Max's POV
"Max!" I wake up to Dreslin shaking me with a frantic look in her eyes. Ashley is standing behind her looking extremely shaken up.
"What? What's wrong?" I ask, forgetting my sleep immediately and sitting up.
"It's Angel." Ashley says.
"Well what about her?" I ask, getting a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Nudge just called me. She's gone." Dreslin says. I feel disconnected from my body now.
"Gone?" I ask.
"Yes gone, Nudge says they all went to the beach and Angel disappeared while they were there."
I look at my clock and see that it's early afternoon. I had slept a lot later than I usually do. This cannot be happening. And she tried to warn me too. I hop out of bed.
"Have you told Fang yet?" I ask.
"No not-" too late. I'm already moving toward the door and heading to the elevator. I don't wait on Dreslin or Ashley. I get off on Fang's floor and run to his room.
"FANG!" I call and pound insistently on his door. He opens the door and looks at me wonderingly.
"It's Angel..she..she's gone!" I sputter.
"She tried to warn me, but I didn't think.." Fang pulls me into his arms and I barely register his lack of a shirt.
"Max calm down and tell me what's going on. What happened to Angel?" he asks in a soothing tone.
"Dreslin woke me up and told me that Nudge just called and told her that angel disappeared while they were at the beach." I manage to choke out. His eyes widen a bit.
"I bet its Jeb." I say pulling myself together and hardening my voice.
"I don't want to be part of his sick plans. We need to get to Iggy and start looking for places he could have taken her." Fang nods and let's go of me to pull on a shirt and grab his keys. I go back up to tell Ashley and Dreslin that we're going. They both agree to come and we hurry to Fangs car. This time there is no arguing over who gets shotgun. We all just want Angel back. So Fang flies to their headquarters where everyone is sitting in a grim silence and waiting on us. Gazzy's face is gaunt with obvious concern for his sister. Iggy is comforting Nudge on the couch. Fang and I tell Iggy to come talk to us in the kitchen when we walk in.
"How did you let this happen?" Fang whispers with ferocity to Iggy.
"I didn't!" he answers back in anger.
"You're supposed to be protecting them." Fang says.
"Well I can't keep a finger on them at all times and I'm sorry if it's not an eye, but in case you haven't noticed, I'm BLIND!" he says back, obviously upset at his lack of vision.
"Hey, hey, hey. Both of you stop." I say in my harshest tone for Iggy's benefit and put a mean glare on Fang for good measure.
"This is NOT helping Angel so grow a pair and work together or I will do this on my own." I finish. They both put on a mean face in defiance before eventually giving in.
"Fine." Iggy mumbles and Fang just nods. So that's how it's going to be then?
"Alright, so we have to assume that Jeb isn't working alone, but that it's all of the creepy scientist agents together." I say and they both nod in response.
"So where would a bunch of scientists be doing their experimentation?" I muse.
"Somewhere remote. So people don't hear what they're doing in case things get messy." Iggy says. I nod.
"And we have to assume it's somewhere in California because of all the people who have gone missing around here." Fang adds.
"Good. So we should research abandoned buildings or any areas that aren't populated, perfect for twisted scientists to put their toys. Now isn't working together fun?" I say.
"I'll go get a laptop." Iggy says and leaves.
I sigh and ask Fang, "Can't we all just get along?" He smiles sadly at me and shakes his head no.
"Didn't think so." I say.
Iggy comes back with the laptop and we start our search. I'm not going to bother you with the boring details of our search that took a few hours, but by the end of it we had a list of places to check out.
"Ok Fang." I say with an exhausted sigh. "You're driving."
"Hey Gazzy! Nudge! Ashley! Dreslin!" I call. They look over from where they were watching TV patiently.
"We're going out to look for wherever Angel is." I say. They all start offering or demanding to come along.
"No way are you coming. We aren't sure where she is so either you'll be useless or you'll get in the way. To make sure neither of them are possibilities you'll ALL be staying here. Got it?" I say.
They reluctantly agree with me because I'm just so darn persuasive. So we drive around to the places in the northern part of California first until well past nightfall before we convince ourselves to go back and continue our search in the morning. When we get back, we had to tell everyone there was no luck with our search. I hated that because I had to see the hopeful look in Gazzy's eyes die away. It nearly tore me to pieces.
That night, I have a dream that I was running down a long corridor. Everything was white. I see Angel in a room through an open doorway; she is tied up in a chair. I scream, "Angel!" and run even faster. Right before I get to the room though, the door slams in my face. I'm left to bang and bang on it to no avail.
"There's no hope for you Max." I hear a voice say. When I turn around, I see Jeb a little ways down the hall. I run to him and grab him by the collar of his lab coat and say, "Open the door!" but he just starts to laugh one of those creepy evil laughs that all the bad guys seem to have. Then I feel a prick in my arm and pass out.
