Really sorry for not updating sooner... ear infection, flute ensemble, blah blah blah, cousin getting engaged, dance, blah blah blaaaah... all that happy horsepoop.

Anyway, just wanted to throw it out there that I was kinda majorly disappointed with the reviews on the last chapter. I got maybe ten or so, and it's not really a huge motivator... I'm not gonna be like a control freak or anything and force you to review in order for me to update, but a few more reviews this time around would be cool. I mean, I'm kinda doubting this a bunch now.

Alright, getting this up and flying out the door to ballet. Nbd.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that belongs to James Patterson. Or anyone else...

MaxPOV

I was sitting in Mrs. Jenner's class, tapping my pencil in irritation, waiting for the lesson to start, when I found out we had a new student. For a second I was imersed in such hope that it would be Fang that I could barely breathe. But then an ordinary-looking kid with sandy-brownish hair and hazel-ish eyes walked in and the stupid disappointment was crushing.

He walked, slouching, up to Mrs. Jenner's desk. I watched him, examining him with interest. His eyes flickered up to meet mine for half a second before looking down at the floor again. It seemed like he did a double-take, because he suddenly lifted his head and looked at me with a more piercing, focused gaze. I raised an eyebrow and offered up my best glare. He still didn't look away, and I dropped my eyebrow and allowed my face to furrow into a scowl. He looked away then.

"Um." He stood hesitantly next to Mrs. Jenner's desk, who was writing something at the moment, but looked up when she heard the guy's voice.

"Yes?" She sat there, and in the new silence I could hear her foot tapping impatiently.

When he didn't say anything back in a matter of three seconds, the whole class started snickering. The guy didn't spare us a glance.

The look on Mrs. Jenner's face said she was dissatisfied with both the new kid and her class. "Speak up."

"Well, it's my first day here, and I'm pretty sure I'm in the right classroom, but I guess I could be wrong. . ." He trailed off, looking helpless.

"Wait for it. . ." the girl sitting in the seat in front of me whispered.

"What does your schedule say?" Mrs. Jenner barked, reaching the end of her patience.

"And she has officially exploded," someone else whispered.

The kid hurriedly jerked a piece of paper out of his backpack. "Room 136, Social Studies with Mrs. Jenner."

Mrs. Jenner stood up. "Have a seat," she said with a scowl. She indicated the empty one next to me. Fantastic. "Maximum can help you get caught up on the lesson." Only then did she turn and make eye contact with me. Her expression was a little tired, like she already knew she'd meet resistance from me.

She was right. "Why me?" I hissed.

"Because I asked you to," she said sharply, and turned back to the board. "Someone name the three parts of the Constitution," she boomed. Hands shot up all over the room, nervous that if they didn't, Mrs. Jenner would eat them alive.

New Kid sat down next to me. That's what I'll call him until he cares enough to tell me his name. I watched him critically as he sat down and struggled to get paper to take notes on out of his backpack. He finally managed it and sat up again, glancing at me nervously. "Hi," he said.

I was an expert at looking totally cool and disinterested. "Hi," I said, subtly mocking his slightly nervous tone.

"So, what's the lesson on?"

"The Constitution." I pointed to the big, messy letters Mrs. Jenner had scrawled on the board.

"Oh." He paused. "Is she a really boring teacher?"

I rolled my eyes. "No, she's fantastic. She keeps me on my toes. Never know what she's gonna do next."

He actually cracked a smile at my sarcasm. "So, what's your name again? Maximum?"

"Yeah." I stared him down, daring him to make a that's-a-weird-name comment. But he didn't.

"That's cool. Interesting." I smirked and shook my head, looking down at my notes. "My name is boring. Sam."

I dropped my pencil on my desk and turned to look him straight in the eye. He seemed to shrink slightly away from my intense gaze. "Look, this small talk is really interesting and I'd so love to risk detention by continuing it, but we really should focus on the lesson by now. Mrs. Jenner's kinda picky about that kind of stuff."

The tops of his ears turned red. I almsot felt bad, for a split second, before remembering how much I didn't care.

"Maximum Ride!" Mrs. Jenner snapped.

I twisted around to face her, raising my eyebrows in the general expression for 'yo, sup.'

"Office please. Now."

I tried not to glare at Sam while I stood up and walked with grace and dignity to the door. Little did Mrs. Jenner know that I would not, in fact, go to the principal's office, but would probably just hang out around the school instead.

