to his temple, leaving him out for the count.
I helped Echo up, supporting her weight on myself instead of forcing it onto her injured foot. "I'm so sorry, Echo," I whispered. "I had no idea what he… what it was."
She nodded, wiping her bloody mouth on the back of her hand. "It- It's okay," she muttered. I allowed her to put her arm around my shoulder as we lurched slowly out of the cave, sitting down just outside the mouth to rest and survey Echo's injuries. Her whole left foot, from her ankle to her toes, was puffy and swollen out of proportion. I was afraid to touch it after what I had done earlier, so I left it for a later date and moved on. Her whole back was flayed from rolling down the hill with the lizard creature, but the blood trickling out of it wasn't flowing very fast, so I patched a couple strips of my t-shirt to it and left it to heal.
Once I was done, I looked back into the cave. There was no sign that Karan was awake, but if he was, we were in trouble. The control he had held over me had come to him so easily, it was frightening. He scared me more than any other recombinant I had ever met. "We need to get out of here."
Echo nodded. She stood up slowly, unable to lean on her left foot. Again, I held her up as we moved onward into the forest. "Whoa," I grunted as she tripped over a root and nearly fell. "Do we need to stop?" Echo shook her head fiercely, but I could see her biting her already bleeding tongue again.
I stopped walking. "It's no use going on if you're going to pass out on me the second I need you." Echo's dark emerald eyes glared daggers at me, but I refused to budge. She moved away from me and leaned on a tree trunk for support.
"We have to keep moving," she hissed. "If we can defeat a few more beasties, they might let us out!"
"Oh, I'm sure you'll be slaying mutants left and right with that lovely, black-and-blue foot of yours." Echo looked downright ready to murder me, and I think she would have if not for the large, bloated monstrosity dangling from her ankle. "Echo… When do they usually let you go?"
"After a few days," she whispered, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the tree. Echo looked so worn, that I felt my heart ache for her.
"Be smart, batkid. You'll never make it for another day if you don't rest. And then what will your Colony do?" Echo groaned, and I could feel her giving in.
"How do you know about them, Max? You know too much…" I forced a laugh.
"I could say the same about you." There was a silence that lasted several seconds as Echo mulled over her options.
"Fine. We'll stop. But only for a few hours!" Grinning broadly, I slid down onto the leaves and felt relief flood my painfully tense muscles. Seated, I noticed for the first time that my feet were cut and bleeding from walking with Karan without shoes. But for now, the pain was numbed, so I ignored it.
Echo sighed deeply, finally calm. She closed her eyes and appeared to start dozing almost immediately.
Then a scream pierced the air. Echo nearly had a panic attack due to her enhanced hearing, but even I could hear it, and the desperation sent chills down my spine. Echo scrambled to her feet, her face taking a tinge of green as all of her weight came crashing down on her injured foot.
"Who was that?" I asked nervously, her panic penetrating my previous state of peace.
"Stella," she gasped, limping as fast as she could towards the sound. "That was Stella."