"Fly, Skylar! Fly!",Dakot yells. I start flapping my wings wildly,doing no good.
Masen comes up behind me and grabs one of my wings. I dive down, hopeing he will let go. He doesnt. Then he snatches me up by the waist and starts taking me back to the School. "Dakota! Dakota, he wont let me go!",i scream. Dakota comes and kicks Masen square in the jaw,causing him to drop me. I try to flap my wings but they are tangled and the feathers are squished.
As i fall closer to the ground I throw myself onto a tree,escaping the pain from falling on the ground. A dozen branches scratch my face and arms. I finaly get a grip on a firm branch and sit on it.
"Dakota?", i wisper quiety,fearing the worst.
Had Masen caught him? Or was he injured? Did he fly off without me? I hear a rustle in a tree next to me. I let a pathetic squeak of fear escape my lips. "Dakota,is that you?",i wisper again.
"Yeah. Its me. But be quiet. The jerkface is circleing overhead. He'll hear us",Dakota says as he flutters over from another branch.
He puts an arm around my shoulders. I lay my head on his shoulder. "I thought he got you!",i whine. "Naa. But your face is pretty scratched up. It'll heal in a few hours", he says.
He looks down at me and gently kisses my lips. I kiss him back. We both just sit there. 'I just kissed Dakota...',i thought to myself. I was quite shocked.
A gust of wind goes by and I shiver in the cool breeze. We're still in our pajamas. Dakota wraps his huge,black wings around us. I sigh,enjoying the warmth. After a few minutes, the sound of Masen's wingbeats disappear. We decide to walk a little. When we thought we were a reasonable distance away from the School,we started flying again.
"We need to find a place to freaking sleep",I say grumpily. We have been flying for at least three hours. My wings are starting to waver.
Dakota sighs and dives down. "Dakota? Where are you going?",i dive down after him. We both land and i just fall to the ground,exausted. We are in a grassy plain. "This is where we are sleeping?",i ask. "Yeah. Soft and not a tree. We're not animals,you know",he says. I smile."Pretty dang close to being animals though",i insist. I close my eyes for a second, breathing in the grassy aroma. I hear the grass movie and i open my eyes. Dakota is laying down next to me,using his backpack as a pillow. "That looks comfy",i say and put my backpack under my head. "Goodnight, Skylar", Dakota wispers in my ear. "Night, Dakota",i mumble,distracted by sleep.
I feel someone hit my side and moan. "Dakota,quit kicking me",i murmer,eyes still closed. And fall back asleep. I feel another sharp pain in my side. "Dakota,if you kick me one more time,im going to punch your stomach",i threaten. "Skylar...wake up",he says. But he sounds far away,and his voice sounds worried. I open my eyes and im blinded by the sun and i close them. I open them again,but slowly. Seven kids and a black dog, like the one from Wizard of Oz, are standing there. Two looking down at me and two looking down at Dakota. "Dakota...?",i say. "This is ,um, the flock. Thats Maya and Maximum Ride aka Max,the leader",he says pointing at the girls standing over me. They look absolutly the same but Maya has a red streak in her hair."This is Fang and Dylan",he points at the guys standing over him. "And thats Iggy,Nudge,Gazzy,and the dog is Total. They all have wings too", he says. "Hi",i manage to say. "Wait,did you say Maximum Ride?",i ask Dakota. He nods. "I heard the whitecoates talking about you! They all wanted me to catch you but Charlie doesnt want me to know about you",it all came spilling out of my mouth. "Wait, what? They wanted you to catch me?",she looks at the two boys standing over Dakota for answers; they shrug. "They used her as a tool to catch runaway and wild mutants. She is the fastest out of all of us. We ran away because they were going to kill me",Dakota explains.
He tells them the whole reason why we ran away and about the School.