Checking to make sure there were no nearby teachers, I pulled out my phone and texted the only person I ever felt like talking to these days.

Max: Just got in trouble with the witch.

Fang's reply was so instant it was scary.

Fang: Ouch. What'd you do?
Max: There was a new kid this morning. He wouldn't quit talking to me, and I take the heat for it.
Fang: Tell him to back off or he'll meet me.
Max: You kidding? I'd probably get in trouble for talking to him again.
Fang: Still. Tell him to quit it.
Max: I'll see how he responds to that after I'm done ditching class.
Fang: Seriously though. Tell him.
Max: I'll make sure to.
Fang: Good. I gotta go before I get yelled at. I have to do an experiment in science.
Max: Punch people in the face. Bye.
Fang: I will. Bye.

Well, now I was bored. I wandered aimlessly, ducking every time I passed the principal's office on the off chance that Mrs. Jenner might've had to run in there and make copies of something. It would be just my luck.

It was also just my luck to bump into Sam on my third loop through the hallways. He looked surprised to see me.

"Oh, uh, hi, Max." He glanced nervously over my shoulder and then over his. He was taller than me. I hated that. "Aren't you supposed to be in the principal's office?"

I folded my arms. "Aren't you supposed to be in class?"

He smiled and shrugged. "Yeah, but my pencil broke and I had to ask someone for another one, so she sent me to the principal's office too."

Despite myself, I rolled my eyes. Mrs. Jenner jumped at every chance to send someone to the office. I think it makes her feel badass. If so, she should probably take up a new hobby, because Mrs. Jenner is the furthest thing from badass.

"Don't even bother going," I said. "There's no point."

He looked even more surprised to hear this. "Won't we get in more trouble?"

I scoffed at that. "No way! The secretaries would just send us out anyway. They know how much she overreacts and usually just dismiss everyone sent by Mrs. Jenner anyway."

"Oh." He paused. "That's cool, I guess. So what do we do know? Go back to class?"

"No." I turned and kept walking, and heard the sound of his Converse squeaking as he tried to keep up with me. "Now, we hang out in the halls and cut class."

"And we won't get in trouble for any of this?"

I stopped abruptly and looked him straight in the eye. "What's your deal? Even if we do get caught, which we won't, who cares? What're they gonna do, carry out death by firing squad? Grow a backbone, dude."

He paused. "You're a bunch different than the majority of the girls around here."

"I'm going to assume that's a compliment and say thanks and back off in the same sentence."

He held his hands up defensively. "That was a compliment, I promise."

"Better be," I muttered halfheartedly as I resumed walking. There was a short, awkward silence. "I was texting my boyfriend before you bumped into me. I told him what happened with Jenner and why I got in trouble. He said, and I quote. . ." I pulled out my phone for more accurate reference. " 'Tell him to back off or he'll meet me.' " I closed my phone and slipped it back into my back pocket, waiting for him to think that over.

"Seems a bit protective, no?" he finally said weakly.

I looked at him with expressionless eyes. "Nope. I'm going to assume you've never had a girlfriend." I rounded another corner sharply, praying I'd shake him and he'd decide something else, like the broken water fountain, was a hell of a lot more interesting.

He bristled a little at that. "It's none of your business anyway."

"I'll take that as a 'no, I haven't had one.' No one in your old school fit the bill?" I knew I was being insanely intrusive and being way too rude and snarky, but I couldn't help it.

There was a short silence before he reluctantly spoke. "Not really," he admitted.

I nodded as if I was the love guru. Which I so wasn't. "I see." Although I really didn't, actually.

The bell has become like music to me, in a lot of ways. Sometimes I feel like just bursting out and singing whenever I hear it because I feel like crying in relief that one class is over. But then I remember I have another one directly after and suddenly I don't really feel that much like singing anymore.

"See ya." I decided to leave the new kid alone, in the middle of the hallway that was swiftly overflowing with students, while I took a really complicated route back to Mrs. Jenner's room to pick up my stuff.

Because that's what I do when I automatically hate someone, for no reason.

I was sitting at the dining room table, mindlessly doodling in the margins of my math homework, when Mom walked in from the kitchen, looking like her mind was a million miles away. I set my pencil down and looked at her questioningly.

"Max, are you depressed?" Mom asked suddenly, without any preamble.

