A/N: Hola. No one is reading this anymore, but I'll go ahead and finish it anyways – I'm a little more than 3/5 through it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride.
I exchange a glance with Max, my creep-o-meter going off the charts.
"Um, what do you mean, exactly?" Max asks Angel, her voice slightly nervous. I glance at the rest of the flock, noticing worried frowns on Ig and Nudge's faces, although Gaz looks slightly awed.
"I just asked her, in my mind," Angel says nonchalantly, not even paying attention. She fluffs the bear's dress and straightens her little white wings delicately. "And she said okay. And she bought it for me. I'm going to call it Celeste."
"Angel, are you saying that you influenced that woman so she would buy you the bear?" Max asks, choosing her words carefully.
"Celeste," she corrects. "What's influenced?"
"To have an effect on something or someone," Max says patiently. "It sounds like you sort of made that woman buy you the bear -"
"Celeste."
"Celeste, whether she wanted to or not. Do you see what I'm saying?"
Angel looked down, not liking being reprimanded. Then she shrugged and looked back at Max, her face innocent. "Well, I really wanted Celeste. More than anything in the whole world."
Gaz looks even more awed, but Ig just looks exasperated. I can think of a whole lot of things I want more than a stuffed bear, but Max opens her mouth, and I cut her a glance. She nods and sweeps back her hair tiredly, just wanting to return to the mission.
We get falafel for lunch. I'm a bit disappointed that it's not a gyro, but it's pretty dang close, so I think I'll be able to manage. Gaz sighs wistfully when we start to walk away from the stand, but when I ask him what the matter is, he quickly shakes his head and looks away.
Max is still looking at Angel with concern. I resist rolling my eyes. Jeez, Max, the girl is six. She's not going to know better, even if she does act a little old for her age sometimes. She's the equivalent of a first-grader - if she sees something she wants, and has a way of getting it, then she's going to go ahead and get it.
Max sighs, polishing off her lunch and tossing the wrapper in a sidewalk trash can. She massages her head and frowns.
"I'm too old for toys," she mutters angrily.
I blink, taken aback. What? Was Max jealous of Angel? Is that why she was so angry that Angel got the bear?
"Did you want a toy?" Gaz asks, surprised.
Max shakes her head and clamps her lips together. I realize she's talking to the voice; Good- I was worried there for a second…
Max stares at her toes. It's funny that she thinks we don't notice her hands are shaking.
"We're surrounded," she mutters without looking up.
I do an automatic 360 next to her, feeling Ig's fingers drag all the way around my waist with the movement. Seeing nothing, I fall back into place and wait for her to elaborate.
"We're wasting time," she says, sounding frustrated. "We need to find the Institute. Discover our histories and destinies. We don't need to go to toy stores. We've got to get serious about this."
Not sure if she's talking to us or the Voice (again, I really wish she would elaborate!), I look at Nudge, walking behind me. She pauses in nibbling her falafel to meet my gaze, and grins self-consciously, flapping her fingers up and down in a little wave.
I turn back to Max and open my mouth. "Max, I -"
She holds up her finger, effectively silencing me. I felt my face morph into confusion and peer at her face to see her look like she's concentrating intensely.
The Voice again? Dear God, I wish she would tell us when she decides to talk to the voices in her head and ignore the rest of us out here in the real world.
"Of course I'm not relaxing! We need to find the Institute! We're running out of money! We're constantly in danger!"
Okay, yep, it's the voice. Either that or she's gone quietly senile. We all stop and stare at her.
"What's wrong, Max?" Gaz asks, sounding a little nervous of what his answer is going to be.
She takes a deep breath and Nudge moves in close, wrapping a brown hand around Max's filthy T-shirt. "I feel like I'm about to explode," Max admits. "Three days ago, Angel said she'd heard there was more info about us in a place called the Institute, in New York. More info. This could be what we've always wanted to know."
"'Cause we might find out about our parents?" Ig asks cautiously.
"Yes," Max answers. "But now we're here, and really weird things are happening, and I'm not sure -"
She abruptly stops talking, her head snapping up. All the hairs on the back of my neck rise, and I realize it's been far too long since I did a visual sweep -
"Hello, kids!"
Right in front of us is a building, and the glass in the doors sure looked solid, but I suppose that when an Eraser - or two - jumps through it then it'll probably break, cause that's what happens. Angel lets loose a shriek that makes Max grab her hand as we all decide it would be a great time to haul our feathery butts out of there. We wheel around and sprint down the sidewalk, Max and Angel in the lead with the rest of is in formation behind them.
"CROSS!" Max yells, sprinting into the street. We weave between suddenly halting traffic, screeching tires and angry horns blaring in our wake. Directly behind us, a poor man on a bicycle isn't able to stop in time and collides with one of the Erasers, who is knocked out cold in the traffic. I don't look back to see how his body fared being run over.
"Bicycle messenger took an Eraser out!" I shout, and am rewarded with the faint sound of Max's laughter.
My eyes widen as I see it - the other Eraser must have circled around, because he suddenly leaps out from in front of a building, snatches up Max, tosses her over his shoulders like a sackapotatoes, and makes a break for it.
Angel screams bloody murder at the top of her voice and Ig scoops her up.
"GO, Fang!" he shouts. I don't waste energy nodding - instead, I pour on the speed, imagining liquid energy zooming through my veins.