"Okay,let me get this strait. You just ran away? How did you get out of the dog crates?", Fang asks. "Dog crates? We use those to keep the guard dogs in. Why would we ever be in one of those? We just jumped out the window to our room", i say. "They treated us differently than your School did. We got fed decent stuff,we were clean,and we were comfortable. We only now realize what they do to the messed up mutations and the mutations that Skylar catches. They do the same as they do to you",Dakota says. "Ahh. So you are like the Erasers. They were designed to catch us", Max says. Again,she looks at Maya and the two other guys next to Dakota. Dylan nods but Fang and Maya shake their heads. Max looks like she agrees with those two. Dylan panics and says,"How would you like to join the flock?" "You mean your little group here?",Dakota asks. Dylan nods. "I dont see why not",i say. Dakota shruggs and says "Sure". "So...are you two like B.F. and G.F.?"the little african girl ,Nudge, asks. "Uh...-"i start to say but Dakota cuts me off and says "Yeah". I look at him, shocked. "Darn",i heard the blind kid Iggy say. Gazzy chuckles. "Actualy, we're not. Dakota must of gotten some grass in his brain",i say. Dakota shruggs and says,"Probably"."Well we have a missing flock member...her name is Angel. A few months ago, there was an explosion in France and she got lost. We all thought she was dead. Until a week ago we found out she was being held in this heavily guarded school called The Observatory. We're hoping to bust her out. But like i said,its heavily guarded. We need all the help we can get",Max says. She doesnt seem to like the idea of 'help'. "So will you help us get Angel back?",Maya asks. I think about the possibilities. If we go with the flock,we might be caught,tortured,or killed. But if we dont go with the flock,it would mean less protection against Charlie and the School. "We'll go with you",Dakota says. I look at him again. "What if i didnt want to go with them? You have to stop answering for me",i complain. Gazzy stepped behind me and said ,"Woah! Look at those wings! Max,they have designs on them! Like swirls. Cool!" Me and Dakota laughed,but no one else was. "But how do you have designs on your feathers?",Dylan asked. "Huh? Oh, just found out a way to chemicaly add patterns and extra,artificial colors into our genes. We can also sing realy good too",i explain."Yeah,he added some strange thing into our bloodstreams when we first arrived at the school. Other mutants can sing and have patterns too",Dakota says. I ruffle my feathers and show them my wings. Dakota does the same. "Their so pretty!",Nudge complements. "Thank you",me and Dakota say. "So... We were going to get breakfast when we saw you both sleeping down here. Would you like to come?",Maya asks. Max shoots her a look. "Maya,thats my place",she says. Maya shruggs. "So would you like to come with us?",Fang asks. "Yeah. Im hungry. You comin,Dakota?",i say. "Yep",he answers. He stands up an he holds his hand out to help me up. I take it and stand up,brushing the grass off my legs. "Uhh...we're still in our pajamas..."Dakota wispers to me. I look down an blush. "Yeah,we noticed. You can change clothes when we're getting breakfast. Theres a place not far from here"Dylan says,pointing to nowhere. I squint my eyes,trying to see what he is seeing. "Theres nothing there",i say. "He can see realy,realy far. And sometimes through things!",Gazzy says. "Oh",i say ridiculously. "Come on",Max says, and takes off. I throw my backpack over my shoulder,and follow her and everyone else.
"This tastes realy good. 'Bout time we have something new in our stomachs", Dakota says. I nod my head, mouth too full to speak. "This place is the best", Iggy says. "Totaly", Nudge says. We had flow a while until we found this resteraunt. Dakota and i had finaly changed into some normal clothes. Us and the flock are sitting down at a huge table, eating. "Can i try that?", Dakota asks, pointing toward a french fry. I hand it to him and he tries it. "Mmm. The School never serves us these", he says. We barley ever ate anything as 'exotic' at the School as french fries. Tradgic, i know. "That sucks", Maya says. "Well at least they treated us nicley...",i say. Dakota looks down at me (we're sitting next to eachother) and says ," They only treated you nicley because your a good flyer, your an adorable little girl, and your the only female that can survive the process in which Charlie makes us hybrids". That stung a little in the heart. "I'm not little ",i grumble, crossing my arms. "Your little to me", he says. "Am not! Were practicly the same height ",i counter attack with words. "Nuh-uh. Remember the last checkup we had? Where Charlie weighed us, took some blood, checked our height, and other stuff. I was about four and a half inches taller than you. And that was two weeks ago ",he proves me wrong. I stick my tounge out at him. "Im done arguing", i say. "Awe dont be like that", he says,playfuly poking me. He was being so childish. Acting like we did when we were little. He keeps poking me. It was starting to tickle. "Stop", i say with a smile on my face. He pokes my side and i giggle like a lunatic. Dakota starts tickling me and i beg ",Stop. Please. Please. Dakota!", all the while laughing. Someone coughs and we stop the the tickle war immediatly, blushing scarlet. "What was that about?", Gazzy wispers to Iggy. He shruggs.
We finish eating our breakfast and we leave. Max decides that me and Dakota need some different clothes to hide our wings. "You need a hoodie to cover them. You cant just walk out in public with wings. Even though everyone knows we have them, some weirdos try to grab a feather or two. And you cant carry around PJ's. You'll have to get used to sleeping in normal clothes", Max says. She is quite bossy, though she is the boss. She takes us to a store called Sears and lets us each pick out one hoodie, two shirts, and two pairs of jeans. I decide to go stylish. I pick skinny jeans instead of the flared kind Max told me to get ,a purple hoodie with white stars on it, and two gray T-shirts. Nudge agrees with my choices. Dakota got a regular, brown hoodie, two pairs of jeans, and two Monster Engergy shirts. Max uses a credit card to buy the clothes. "Do you pay for the stuff you buy with that credit card? ",i ask. She laughes and says, "Of course not. Our friend Jeb pays for it all. Same with the breakfast". I nod aprovingly. Then, all of a sudden, a section of the roof collapses.