That's also when I wake up breathing heavily and sweating in Angel's bed, where I was sleeping for the night. I look at the clock and see that it's 4am. I groan and lay back down to wait for sleep to take over me again. When I wake up again it's about 10:00. I get up, yell at Iggy and Fang to get up too then take a shower and change my clothes. I wait for Iggy and Fang on the couch.
"What are you two? Girls? Took you long enough," I say when they finally come out.
"Takes a lot to look this good." Iggy says.
"This is a rescue mission, not America's Next Top Model." I say.
"Explains why you look bad." Iggy says.
"You can't see me, idiot." I respond. He just smirks and shrugs.
"Well, what's your excuse?" I ask and look at Fang.
"I don't know." he says.
"Wonderful," I say with sarcasm. "Well lets go."
This time our search of southern California works out. Like the seventh place we check out on our list looks right. Its somewhere in the desert, miles and miles away from civilization. There's a fence that runs around it. We see people in lab coats going in and out plus my skin crawls just being near it. Sounds about right don't you think?
I have Fang park behind a clump of bushes.
"Alright. It's show time. So how are we gonna do this? Charge in, swords drawn and demand for her back?" I say trying to think of a strategy.
"As great a plan as that sounds, maybe we should go in, try NOT to be seen, and search for her." Fang suggests.
"That's always a good idea too I guess." I say with a nod.
"You got any suggestions Iggy?" I ask.
"How about we just blow the place up?" he says.
"Because we have no way of making sure Angel doesn't get hurt that way, but maybe if we get her out first we can blow them up." I say, trying to appease his pyro side.
"Ok," he agrees only slightly disappointed.
"Then let's do this," I say and get out of the car.
We walk to an area of the fence that's near the back of the property and climb over it. Then we sneak in through a back door. As we shut the door behind us, there is an immediate difference in atmosphere. Everything here is white, just like in my dream. It's so cold that I feel chill bumps start to rise on my arms. Also, it smells like a hospital or a doctor's office. Anything sterile.
"It feels like death in here," Fang mutters from behind me. Well, there's another, still accurate, way to describe this place.
"Yeah," I hear Iggy agree.
"We'd better get moving if we want to find her." I say and lead them down the hallways of doom.
There are many observation rooms in the building. You know, those rooms with a one way glass where you can see what's going on but the people inside can't see you? They all have surgical tables in them. I shiver whenever we pass by one, sorry for the poor souls those tables are meant for.
In some of the rooms, we saw people in cages. Except they weren't just people anymore, they were mutated. There were multiple people with hair growing on their arms like wolves. Apparently that was a work in progress. There was a little boy with scaly skin like a snake. He just whimpered in his cage and stared at us. I tried to talk to him, but he hissed at me. Then there was a little girl with cat ears and her eyes were like diamonds. That isn't even half of what we saw. Let's just say we saw these scientists' experiments at their best and worst. Some of these poor people weren't even alive sadly. More than once we saw a mutated figure lying unmoving in its cage.
I have no idea what possessed these so-called scientists to do this experimentation, but I know one thing for sure. I'd give anything to stop it.
"I think we should split up," I say to Iggy and Fang after checking another room with no luck.
"But-," Fang starts.
"This place is too big. We'd cover more ground and be able to get out of here faster," I stop him before he can start.
"You're right," Iggy says.
"If anything goes wrong, just get out of here. We'll meet out at the car in an hour okay?" I say.
Iggy nods, but Fang locks gazes with me.
"Iggy, you continue straight down this hall and take the hall that branches off to the left. Fang, you take the one on the right." I say.
"Okay," Iggy says and heads down the hall.
"I'll be fine," I say to Fang once Iggy is a good distance away.
"How do you know that?" he asks.
"You're just gonna have to trust me," I say.
He nods then turns away to walk down the hallway without looking back. Just like that, he's gone.
I sigh quietly and continue checking the rooms along this hall on my own. Poor Angel. I swear if they've hurt a single hair on their head, those scientists are going to be in for a whole lot of pain. If there's anything I've learned from being an assassin, it's how to cause pain and how to end it.
As I reach a turn in the hallway I hear voices. I slow down and listen to them. It sounds like a man and a woman talking in low murmurs that I have to strain to hear.
"Where are they?" the male voice says.
"They'll be here," the female voice says.
"Maybe they aren't as qualified for this as I hoped," the male voice says again.
"They are and more," says the female.
Their voices are starting to sound familiar so I dare to peek around the corner. What I see nearly stops my heart.
AN: Here's the next chapter. Hope it's okay. Reviews appreciated.