I was so shocked that it took me a second to collect my thoughts. "No. Not really. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I was kind of thinking of sending you to a counselor or something because I was watching this thing on the news about teenage depression and usually when teenagers get depressed they start starving themselves or cutting themselves or something." She looked really nervous to be saying this stuff out loud. Her eyes flickered down to where my forearms were resting on my math worksheet. Like she was worried I was hiding red slashes under the fabric of my shirt.

I took a deep breath. "Mom, how much did I eat at dinner tonight?"

She looked confused. "I don't know, maybe two servings of stir fry and four biscuits? Why?"

"Does it seem like I'm starving myself?" This stuff was hard to talk about with my mom.

"No," she said slowly. If a person can say a single word slowly, she did.

I pushed up the sleeves of my shirt and held my arms out, palms up, towards her. "Go ahead. Inspect my wrists. I'm not self-harming, either."

Mom glanced at the smooth skin on my wrists and forearms. Totally unscathed. Except for a bruise I'd gotten last week from sliding down the banister too fast and jamming my arm into the sofa trying to stop myself. But she knew about that already.

"Okay," she said hesitantly. "Maybe you're okay. But you've just been so. . .lifeless lately."

I tried to keep the surprise off my face. Ever since I'd seen Fang last weekend, I'd felt a little better. It'd made me realize how likely it was that we'd see each other often. But even before that, I'd made an effort to not seem depressed. "I have?"

"Maybe not so much recently as in the past," she ammended. "But really. . .if you need to talk to anyone about anything, you have me. And your sister."

Who has totally turned into a mega bitch. "Thanks, Mom. But you don't have anything to worry about. Really."

She nodded, looking only slightly convinced, and went upstairs.

It was kinda hard to focus on my homework after that. I felt like I'd disappointed my mom somehow. Like she'd been expecting me to suddenly just become a pocketful of sunshine once my best friend moved miles away (thank Natasha Bedingfield for that particular analogy). I shut my math book and went upstairs. I tried not to think about Fang, or my bitchy sister, or my worried mom, or my blinded friend Iggy, or stupid Dylan, or stupid Sam. I just shut my eyes and flopped backwards onto my bed and tried very hard not to think.

But it's really hard to not think when it's physically impossible not to. Really. I once read that girls' minds always have to be thinking something, but guys' minds can be empty sometimes. That should drop a major hint - girls are superior.

After a while of sitting there and futilely attempting to not think, the door burst open and slammed into the wall, and Ella stood there, sulking, with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Thanks for knocking, come on in," I mumbled flatly.

Ella huffed angrily and stepped into my room. I was instantly distracted by the tiny click I heard when she put her foot down. I bolted upright and stared at the low-heeled sandals on Ella's feet in horror. The straps were all tangled around her feet and ankles, but left her toes free. Which were coated in a layer of blood-red nail polish. And her shirt kept riding up a couple inches on the bottom. I was horror-struck. When had my sister turned into such a. . .Lissa-clone?

"Ella, has Mom seen you in that outfit?" I demanded.

She tossed her hair over her shoulder defiantly. Her face was painted with makeup. "Sure she has." Her voice faltered; it cracked on the last word.

I stood up slowly. She was an inch taller than me in those ridiculous heels. "I doubt it. How'd you keep her from noticing?"

She shrugged. "Easy. A heavy coat, my hood pulled really close around my face, and it's simple."

"So you're telling me she totally didn't notice that your jeans are thisclose to revealing your butt and you're wearing those retarded heels?"

"What's it to you, anyway?" She lifted her chin.

I glared at her. "The point is, people know that you're my sister. And I'm so embarassed that you're my sister while you're dressed like this."

Ella seemed to deflate a teensy super tiny little bit. "It's not up to you anyway, Max. You shouldn't care so much about what I do now if you're embarassed that I'm your sister." She stormed angrily to my closet and started harshly leafing through the clumps of hangers.

"I said I'm embarassed to be your sister while you're dressed like this," I emphasized. "And if you think you're still treating me like your Barbie doll, you're wrong."

"I'm not treating you like a Barbie doll, and I am still dressing you." She pulled out a shirt that still had the tags on it. My somewhat. . .irresponsible Aunt Emmi had given it to me. It was extremely low-cut and showed off quite a bit of midriff. Not my style at all. It shouldn't be anybody's, really.

"You don't get to decide what I wear," I said, as calmly as I could. "But Mom is probably going to decide what you wear for the next ten years once she finds out about this."

She stepped a little closer. "You're not going to tell her, are you?"

I snorted. "Give me one good, honest-to-God reason why the hell not."

