Chapter Nineteen

Angel's POV

Being in Sam Porter's mind was like noting I'd ever experienced before. Here he was, an evil young man in place of the teenager that dated Max in Virginia and fooled us all into thinking his motives were good. It was hard to believe that he was the same sad experiment that 'died' the day they brought me in with the others.

Forgive me for not making the mental connection, but I was two the last time I actually read this deep into his mind. In Virginia, he was closed off partly, but I didn't think anything of it because I considered him a normal teenaged guy; most of them never fully form a thought.

"Don't blame yourself, Angel." Edward soothed. The lights had been off for the better part of a minute now and the vampires and wolves were better adjusted to the dark than we Flock members, but even we could see perfectly in the dark.

The second the lights had gone done, Sam had opened a hidden door and escaped with Arian before anyone had a chance to figure out what had happened. Max started banging on the door that didn't appear and when that didn't work, she glared angrily at Maria who still held her daughter in her arms.

"You will pay!" She yelled and lunged at her clone.

Anastasia flapped wildly, taking to the air like a pro despite her age, and hovered above her mother and Max. The little girl was scared out of her mind, but she kept circling overhead, trying to return to her mother's embrace.

The Maxes fighting was so cliché that even I was bored of it. Maria was on bottom with Max straddling her to get a better angle for her punches; but Maria was trying to get the upper hand.

Pure anger was the only thing running through both of their minds; anger for the kidnapping, anger for being an experiment, anger for having to work for Sam and knowing his intentions all along, and anger for the fact that their children weren't any better off than they were.

"Stop it!" My clone yelled. Two-Two was exactly like me, minus the scars from fighting Erasers, but that also meant she had the same powers as I did. She turned to me and nodded. "Angel had an idea."

"Talking in third person, shrimp?" Emmett asked and I rolled my eyes.

"That's my clone Two-Two." I stated.

When he still looked confused, I motioned for Seth to confirm it. My imprint took one glance between the two of us and came up in wolf form to lick my face.

"See? Even my puppy can tell us apart." I grinned like a maniac and he just cocked his head to the side in a 'duh' expression.

"Aw, he's kinda cute." Two-Two said with a giggle. "How did you get a wolf puppy?"

Max and Maria were still fighting while this was going on, when suddenly, Maria started pulling Max's head downwards to try and head butt her since there was no way that she was going to be able to shake her original off of her. The two were too evenly matched.

Max saw what was coming, but couldn't stop it either way. When their skulls collided, Max jumped off of her clone with so much force that Maria's head smacked the linoleum from the momentum. Her body went limp and her eyes stared blankly upwards, unmoving.

"Is she…dead?" Serenity asked in a monotone voice. You can't really blame her though, because she was programmed that way from birth; show no emotions.

Kirby gasped, though it sounded more like a croak, and jumped over to get a better look at Maria. He crouched down next to her, his hands falling to his feet instinctively, and he gasp/croaked again.

Denver stayed by Nuala's side, his ponytail swaying behind him nervously, and she grabbed his hand to comfort him. It was weird to see "Nudge" with Denver instead of Iggy. This clone business is something that will probably cause some major therapy for a few of us in a few years.

"I…I killed her." Max whimpered, showing genuine emotions for the first time since Arian was kidnapped. "I…I didn't mean it…it was an accident…I didn't mean it."

"Shh," Fang whispered, wrapping his arms around Max instinctively.

Edward motioned for Jacob, Seth, and Leah to go check the perimeter to see if they could find a route bad-Sam could have taken.

(I say bad-Sam because Sam Uley was in the woods with Nessie, Will, and the Cullen women, waiting for Jacob's signal to take them home. He had the other wolves standing by as well.)

Jasper was trying to calm Max down, but she was on an emotional rollercoaster that she didn't seem to want to get off of. I felt bad for the empath at times like this.

Carlisle was checking Maria for vital signs but shook his head to confirm her deceased state.

"Good news," Edward spoke up. "Leah said she caught Sam's scent leaving the building."

That got everyone's attention. While Iggy and Gasman started preparing a bury sight outside for Maria, I followed the rest of our crew outside.

"You'd better dig a second grave." Fang commented angrily. "My son's kidnapper will need one when we catch him."

Nudge nodded, keeping quiet for once, and simply starting digging a second hole while Iggy continued on the first one. With his new strength, he'd probably be done before she even got a foot of dirt shoveled out.

"Angels," Jasper said, addressing me and Two-Two. "Stay here with the others and watch the small winged girl."

I nodded. Annie just lost her mother, there was no way I was letting her fly loose around the city. Two-Two led her friends back into the building and I followed behind, letting her be in charge like I knew she'd want to be. She was just like me after all.

It only took our rescue crew two hours to track down Sam and bring him back. True to his word, Fang carried the lifeless man back to the facility and dropped his body into Iggy's dug hole. He was bruised, bit, and scratched all over; the vampires and wolves must have helped in Fang's vengeance.

Max was clinging to Arian for dear life and I knew that she wouldn't let him out of her sight for a long, long, long time. Kind of like after I was kidnapped by the Erasers five years ago and she watched me like a hawk. Really, I was starting to feel sorry for the kid.

We moved under the shelter of the trees as Gasman and Iggy blew up the facility. Saying things like "die, baby, die," and "good riddance." As if burning down every building that held evil intentions was going to make the world a better place.

No one said a word about that for what seemed like forever.

"Why did Sam do it?" Nudge asked, looking down at his dead body with horror. "I mean, I'm an experiment too, but that doesn't mean that I want to become some freaky super powerful mutant. He had to have had some other reason or, um, what's the word…motive, yeah, motive. He had to have another motive for taking Arian other than that…"

Nuala nodded. "He was, like, always talking about the Flock in a way that was kind of weird. I mean, he treated us clones better than, like, Kirby and Denver, 'cause we were sorta like you guys. But there was always this anger in his eyes…" Nudge II trailed off.

"Man, this clone thing is trippy." Emmett commented.

Two-Two and I decided to mess with his head even more, and when I saw her nod, we both started talking. "Sam was a prized experiment before the Flock were considered the pride of the School. Once the Flock were in the limelight with Jeb and the other scientists, They didn't care about any of the 'reject' experiments. No one even noticed when Sam disappeared one day with Anne.

"Even she got bored with him after a while, and passed him off to a random scientist/teacher in Virginia. She didn't even realize that he was the same guy who dated Max when he came to pick her up. That set him off even more, though he didn't let on.

"He figured the only way to get back at the Flock was to take away the one thing that was important to them…he just had to wait and gather his own team." We finished in unison.

"Okay, now that was trippy." Leah stated.

"Agreed." Serenity stated monotone. "But, I have one question still…what are we going to do now that we don't have a leader or a home?"

That was a question that no one had an answer for.


AN: Okay, so Sam was the Leader. Now Sam and Max II are dead (one on accident, one not).

Let me know if you want me to further the adventure with the reject experiments. They can either A) come back to live with the Cullens, or B) find a nice home somewhere else with the Flock's help. Please review with your suggestion.