Max is up there whaling on the guy, but it's like he's made out of wood - he doesn't react at all.
COME ON, FANG, FASTER!
People are jumping out of the way, confused and frightened expressions on their faces. "Stop them!" I yell, but my voice is drowned out.
Fear suddenly courses through me as I realize that they're outpacing me. I summon up every last reserve of strength and force my body to move faster.
"FANG! !" Her voice carries back, the desperation audible from here. I run and run, but they're getting away - and suddenly, I can't see them anymore.
Panic flows through me, and I swear so loud that the woman next to me jumps. Finally I see Max - down on the ground, pinned under the Eraser, struggling. I snatch her hand and drag her to her feet, expecting her to run away with me, but she just stops and stares.
"Wait!" she says. "Fang - I think he's dead."
I stop in surprise. Looking from her to the Eraser, I nudge my boot against the body. It slumps over with the pressure that I put on it, but then goes right back to how it was. I kneel easily and press my fingers to it's pulse points, shocked when I can't detect any movement.
"You're right. He's dead." I stand and wipe the Eraser cooties off on my jeans. "What'd you do to him?"
"Nothing. I was whaling on him, but it didn't do squat. Then he went down like a ton of bricks."
I glance sideways at her to see her staring in confusion down at the dead Eraser on the sidewalk. A bit of blood mats on her temple, but she doesn't seem to notice.
The rest of the flock arrives. Angel leaps into Max's arms, and suddenly she's surrounded by loving members of the flock, reassuring them that she's okay. I glance at the Eraser one more time, and something catches my eye. I kneel down and turn back the Eraser's collar. Max's eyes follow my movement, and we both see a tattoo on the back of his neck.
11-00-07.
A cop car pulls up, and we hastily stand and pull back into the crowd. "Crazy drug addict!" I toss out before we turn and beat it, walking quickly down the sidewalk and away from the scene of the crime. Max clutches Angel's hand, reassuring the sniffing smaller girl.
I notice that her free hand is shaking and long to slip mine inside of it. Instead, Gaz comes up and holds my hand. I look at him and squeeze his little fingers, and he smiles hugely at me and squeezes back.
My mind returns to the Eraser's tattoo: 11-00-07. "So he was five years old," I say quietly.
Max nods. "Made in November, year 2000, number seven of a batch. They're not lasting too long, are they?"
How long would we last? I glance at Ig, laughing with Nudge, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder. Her eyes are closed in amusement, and her body is half-twisted around, a smile stretched across her lips. Suddenly her foot catches on a lip on the sidewalk, and she stumbles, her eyes wide before Ig catches her. She turned back to him, blushing and laughing once more.
Would this ever have to end?
Max suddenly bends down, so quietly that we all nearly walk right past her. She straightens with something in her hand, frowning and sweeping a piece of hair behind her ear. Looking up, she sees me and tugs on my sleeve, showing me the thing in her hand.
It's a bank card, and my eyes widen at the name stamped on the front: MAXIMUM RIDE.
"I can use it if I can figure out the password," she breathes.
I nod hesitantly. "Okay."
She tucks the card into her pocket. "Let's just get to the park," she says shallowly. "Nice, safe Central Park."
As we walk, I mull over the card. What a coincidence - first that she happened to find a bank card, and second - that it had HER name on it? How was that even possible?
Someone knew that we were going to be walking along there then. Somehow, someone knew and planted that card there.
I glanced at Max, her eyes lighting up as we rounded the corner and entered the park. Could it be the Voice? Was it feeding the whitecoats information about us?
We glanced around to make sure no one was watching and then shimmied quickly into a large tree, not wanting to pull out the ol' wings – those were attention-catchers if nothing else was.
"How can the Voice know where I am and what I can see?" Max whispers to me as we settle in. I glance down at the ground, but we're practically forty feet in the air, so I don't think anyone will hear us.
"It's inside you," I say, trying to hide my distrust by settling back and letting a nonchalant look pass over my face. "It's wherever you are. If it's tapped into any of your senses, it knows where you are and what you're doing."
Her face falls.
"Uh, but that's just a guess," I say quickly, but she doesn't seem to hear me.
"Even in the bathroom?" Gaz says, sounding suddenly interested. Nudge brings the heel of her hand to her mouth to hide a smile, her eyes crinkling in amusement. Max glares dramatically at the baby-eyed boy. Behind them, Angel was fixing up her bear – Celeste – like she was getting it ready for bed. Iggy was already passed out on the branch, his mouth wide open. A soft, rattling snore issued from the cavern.
Max takes out the bank cards, comparing them. She then sighs and sticks the old one deep into the tree, feeling back about stealing any more from the jerk, even though he was, well, a jerk.
"So we need to figure out the password," she says blearily, rubbing her eyes. She puts the new card into her pocket and touches her head gingerly, in the spot where it had been bleeding earlier. She yawns and holds out her left fist.
I shook Iggy awake, and he blinks in surprise, then looks a little remorseful when he realizes that he was asleep when he should have stayed up to do the fist-bumping ritual. I splay my fingers over her fist, letting the rest stack their hands on top. Angel even manages to fit Celeste's furry white paw in there somewhere. We tap hands and then settle back in the tree again.
I'm asleep before a single thought can cross my mind.
See you all next chap! RnR :D