"Becuase we're sisters and we keep secrets for each other." Her eyeliner-ringed eyes were wide, begging with me.

"I'm not going to keep secrets for you if you're showing yourself off to the world like that," I huffed. "Seriously, Ella, nothing says 'slut' like that getup."

Our easy sisterly banter seemed to crack through the bitchy charade a little. "Pleeeease? I swear, I'll vacuum your room for you for a month."

I slid my sock across the floor. "In case you haven't noticed, my floors are hardwood."

She clasped her hands together and I saw that she was wearing fake tips that she must've glued to her nails that morning. "Please, Max, I'll do anything."

I pretended to consider the offer. "Does 'anything' include not dressing like that anymore?"

Ella seemed kinda sheepish. "Yeah," she said. "It's kinda a phase, I guess. I've been hanging out with these girls from cheerleading recently and I guess they're kinda sorta totally bad influences. One of them has three boyfriends right now."

There was a totally unnerving tone of awe in her voice. I shook my head. "Don't hang out with them anymore. Just a recommendation. And change. Please."

She nodded and headed for the door. Now, this wasn't a movie, so I hadn't totally altered her seemingly constant bitter attitude. There wasn't a grand hug or anything like that. Just Ella walking past me to go change. I caught a huge noseful of overly sweet perfume and gagged. Perfume was gross. Everyone knows you're wearing perfume the second they can smell you, so what's the point? Then everyone knows that you're probably wearing perfume to cover up some kind of awful BO problem.

Sometimes, the human race is just a totally mystery to me.

Maya POV

I hesitated slightly, standing outside the huge building. My shoulders rose up and down quickly from my run. I felt better. My lungs were on fire - I hadn't stopped running for at least a solid hour - but I still felt better.

I'd promised myself that I wouldn't come back here. I stared at the tiny pad next to the stainless steel door so hard that it blurred. The tiny touch screen was glowing faintly as the day progressively got darker. Just pressing my finger to it would open those doors. I'd be warm. I'd be 'home'. Jeb would see to it that I got food, and was kept presentable and ready for school the next day. He'd get someone to do my homework, since I wasn't really expected to keep up the charade once I got back to the school.

But what if he was so angry that I ran away that he'd withhold those privledges from me?

One way to find out.

I pressed my index finger to the tiny screen. It heated up instantly, and I waited for a second. It flashed green and the words Welcome, MAYA (01M298D5). Usually experiments weren't registered with fingerprints in the system. But I was constantly coming and going, and they'd need a guard stationed at the door all day so he'd know when to let me in. It hurt to see my number there, alongside my name, on the screen. I wasn't a number. I was a person. With feelings. It wasn't my fault that most of my features and part of my personality belonged to someone else.

I pulled open the door and progressed to the next set. There were seven in all. They're extremely top-secret top-security here. No duh. They're experimenting on animals and humans and everything else they can possibly do. I winced and placed my finger into the tiny slot in the wall. There was a tiny second of mild pain, and when I retracted my finger, a bead of blood bubbled at the tip. So beyond caring, I wiped it off on my shirt and opened that door.

Finally, I was in the dimly lit lobby. Believe it or not, behind all those security measures, the School looks pretty normal. Like a hospital. But once you get to the big glass windows revealing stacks of dog crates and cages holding experiments, you realize that something's up.

"Maya." I heard a feathery voice sigh my name and reflexively jerked towards the sound. One of the scientists was approaching me. I didn't really know all their names, but I recognized this one: shoulder-length black hair, weird silver eyes, a curved nose that kind of looked like a beak.

"What?" I snapped defensively.

"You've been gone a long time," she said sharply. "Anything wrong?"

I blew out a big breath of air. "No," I lied. "I'm fine." I turned down the hallway that I knew would lead to Jeb's office. "I just want a normal life," I muttered under my breath, to no one in particular.

Jeb's office is probably the closest thing I have to home. Even where I sleep changes constantly. On a cot, in a room barely bigger than a storage closet. In an actual bed, in a room filled with other beds, that are completely empty. On a hospital bed. In a bed that's actually warm and homey and looks like it could belong in a decorating catalogue. You get the picture. Jeb's office is somewhat homey, and maybe one of the only places in the whole lab that's not sterile and white. It has warm, coffee-with-milk-colored carpeting, wood-paneled walls, and a big oak desk. There are big, cushy chairs, and bookshelves, and filing cabinets. It's surprisingly nice for such a horrid place.

