i have returned!

after a short break to get my bearings, i am back with spark, sy, the anti-flock, and all your other favorite OCs in tow.

(the anti-flock didn't want to come, but i threatened to take away their internet privileges and they suddenly changed their minds.)

so come along, my friends, for a wild and fantastic ride. if you haven't read my first maximum ride story, when sparks fly, you should go do that. and if you have, go right ahead and dive into this one! it is with great happiness that i present to you the second part of nicole "spark" ackerly's story: when they chase us.

disclaimer: don't own maximum ride.

Hello.

It's me again.

Just like before, I've got a little FYI for ya:

I didn't know I'd ever meet kids like me.

I didn't know I'd ever abandon my family to stay with these kids.

I didn't know I'd ever get slapped in the face by a past I'd once forgotten.

I didn't know I'd ever come across mutants of the non-bird kind.

(I didn't know I'd ever befriend these mutants, either, but that's beside the point.)

I didn't know I'd ever fear for my life on an almost-daily basis.

But you know what?

I don't care.

'Cuz I'm havin' the time of my life.

1. riddle me this

. . .This isn't right.

I sat up and looked around, taking in my surroundings. The walls were painted tan, dotted with posters and newspaper clippings and pictures and drawings. A window just opposite the bed I was on was flung wide open, displaying a view of a picturesque suburb. In the corner, a TV sat quiet and dark, gathering dust. And to the left of the bed was a small bookshelf/bedside table.

I was in my bedroom.

Really.

I flipped back the warm, dull-colored comforter and swung my legs to the carpeted floor, panic making my heart race.

Most kids don't panic when they wake up in their own bedrooms. But me. . .well, I hadn't been home in a month. And last time I thought I'd waken up home, I was actually just on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, in a virtual-reality cell that held so, so many memories of pain.

I crossed the room in two steps and grabbed the doorknob, yanking the door open and running out into the hallway.

Well, tried to run. I only got about four feet when the house ended--literally ended, as if the wall that was supposed to be there had been ripped away, exposing a world of vast, shadowy dimness, swirling with black and gray smoke and reminding me horribly of what I'd once imagined the descent into Hades must be like.

I stumbled and nearly fell into the emptiness, knocking free a section of floor that spun down and away with a freakishly small amount of noise.

My heart was pounding in my ears, and my breaths were coming in short and shallow. I don't know why I felt so. . .so. . .scared at this precipice. Maybe because two seconds ago I'd been in my home. Maybe because when I tried to ready my wings in case I did fall I couldn't feel a thing.

Alarmed, I reached back and felt for my wings, letting out a sigh of relief when I felt them still there. I glanced back toward the weird shadow-world just a few feet away and backed away nervously.

Jump.

I jerked in surprise at the sound of the voice. I looked around frantically and froze when I saw Con hovering above me in the shadow-world.

He looked exactly the same as when I'd last seen him, almost two days ago now. Tall, pale, black hair. Furious steel-gray eyes with gray-black wings to match.

I swallowed and stepped back again, ready to run for my life. If he pulled a gun or tried to torture my mind, I was dead. I'd gotten lucky way too many times before to get away again.

Con glared at me and crossed his arms. "Jump."

My eyes narrowed. "Um. . .what?"

"Jump," he repeated. He nodded his head towards the shadow-world behind him. "Your wings will work. Trust me."

I scoffed. "Bad choice of words there, Con. There's no way in hell I'm trusting you! First step I take off this ledge and you'll kill me!"

"I won't kill you." When I refused to move, Con scowled. "Fine then. But you have to choose anyway."

"Choose what?" I asked, confused. "There's no choice here, I'm not gonna jump!"

"You have to choose," Con said again. He swept his arm back to indicate the shadow-world. "This, or that!" He pointed behind me.

And--though everything I'd picked up on in the past month screamed at me to not turn my back on my worst enemy--I whirled around to see what he was pointing at.

I could still see the inside of my bedroom. The window was still open, and for the first time I could hear childish laughter, the rustling of leaves as a light wind swept through my neighborhood. I squinted a bit and saw seven oddly-shaped forms wheeling in the sky--the flock. There was a weird flash and suddenly Sy was there, too, sitting on the roof just outside the window. He turned and smiled at me, beckoning me.

I know, right? Freakish Shadow Realm* of darkness with only Con for company versus a bright and shining life with all my friends and family? No-brainer.

And yet I hesitated. I glanced back at Con, who crossed his arms again, smirking.

"Well? Which are you gonna pick?" he asked, some of the ol' cockiness he'd had when we'd first met coming back to him as he watched me fret. "Me, or them?"

My jaw clenched as my hands curled into fists. And what I did next was the reason why I'll never be the "quiet and obedient" type.

"Screw off!" I yelled, and then I turned and ran for my room. I began to unfold my wings and heard Con cry out, "No, Spark, wait! It's a trap!" As if he were actually concerned for my well-being.

