I'm so sorry, everyone! I've been crazy busy with the stupid snow melting, school starting earlier than expected, idiot teachers, homework, test... Jeesh, two of the busiest weeks ever!
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I (still) do not own Maximum Ride...

Enjoy the chapter – I tried to make it good!

Nudge POV- nine months later:

I survived another day in the hell-hole. Yahoo. I scratched another notch into the white wall behind me, with an expressionless face. Only weak people showed their emotions, I had soon learned it was easier not to show weakness on your face, you showed how vulnerable you were. I had turned into a female Fang. Fang. That name sent tremors around my body, tremors of anger.

I gripped the rusty nail, I had found in a rare plate of food one night, so hard it went into my skin. I stared numbly at my bleeding hand, thinking of the family that had betrayed me; I hated them with a passion. I swore to myself, one lonely night near the beginning of my time in this horrible place, that if I ever got out I would hunt them down and make them hurt as much as I had. And that was a lot of hurt.

The scientists made me sick; they would watch me all day from behind the stupid mirror in the corner, probably taking notes on my every move... Not that I did much, anyway. They never talked, only slid the water (food was a luxury) under the steel door, the same every day. I had not heard another human being speak to me in under a year. At first, I used to talk to myself, to fill the crushing silence that threatened to overcome me. I had been weak and stupid, thinking I could escape then... I was smarter these days.

There was 273 notches on the wall, which I took to be around nine months. Those nine months plus the three months before I had put in this inescapable room, made twelve. I had been trapped here a year.

I sat in silence, 'celebrating' my year anniversary, when the door opened. Fully opened, not the cat-flap thing they used every day for water. An Eraser warily walked in, gripping a boy around my age, with a whitecoat behind him. I stared at them, for the first time in months showing my emotions on my face. The whitecoat had a tray of food in his shaking hands; a beaker of water was rocking dangerously on the tray that was threatening to fall out of his hands.

The boy was roughly thrown to the ground, the tray dropped at my feet, the door slammed shut as the Eraser and whitecoat scurried out as fast as they possibly could. Wimps. I turned slowly around to the boy still lying on the ground. 'Collin... Is that you?' My voice was so scratched and barely audible from months of silence.

He stirred; his body clothed in weird hospital-y clothes, and looked happily up at me. 'Nudge! You're alive...' He scrambled up and enveloped me in a giant bear hug. I froze, after not having contact with anyone for months, it was slightly disturbing. He realised I wasn't moving and immediately dropped his arms, his face concerned. 'How long have you been in this room for? It's so... colourless and kind of creepy...'

I sat down tiredly, Collin doing the same. I motioned to the wall where I made my notches and he stared at it with horror. 'Are you serious, Nudge?' I nodded, my eyes full with a dull sadness for my situation. 'No, no, NO! Where the hell is the Nudge I know...? The Nudge who doesn't let anyone knock her around, who always puts up a fight... sometimes just for the fun of it! Remember Jonathon McCarthy, back in school, he called you a stupid immigrant and then you broke his nose (his face never did look the same)... Nudge you-you... Nudge you can't let them win. You can't give into them –fight back...' The last part was a whisper and as he gripped my shoulders, I slowly met his eyes.

They were the same piercing blue that they had been the first day I'd seen him here, the colour of the sky I hadn't seen in over a year. His eyes were troubled and filled with a deep hope for the future. I suddenly remembered I had promised to bring him home, when the Flock had come. But they weren't coming. 'My-my Flock aren't coming for me, Collin... I can't get you out of here. I'm so sorry.'

He sat back for a second, rocking back on his heels, his face guarded and his eyes hooded. Suddenly, he looked up at me with a look I had seen often on the faces of Angel, Gazzy and myself when looking at Max. 'You can do it... We'll bust out together, Nudge. It's perfect!' His eyes were shining at the thought of finally getting out of the School.

'But I- Collin it's not that easy... It's- this... The School is a top secret experimentation facility in the middle of nowhere with amazingly good security and bloodthirsty security guards... We can't get out of here alive.' My voice was quiet and serious as I breathed a heavy sigh. I raised my heavy gaze back up to meet his trusting one. 'If we try this then we will probably die... I'm being perfectly serious, Collin. Why are you still smiling like that? It's making me nervous...'