Jeb wasn't there when I walked in. I just shrugged and curled up into a ball on one of the big chairs. He'd be back from wherever he was soon enough. He'd come and find me, and then I'd ask to sleep in here, preferrably for the rest of my life. Just never, ever leave.

I wasn't sure how long it took for the door to click open and the familiar sound of Jeb's shoes against the floor shoved me harshly out of a drowsy half-sleep. I woke with a start, and wearily peered over the top of the wing chair at the person by the door.

And froze. It wasn't Jeb.

I'd never seen this particular woman in person before, but I'd seen enough pictures to recognize her instantly. She looked normal, like a business-woman-slash-mom-of-three would look; shoulder-length, blond curly hair. Warm brown eyes. Perfect posture. Slight wrinkles around her mouth that suggested she was a person that spent a lot of time smiling.

She wasn't really smiling right now.

"Maya," she said, and her voice was a complete contrast to her face. It was warm and welcoming, while her features were flat and cold.

I rose unsteadily from the chair. "Um, uh, hi," I spluttered. "It's really nice to finally meet you face-to-face." I held out my hand.

The Director pointed her sharp nose a little higher in the air. "I rarely make personal visits to our experiments."

I let my hand fall to my side. "Right. Of course."

"I'm here. . ." Her voice trailed off, and she moved to stand behind Jeb's desk, bracing her slim hands on the top of it. "I'm here to speak to you, personally." She arched an eyebrow as if she expected me to start gushing thanks and offer her something to drink. When I didn't, she continued in a clipped tone. "Your mission is to loosen the ties between Maximum 'Max' Ride Martinez and Nicolas 'Fang' Joseph Thorne. Correct?"

Even though I'd never heard my task addressed in such a formal way before, she'd pretty much hit the nail on the head. "That's right," I said unsteadily, wondering what she was getting at.

"Right." She smiled, but it wasn't warm and reassuring; it was a predator's smile. "It's been brought to my attention that your success is not coming quickly enough."

Instantly I felt a shock of anger course through my body. I could practically taste it; it was the 'Max' part of my personality coming through. I knew everything about Max. And I knew that she'd get angry quickly in a situation like this.

"Well, I've barely been going to school with Fang for a week," I said carefully. "He just started two weeks ago. You had me out of school then, undergoing tests. Jeb said that you personally requested it."

Her expression changed from predatory to plain mean. "It's not my fault that you have the social skills of an alligator," she snapped.

That cut deep. She expected me to be a social butterfly when I've had minimal interaction with outside life, at best?

I took a deep breath to calm myself. "So, what's the point of you being here? To shove my failure in my face and scream at me to work harder?" I realized I shouldn't use such a critical, sharp tone with the Director; it could end up really badly for me, at least.

"I'm here to tell you that you have three weeks, a month, tops, to turn things around for the better, or you will be terminated." She whirled and stalked for the door.

"Promise?" I muttered under my breath, low enough that she couldn't hear. I flopped back into the chair and curled up into a ball. I folded my arms over my knees, buried my head in them, and cried.

Jeb found me like that; I barely heard the door open this time, and a horrible panic invaded me that it might be the Director again. But no, it was Jeb, and he lightly patted my hair and hugged me and muttered senseless stuff until I stopped crying.

When I finally looked up, Jeb was watching me. "What did she say to you?" he demanded. "No one would tell me anything. They just said they saw you go into my office, and the Director follow you in a little while later."

I gave a watery smile. "She said she's going to kill me if I don't start showing progress in the next three weeks."

His brow furrowed. "You mean terminate?"

"No," I said raggedly. "I mean she's going to kill me."

"Maya," Jeb muttered, looking around as if wondering if people were eavesdropping. "No one gets killed. Experiments get terminated. Not killed. That's one of the Director's rules; do not use the word kill."

"Oh, what does it matter?" I cried. "You can dress it up or dress it down as much as you want, but the end result is the same; a living organism ends up dead."

He paused. "I know. And I have a plan."

I looked up hopefully, feeling the tears dry on my face. "You do? What kind of plan?"

"I don't know yet. I've been thinking about it for a while. And hopefully, it'll be refined in a few weeks. Soon enough to get us both out of here." He did it again; glanced around, all paranoid.

"Okay," I said, hope filling me for the first time in who knows how long. "I'd like that."

Kay, leaving for ballet, then curling up and watching Life As We Know It on the couch. Got it. Bye.

-dancerxforlifex3