I didn't care. The window was open. I sprang out onto the roof, felt the sun shine on my skin and the breeze dance through my feathers. Con--idiot--had just been trying to trick me. It wasn't a trap. I took a deep breath as I gazed around the setting of my childhood, my eyes focusing on the kids playing kickball in the cul-de-sac, the parents hanging around in the driveway right under my window. I saw the flock again and waved. They waved back.

Something touched my arm and I looked to my right. Sy had stood up, taking my hand as he smiled at me.

"I'm sorry, Spark," he said serenely, tilting his head and looking at me with that universal you're-so-stupid-but-it's-cute look.

My mood deflated a little. "Why?"

Sy laughed and shook his head. "Con was right. This is a trap."

My breath froze in my throat and my eyes went wide.

Sy smiled once again. "You made the wrong choice."

Then he turned into smoke and swirled away.

My heart plummeted.

Panic gripped my soul and I turned back to the neighborhood, only to see the people turn to smoke and fade away just as Sy had done. The landscape started to fade as well, and I tried to flee through the window, but it'd disappeared. I cracked open my wings and jumped before the roof vanished beneath my feet, but my muscles froze up and I couldn't do anything but scream as I began to fall.

"Spark, Spark, wake up! Wake up, Spark, it's just a dream!"

I sat up so fast I conked my head against whoever'd been leaning over me.

"Ow!" we both said in unison. I recoiled and clutched my aching head, scrambling back until my back bumped against the headboard of the bed. The collision had hurt surprisingly badly.

"Geez, you try to help a kid!" the voice that had woken me groaned, and I sensed him sit down on the end of the bed.

"I-Iggy?" I stuttered, opening my eyes and looking up.

We were--for a record-breaking second time in a week--in a hotel. Well, actually, it was a motel, with an "m," because it was as crappy as hell. The room was dark, but that didn't matter--two percent bird DNA allowed us to see almost perfectly in the dark. On the end of my bed was Iggy, rubbing his forehead irritably, while everybody else remained asleep.

It'd been about a week or so since we'd left Chicago, and we were only now at our preliminal destination of South Carolina. The reason for the delay was because we'd had to detour around through Kentucky, after a few "friends" caught up to us.

I put quotes around "friends" because the anti-flock are really our worst enemies. Or mine, at least. Not too sure about other enemies Max might have.

But anyway, I think I should catch you up on the past week of my life.

Okay, so first my math teacher turned into a Fury and tried to kill me, and then my best friend--a satyr, apparently--dragged me to this place called Half-Blood Hill when a Minotaur attacked us and I think it killed my mom and then it knocked out my friend, so I snapped off part of its horn and stabbed the beast before I. . .

. . .Wait. Oh, silly me, that's Percy Jackson. Sorry. Got a lil' confused.

Now, let's see. . .Our journey, beginning at that hotel in Indiana, had been rather uneventful until we touched the southeast tip of the state--that's when Con, Blaze, Swift, Shadow, and Avi had showed up, guns blazin' and tempers raisin'. We'd fought them off, but it was a brief victory: the anti-flock caught up the next morning and chased us east, through Kentucky before we lost them somewhere along the Mississippi River.

Needless to say (and yet I say it anyway), it'd been a long, annoying, and hectic six days.

"Yeah," Iggy said in response to my identification, turning his head toward me. Frowning, he added, "That hurt."

"Oh. Uh, sorry," I mumbled. I drew my knees up to my chest and hugged my legs. My forehead was throbbing--part from collision with Iggy, part from vivid horribleness of dream.

"Hey, you okay?" Iggy asked, having heard me move. He reached out a hand and touched my leg.

I fleetingly considered lying, shrugging it off. Possibly even making a joke and claiming he was a creeper for leaning over people while they slept. But. . .that dream. It'd been freaky. Beyond freaky. Like, I don't ever remember any of my dreams being that freaky.

I shook my head. "N-not exactly."

I could just see the alarm bells going off behind his pale, sightless blue eyes. "Bad dream?" he guessed.

"Freaky dream," I replied. I could still hear Con's voice shouting at me that it was a trap. . .I dropped my head to my knees. God damn it all to hell, why'd he have to be right?! Why'd he even have to be in my dream?!

"Wait, let me guess," Iggy said, holding up a finger. I looked up. "Max was there. And she was being nice to you. And Fang was, like, wearing pink. And Nudge was being quiet!"

I snickered and cracked a smile. "That'd be enough to scare anybody. But nah, that wasn't it." I leaned my head back against the headboard and let out a breath. "It was. . .nothing. Why'd you even come over to wake me up?"

Iggy shrugged. "I got up to go to the bathroom and heard you shifting around and mumbling something. I guessed you were having a nightmare and just woke you up."

"What was I mumbling?" I asked quickly.

Iggy thought for a second. "Something like, 'No, don't,' and, um, 'How'd I choose wrong?' or something." He tilted his head. "What were you dreaming about?"

