Hey guys. Don't kill me for the lateness; I just had my finals so I haven't had time to finish this chapter. And to be honest I had a bit of writers block so this chapter was exxttrreeemmmeelly difficult to write. But ah well. Its fillery but if you squint there is some pretty big stuff here.

Disclaimer: James Patterson is rich. I am not. Therefore I cannot be the owner of Maximum Ride. Oh and I don't own McDonalds either!

Max POV:

Gosh my wings felt heavy. Sweat covered my arms and coated most of my body. Then the unthinkable happened.

My stomach growled.

And I realized I was starving. How long was it since I last ate? One, maybe two days? We hadn't even stopped to sleep.

I turned sharply to look at my flock. It was a sad picture. Pretty much everyone, excluding Fang, looked like flying bird zombies.

"Guys?" I finally called out. My voice sounded harsh, and my throat felt like sand paper from lack of use.

The looked up at my expectantly.

"We need food." I said bluntly.

I swear they all gave me the biggest grin I've ever seen. Fang even game a smirk. Slowly we waded through the small town. Where were we? California? It wouldn't be too long now.

The flock smiled as we saw the world's most glorious accomplishment: McDonalds.

"Uh….. Are you sure you want all that food?" The frail woman asked. She probably had not eaten as much as we did in a meal as she did in her entire life. Typical. Her hand shook. Her mousy brown hair wobbled slightly with her head. I think she was afraid of us.

"Positive," Fang elbowed me. "Ma'am."

"If I could just see some… Method of payment please…"

I pulled out the all mighty Max card. How it managed to avoid getting blown up? I have no idea.

"Then um, that'll be one hundred seven dollars and fifty one cents."

I gave the card to the woman. I decided to nickname her twitchy. She gave a yelp when I pulled the card from her hand. I couldn't blame her though; six- five crazy, sweaty, ravishingly hungry looking bird kids would be kind of intimidating.

Five minutes later, we scarfed down food like never before. I ripped through three burgers in two minutes, not even bothering to unwrap them. It was like winning the lottery…. This made me feel all the more guilty…..

Fang POV:

Have you ever felt suddenly happy, like having a simple joy, only to have it snatched away immediately? Like catching your breath for just a moment then getting the wind knocked outta ya?

"Fang?" Angel whispered quietly.

I looked ups suddenly. I was too busy shoving my face to notice an anxious look on her face.

"That thing that happened yesterday, well… It happened again."

Well sh-.

"Did it come back?" I rushed to ask.

"Yes, but very slowly. Do you… do you think he will be okay?" Her expression killed me. I hesitated. Angel took the hint and looked away.

Max POV:

Oh sweet heavenly glorious Mickey D god, how amazing you are. This was the first time I slowed down to even look around. This had been such a relief to all of us… Except when you find everyone in the restaurant staring in what I can only assume is disgust. I mustered up the harshest "eat dirt" glare I could manage. I smirked in triumph.

I had just started to dig in once again, but something was bothering me. Call it intuition, or "Max senses" but something just didn't feel right.

I looked up again. Some guy was staring at us. But unlike the others, he had a grin plastered on his face. Normal people don't find sick fascination with poor hungry kids.

Angel, listen to me. I called urgently.

She looked up at me.

We need to leave. Now. Tell everyone telepathically.

On it. She responded.

Wordlessly we left the restaurant. And guess who followed?

Mr. Fly on the wall himself. And in case you haven't noticed us bird kids aren't afraid of confrontation. I swung around to face the man, who was now standing in an empty alleyway. He walked forward to meet us.

As he came closer, Fang's eyes widened. I realized the guy had a horrible stench; antiseptic.

"They said you were in hiding you know. Said we couldn't see you. That it was impossible. But here you all are." The guy chuckled. He continued, "They said to give up. But I didn't." He paused. "The infamous flock; Imagine the promotion I'd get once I capture-and maybe even dissect all of you experiments."

Okay. Once puny man (I mean seriously, the guy had twig arms) against six- five genetically altered kick-ass bird kids. This guy wasn't even going to blink before he was in the ground (metaphorically so to speak).

"Don't be stupid," I started, "It's five against on-" a bullet sliced through the air.

What kind of psycho brings a gun with him to McDonalds?

"Not expecting this eh?" Psycho ass smirked.

"Get down!" Fang screamed behind me, shoving me to the ground.

This wasn't anything new really. I had been shot before, not to mention erasers occasionally carried weapons. This guy still had freak like accuracy though. If I hadn't ducked the kids wouldn't have had the greatest image before them. That fact alone quite pissed me off.

Before I could jump to my feet Fang was on it. He crept slowly enough to disappear.

"Remarkable! The experiment 7134 just vanished! I wonder if my boss knows about-" he was interrupted by the gun being ripped from his hands and the butt against the back of his head. He fell to the floor.

I looked at my flock. "You all alright?"

Gazzy nodded.

"Is he…?" Nudge spoke quietly.

"I didn't hit him that hard…" Fang murmured.

I knelt down and held two fingers to the stupid guys fat neck. I shook my head. The stupid ass hat was dead.

"I didn't mean to…" Fang drifted off midsentence. I understood. We had occasionally killed Erasers (well only a few times now that I think about it… mostly when we broke Angel out) never the less, not really ever an actual white-coat.

"It was either us or him Fang. He was a psychopath anyway. It's better not to have guys like him around in the world." I spoke softly. Fang shook his head in somewhat agreement.

"Max?" Nudged uttered quietly.

I looked up.

"I have an idea. The guy has his phone on him. If it's a smart phone I bet I can hack it and find the location of his 'work place'."

And that is why Nudge is completely brilliant. We knew that it was in California, but I had a huge suspicion that the school had relocated. We all did.

"That's fantastic Nudge!" Gazzy squealed hugging her. She was left to work. In a matter of moments she had the results.

"Guys, the school has changed relocated like we thought... It's only a mile away."

Iggy, here we come.

So it begins. This will be the last filler for the flock getting to Iggy I swear. In one or two chapters things will seriously kick off. Yes, hmm next chapter will be a doosie! In all honesty I don't really know how I feel about this chapter in particular, so please review to give me some feedback!