A/N: Omg, omg, omg, I'm SOOO sorry. I re-read the chapter last night and it was chock-full of typos as you may have noticed. I edited it but my editor thing is, like, broken: it says that it has been successfully saved but it actually has NOT been successfully saved. I'll have to do a better error check in the future.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. The triple-Z: zip, zilch, zero.
Gazzy's expression is one of absolute terror; Nudge stifles a gasp, and Iggy's eyes narrow. He slowly pushes Nudge up so that she is sitting straight and trains his sightless gaze on me.
"They took Angel back to the School?" Gazzy whispers. He looks like he wants to cover his eyes, and I remember his little sob scene in the forest. I feel terrible immediately.
"I think so," says Max, her voice shaking.
My throat closes up. I rarely ever see Max losing control like this. It's kind of like when you get a talking toy: before it can talk, there's a plastic tab that you have to pull out of its back. Someone has pulled out Max's emotional plastic tab, and now she can't hold herself together.
"Why?" Nudge asks. "After four years, I thought maybe they had forgotten-"
"They want us back," I say a bit angrily. Of course they want us back! People like that don't just forget. They keep coming after you like Prince Humperdinck wannabes.
"They'll never forget about us," Max reminds us. "Jeb wasn't supposed to take us out of there."
As usual, the second Jeb's name is mentioned, guilt wracks me. If it weren't for us, he'd still be alive. Well, if you call what the whitecoats are doing living.
"Jeb knew they'd do anything to get us back," I explain calmly. "If anyone ever discovered what they did to us, it would be the end of the School." Just thinking about it gives me pleasant little chills.
Suddenly I remember something. I stand up and sweep out of the room.
See, the problem with just going to someone with our amazing story is that the School would be over, but so would we. We'd end up at a zoo or some other tourist attraction. Okay, call us selfish. But our only real thought is to survive.
Maybe we're still a bit primitive.
I enter Max's room and head straight for the closet. Buried in the back is…ah ha. I thought it would take a bit more digging. I grab the objects and leap back down the stairs to the kitchen. As I enter, I notice the cloud of doom that seems to grow in my chest as I get nearer to the table, suffocating me. I swallow it down and shake some gifts from our mousey friends off of the old papers I'm clutching in my hand.
"Eew," says Nudge. She wipes her nose with her sleeve and sniffs. "Eew. Was that-"
"Here." I shove the papers in Max's face, cutting off Nudge. She looks a bit relieved.
The papers are Jeb's, left over from when he rescued us from the School. We had moved all his stuff to the back of Max's closet so that we didn't have to look at it all the time. I was afraid that we had lost them, but here they were. Max helps me spread them out on the table, and I begin sifting through them.
Quickly, I find the paper that I want – or rather, the envelope that I want. It is sealed with a bit of wax. I catch Max's eye for her approval, and then rip off the wax with my thumbnail. My arm throbs.
"What is that?" the Gasman asks, sounding disgusted and curious at the same time. He wrinkles his nose.
"Map," I say shortly, pulling it out of the envelope. I look at it for a moment, then lay it on the table. Iggy turns his back to us and leans on the counter.
"Map of what?" Nudge wiggles forward in her chair, peering over my shoulder. I glance at her for a moment and then return my gaze to the map.
"Map of a secret facility," says Max. I can tell how much it pains her to even be looking at this thing. "In California. The School."
"Whaaat?" Gazzy squeaks. Iggy's face drains of every drop of blood. I hate to see my flock in pain like this, but we needed these plans. It will help us greatly in finding Angel. Speaking of which, we better get moving.
"That's where they took Angel," Max says slowly. "And that's where we have to go to get her back."
"Oh," says Nudge. I can see the wheels turning in her brain. "Yeah. We have to get Angel back. We can't let her stay there – with them. They're – monsters. They're going to do bad things to her. And put her in a cage. Hurt her." Nudge is breathing in short little pants, her long, brown fingers drumming the table like we're discussing the weather. "But there's five of us. So the rest of us have to go get hmph – "
Max clamped her hand down on Nudge's mouth. Nudge unpeeled Max's fingers and said, "Uh, how far is it?"
"Six hundred miles, more or less," I say, calculating it. "At least a seven-hour flight, not including breaks."
"Can we discuss this?"Iggy asks, not turning. "We're way outnumbered."
"No." Max looks down at the map again, scanning it. Inside, I'm screaming at Iggy. Discuss it? Jeezum, the girl could be dead already, and he wants to sit and have a cuppa tea?
"Can we take a vote?" Iggy sounds a bit, well, scared. And rebellious. "They had guns. And a chopper."
"Iggy. This is not a democracy," Max says, her voice firm but understanding. I want to shoot the selfish jerk. "It's a Maxocracy. You know we have to go after Angel. You can't be thinking that we should just let them take her." That is what he's thinking. It's obvious, and I bet a million bucks that it's written all over his face. "The six of us look after one another – no matter what. None of us is going to live in a cage again, not while I'm alive."
Iggy's head drops with shame. Good. But Max takes a deep breath – she isn't done.
"But actually, Nudge, Fang and I are going after Angel. You and the Gasman – I need you to stay here. Hold down the fort. On the off chance that Angel escapes and makes her way home."
My head snaps up, my eyes wide. There's a moment of dead silence. Then Iggy turns to face Max, shaking, his face flushed.
"You are so full of it," Iggy says dangerously. "That's not why you want us here. Why don't you just say it?" His voice is full of betrayal.
Max is getting impatient, but to my surprise, I'm siding with Iggy. Max has no right to do this to us. Well, actually, she does. But the flock has never been separated like we're about to be. Not at the School, not with Jeb, never. I don't think she really realizes what she's doing.
"Okay," Max says, sounding like she's talking to a six year old. "It's true. I don't want you to come. The fact is, you're blind, and while you're a great flyer around here where you know everything, I can't be worrying about you in the middle of a firefight with the Erasers."
Iggy's face twists with anger. He's about to yell back at Max, but Gazzy jumps up onto his chair. He looks so betrayed that I almost yell at Max myself, because it's really killing me to see this little boy cry.
"What about me?" Gazzy cries. A tear rolls down his cheek. "I don't care if they have guns and a chopper and Erasers. She's my sister." His heart is broken.
"That's right," says the stone impersonating Max. "And if they want her so bad, they might want you just as bad. Plus, you're a great flyer, but you're eight years old, and we're going to be logging major hours."
Weak. I can't believe what she's doing. I press my lips together as my conscience wracks me. The problem is that I can see Max's side of the argument. Iggy and the Gasman's is just better.
Then Iggy deals his last card.
"Jeb would never have made us stay," he says angrily. "Never. Ever."
The last two words hit me straight in the chest and lodge there like ice picks. I swallow hard, but no one is paying attention to me. Everyone's eyes are glued to Max.
She purses her lips. "Maybe not," she says. "We'll never know. Jeb's dead." She straightens. "Now everyone get your gear together," she finishes, and sweeps out of the room.
Alright. I think this one's good to go. Please tell me if there's a mistake. REVIEWWWW! It's the rule of the story, you know. And by the way, if you favorite it but don't bother to review, I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. I WILL PM YOU UNTIL YOU DO WHAT I SAY.