He kept grinning like a fool, his eyes sparking and he leaned over to give me a hug. 'Let's do it! I can finally go home, and if I don't make it, then thank God I'll be free and away from this torture.' I raised one eyebrow, but half smiled so he'd know I understood him.

'Okay, we'll do this... By the way, how the hell did you manage to get them to take you to me?' I was confused big time; Collin was a little skinny thing, like me, with a mop of wavy blonde hair and big blue eyes. Eyes like Angel's. Angel. My fists clenched and I dug my nails into the palms of my hands, drawing blood, lots of blood... I was suddenly so angry that my breaths started to come out in angry gasps. Collin glanced from my hands that were dripping blood, to my face that was pinched on anger and just gave me an understanding smile, that somehow made my anger melt away.

He grinned, his smile lighting up my day once again. 'It's not hard when you can do this...' He cleared his throat and cracked his knuckles loudly. I watched with an expressionless face, I wasn't about to start grinning like an idiot all of a sudden. He swelled his chest, his face twisted and then he screamed. Like, shrieked his lungs out... His scream sounded like a cat being run over by a car or someone dying. I forgot about my 'rules' and my jaw dropped, completely gobsmacked, my hands over my ears trying to block the painful noise out. That kid has an amazing set of lungs... He continued his scream-y thing for a few more seconds and then turned to smirk at me. 'I totally made one of them pee their pants with that. Kept it going for four hours and thirty seven minutes- new record... Beat that, Nudge!'

Getting my old spirit back, I smirked at him. 'Watch and learn...' Time to do that fire thing... It better work! I took a few deep breaths, praying it would work and that I wouldn't just look like a fool. I shook my hands out and loosely pointed them away from us, thinking of the Flock. My anger flared up immediately and I focused on pouring my anguish into my arms and out through my outstretched hands. It was like holding a match to a flame, the effect was immediate. The purple energy surged out of me, my hands seeming alight with a purple glow. It resembled a blowtorch as it burned the wall, Collin's gasps of surprise adding to the atmosphere.

I finally stopped it as I felt his hand light on my shoulder. I turned slowly, my face wet with tears of loss and pain, more tears spilling over. He pulled me into a tight embrace, like the ones Iggy and Fang used to give, but for once I didn't immediately react violently to my thoughts about them. 'T-they left me here, Collin... They're not coming for me...' He held me until my tears finally ran out, his shoulder now soaked with my sadness. 'S-s-sorry...' I sniffed, my face growing red.

'Nudge, I'll always be here for you. You can always be yourself around me... I'm here for good, I swear.' He then turned to the wall I had just destroyed with my fire. 'Hopefully they won't notice that...' He squeezed my hand and we turned to face the mirror behind us. In the reflection, I could see a tall, skinny girl with a face so thin and with so much dark bags under her big brown doe eyes that she looked like a skeleton. Her dark brown hair, which had changed from impossibly frizzy to a gentle wave, framed her face and there were caramel streaks though it. The girl's skin was a deep coffee colour, with a long scar running down the right side of her face. Her body was skinny but curvy in all the right places, making her look older than she really was. She had tear tracks down her cheeks and such an emotionless, blank face that she looked like she had been carved from stone.

Her arms, wrists and ankles looked so skinny and underfed that it seemed all she needed was a touch and she'd be broken. Her eyes were determined and full of fire, though, the kind of will that professional sports people wish they had before a race or event. The brown eyes looked so much more mature than they should have been, as if the girl had seen and experienced things way before her time.

It took me a moment to realise the girl in the mirror was me. I gasped and reached out a hand to touch the mirror, the girl reaching her slender hand that looked painfully thin out also. After a few minutes of looking at the new me, Collin gently tugged at my hand saying, 'Do you want to finish off that wall, Nudge? Preferably before they come running in with guns...' I tore myself away from the mirror, and looked at him, confused for a second. He motioned to the half demolished wall, smiling at my reaction to my reflection.

I didn't even need to conjure up thoughts about the Flock or make myself mad to start the energy flowing, I just thought about how Collin and I would be escaping together and I felt that amazing rush of power. It quickly blasted the rest of the wall away, leaving only chunks of cement in its place. The alarms started blaring, red emergency lights flashing. We hopped over the remains of the wall that had once kept me confined and sprinted down the hall.

My legs were rubbery from not running in almost a year, but I pushed myself to the limit, forcing my body to move faster and faster. We turned left, right, right, left, right... Just trying to find a window we could break open and escape from. The alarms were still going off and I could hear footsteps behind us. Faster, faster... KEEP GOING! My mind was screaming at me as we ran for our freedom. And our lives.