"Uh. . .well, like I said. N-nothing."

Iggy paused, as if debating with himself over pressuring me to tell him or not, and decided against (thankfully). He let out a breath and stood up. "Well, whatever. See ya in the morning."

". . .Night," I said, watching him cross over to where he'd been crashing on a roll-away bed. He was asleep in ten minutes.

Once I was sure Iggy was out for the night, I unclenched from the protective ball I'd curled up into after he'd woken me up. Beside me, Nudge and Total lay asleep, dreaming the dreams of the innocent. (. . .I hope.) Over on the other bed were Max, Angel, and Gazzy, also far away in dream-land. Iggy was on the roll-away, and Fang was stretched out between two armchairs. (Poor sap--he'd drawn the short straw.)

Just the luck that came with my drastically changed life that I had to be the one with rest-robbing nightmares.

I yawned. After my nightmare last night, I'd barely gotten any more sleep. Like, an hour, tops. I picked my legs up off the floor and crossed them in my chair. "Too easy," I said. "It's a shadow."

"Oh." Nudge frowned, disappointed. "You're right."

"I knew that!" Total said loudly from under Iggy's chair. We all shushed him and he settled down, offended.

"You're really good at these, huh?" Angel asked, taking her eyes from the computer screen to smile at me.

"I guess." I shrugged carelessly. "Just takes a different type of thinking, I guess."

"Will you guys quit messing around?" Max asked irritably. "We're supposed to be Googling your parents, remember?"

"To the perverted mind, that statement can be taken as mildly dirty," I said, scooting back from the table so I had enough room to spin in my chair. (I may be tired, but even drop-dead exhausted I am to weak to resist the fun of spinny chairs.) "That is, if your definition of 'messing around' is the same as 'fooling around' and you substitute 'Googling' for. . ."

"Enough!"

The little kids giggled, more at Max's annoyance than at the context of my words. Fang and Iggy got it, though, and laughed. 'Cuz they're, you know, teenage guys.

Perhaps I should take the time to explain the situation.

We were in a library, somewhere in northern South Carolina (which in itself is kinda oxymoronic, innit?). Having temporarily commandeered a few of the computers, we were carrying out a passing fancy before heading out to Columbia, the capital, where we'd meet Max's mom and sister and the CSM guys who wanted us to go to Australia.

If you have questions, I have answers.

Who are we? If you don't already know, go away. Seriously--there are other books about us. Well, more Max and the others than me, but still. Go read those. I'm far too lazy to do any nutshelling at the moment anyway.

Why were we using library computers? Because when Max, Fang, and everybody else had decided to up and rescue me from the Factory a week ago, they packed up all their earthly belongings and brought them with. So, of course, they were all taken away once the flock was captured. Both of our laptops had been jacked so here we were, kinda. . .laptop-less.

And why were we Googling our parents? Well, since we knew their names now, we thought we might as well begin the search before our temporary reprieve from American society. Who knows? Maybe some of our parents are, like, famous or something. Or just one of those people who make Wikipedia entries for themselves and posts them online.**

The thing was, the library computers were maddeningly slow. So slow, in fact, that Nudge had opened a new tab and found a riddles website that we were now exploring. The score stood at Spark: 29, Total: 8, and Rest of Flock: 1. And despite the fact I was winning, it was getting old.

"Oh!" Nudge's face lit up as she clicked back to the Google tab. "It loaded!"

"And?" Everybody turned to look at her, a few of us sneaking glances at Fang--it'd been his parents' names, Daniel Mitchell and Jacqueline Finley that we'd just punched into the search engine.

"Oh," Nudge said again, though with much less enthusiasm. "Sorry, Fang. There's nothing here."

Everybody let out disappointed sighs, and Fang went still for a second--well, even more still than usual. Then he tried to shrug it off. "Whatever. There're lot of people out there. Not all of 'em are online."

"That's right," Max said reassuringly to the flock. Nobody's parents had popped up on the searches, though I had some thoughts about that. "But hey, at least we know their names. As soon as we finish this Australia gig, we'll go find them. I promise. Now, have we searched everybody? I told my mom we'd be in Columbia, like, last week."

"Um. . .yeah, I think so," Nudge said, clicking back a few pages. "I mean, we didn't search your parents, because you've already met 'em, and Iggy and Spark know their families too, so really it was just me, Fang, Angel and Gazzy, and we did them first, then me, and now Fang, so we're done." Nudge clicked the mouse again and she smiled. "Ooh, here's a hard one! 'We are little creatures, we all have different features. One of us in glass is set, another one you'll find in jet. . .' "

Everybody groaned.

*yes. i did just make a reference to yu-gi-oh.

**i don't know if people do this, or even if it's possible. but wouldn't it be fun?

once again: hello! how's it goin'? me, i'm great. new story, better intel about my own writing, new ideas. . .it's all good. though, it was surprisingly difficult to get here--the start of a new story. but here we are. hope it didn't disappoint.