After what seemed like hours of running, we finally came to a window... Overlooking a training yard where Erasers were hunting experiments. I pushed ahead of Collin, shattering the glass with a well placed kick, ignoring the shards that stuck deep into my skin. He froze, seeing our pursuers at the end of the corridor for the first time. I opened my wings and held my arms out for him to jump into. He hesitated, slightly awestruck at seeing my wings for the first time, afraid I wouldn't be able to keep us both up.

I grabbed him under the arms and jumped straight out, ignoring his terrified screams. We were much higher than I had first thought. I struggled to get my wings to work after months of sitting still and motionless, Collin was a deadweight in my arms as we plummeted to the earth, his legs dangling helplessly... Towards the Erasers that were now waiting for us on the ground.

No! I've come too far to die like this, damnit! I started flapping like mad, desperate to get away. We slowly stopped falling wildly and I shrieked with joy as we started rising upwards. The Erasers, seeing their prey was getting away, pulled out those massive machine guns you see in movies. Yeah, the ones that are normally bigger than the average person's head. We were so screwed. Collin started yelling as the first few bullets shot past us; I dodged and tried to concentrate on getting out of range.

Then their aim started to improve... Just as we were about to reach the top of the impossibly tall security fence, a bullet found its mark. One of my wings. I gritted my teeth and tried not to feel the shooting pain that started to consume my whole wing, just trying to get us just a little higher so we could get over the electric fence. More bullets found their mark and I could vaguely hear Collin's horrified screams as my body started to fail me. Suddenly we were spinning, out of control, spiralling back to our prison. I managed to angle myself, in the few moments when we were free falling, so that my body was under Collin's, making it so I would break his fall. I squeezed my eyes shut... This was going to be painful.

Slam! I hit the ground with such force that I couldn't breathe or even start to think about moving for a few minutes. Note to self: a few minutes is all a couple hundred Eraser's need to grab you and your partner, and surround you. I was limp in my Erasers' arms, my eyes barely open. They held me up as we were pushed into the circle of the Erasers, which resembled an extreme bully circle. I collapsed the minute they let go of me, my legs buckling under me. I lay there, in a puddle of ever growing blood, gasping like a fish for the oxygen my body just couldn't take in fast enough.

Collin dropped to his knees beside me, running his hands over my broken and bleeding wings, his mouth saying words I couldn't make out over the weird buzzing in my ears. I forced my body into a sitting position, ignoring Collin's panicking and protesting, my wings folding in painfully. After a few more seconds, I clenched my hands into fists and staggered to my feet, ignoring my dizziness and the black dots that clouded my vision. I had my hands weakly held out, ready to blast the freaks into oblivion, when I heard a scream of pain... And a gun being cocked.

I whirled around to see Collin being held (in an awkward position) by a humongous scientist with a massive gun being pointed to his head. Ah, crap... I choked and gave the extremely pale Collin a tight-lipped smile, except it came out more as a painful grimace. The fat whitecoat with the gun smiled a sick smile at me; I gave him the finger in response. 'Now don't move your hands, N45g3, just put them down... Or I'll put a hole in your little friend's head... Got it?'

My hands twitched, desperate to fry the dude off the face of the earth, but I lowered them slowly. Collin suddenly yelled out, screaming at me to 'Duck... He's behind you!' It was like a bad pantomime, where everyone knows what's going to happen except the person it's happening to. Instead of ducking, I (stupidly) turned to see an Eraser behind me, swinging a huge metal object at my face.

I didn't even get a chance to scream. The hunk of metal slammed into my face with impossible force and I was a goner. The fast explosion of pain and then Collin's desperate scream were the last things I felt before I faded away. My vision started ebbing and I could feel something hot dripping down my face. I slid to the ground and slipped away. Just away...

Third Person POV:

Collin anxiously paced the small room they had been placed in for the hundred time. Of course the theme of the room was white. Nudge was outstretched on the floor, in a bloody circle; in as comfortable a position as Collin had felt okay in doing, he didn't want to hurt her more. His eyes darted around nervously as he heard a slamming door somewhere else in the building of hell. He suddenly crouched down beside Nudge, hearing a hitch in her breathing, his heart suddenly pounding against his chest. He realised that at any time they might come and take her away, so he started to bandage her wounds properly.

There was now a deep cut on her forehead, to the right, it was parallel to the top of her long crescent moon scar. It was still oozing blood under the strips of Collin's shirt he had placed around her head and his bloody fingers fumbled with the makeshift bandage as he attempted to gently peel it off. The sight underneath was not one for the fainthearted or squeamish. Her head had been split open by the sharp edge of the metal crowbar and the wound was tinged a worrying yellow at the sides. He quickly tore his shirt off and tore it up into more strips and then, using half the shirt, he gently wrapped the bandage around her head and moved onto her wing.

The bullet had torn through it and was (thankfully) not lodged in her wing. Collin didn't have much experience with wings but he tried to remember the science classes he had slept through, desperately racking his mind for some information on how to bandage a broken wing that had also been shot at. His mind came up with nothing so he just took some of the remaining strips and placed a wad of them on the injured part, trying to stop the flow of blood and then wrapped another strip around it to keep it in place.

There were also some other not so serious injuries around her body but Collin bandaged and took care of them too with the remaining strips. His fingers twitched as he tried to decide what to do next; Nudge was still unconscious and probably would be for the next while judging from her head, Collin was shivering like a leaf because he had taken his shirt off, the sound of banging doors kept getting louder and he was getting more nervous by the second, their escape plan had gone completely wrong... The most important thing in Collin's mind though, was getting Nudge out of there safely.

He was mentally running himself into a brick wall over and over again. It was his fault Nudge was hurt and his fault the whitecoat got him, forcing Nudge to surrender. He dropped his head into his hands and cursed himself for being so stupid... He should have planned the escape out and waited to tell her before they had gone running off to what could have been Nudge's death. She probably hated him now. His head was pounding as the events of the past few hours went through his head at lightning speed. How could he have been so stupid?!

Nudge started to stir, murmuring slightly as she rolled over, Collin crouched over her to make sure she didn't lie on her wing or any other hurt part. 'Flock... Gone forever... Deserted me, not good enough for them...' Collin, intrigued to know more about the great 'Flock' he had heard about, leaned closer and started to listen. 'They hate me... I hate them, but they left me... I hate me, such a failure... Not worthy to be in Flock... Right to leave me here to die...' She drifted off again but Collin was left staring in shock at her.

The Flock must have left her, for good... But why? His hands clenched and he was suddenly overwhelmed by anger stronger than he had even felt before. She was Nudge, she was perfect in every way. How could they just leave her in here, like a puppy left to drown in a river...? Collin started pacing again, his hands constantly clenching, his mind racing and his eyes full of fire. He had to protect Nudge, do what her 'family' hadn't. And if he ever, ever met those back-stabbing traitors, he would kill them. They had destroyed his Nudge, left her stranded on an island of death and despair.

She was so different now from the first time he had met her in school and even when he had met her in The School, she was broken now. Collin made a vow right then, he would always protect Nudge and make sure she got out of there alive. And if he failed... Collin didn't think he'd ever be able to live with himself. His hands fumbled as he reached for the big sharp piece of metal they had thrown in with them, the one that had knocked Nudge unconscious. He found the sharp edge in a second and, with a long look to Nudge, slit the inside of his hand open.

Collin stared at the dripping blood for a moment, and then he whispered quietly, 'I promise to protect and care for you forever, Nudge. And if your "Flock" ever come for you, I'll kill them. Kill them for leaving you, kill them for making you so empty and broken, and kill them for causing you so much pain. I vow to do these things and it's sealed in my blood...' His voice was slow and deadly, his eyes full of commitment as he stared at Nudge and vowed his everlasting commitment to her. 'I won't leave you, ever. I won't let them hurt you...'

He then knelt down and very gently kissed Nudge on the cheek, savouring each moment he had with her, before sitting with his back to her and readying himself for the future and what may come. His back to Nudge, he stared at the blank white door, trying to contemplate his escape and how exactly he was going to protect Nudge in this hell on earth. His lips slowly turned upwards, in spite of his situation. He had fulfilled half of his goal that he had set himself almost a year ago when they took Nudge away; he had found her at last and she wasn't dead.

Step two: Escape...

So... How was it? I promise to include Iggy in the chapter and make the next one happier!
PLEASE review and tell me what you thought! I'll try and update by next weekend but I need reviews to motivate (and help!) me!

Peace out, addicted-2-oxygen :)