Maximum Ride: Picking Up the Pieces (A Maximum Ride Fanfic)

Chapter One: Finding the Flock

I am weary.

I am hurt.

I am limited by something they did to me nearly six months ago.

But I am not broken.

And now I am standing in front of a house that is familiar and inviting. 

A house in Arizona.

A house belonging to my mother, sister, and according to Jeb, the father who helped me escape, then told me to meet him at this very place, the current residence of my flock that I had been held against my will away from for two and a half years.

I limp up to the porch and reach out to ring the doorbell, but hesitate. What if they don't recognize me? Or worse, what if they do but refuse me?

I see Jeb's white Prius in the driveway and know he must be home, waiting, with the others, for me.

I push the doorbell and hear it jingle muffledly.

I watch the door closely.

Then it opens.

Behind it stands Jeb and my mother, holding hands and smiling.

"I'm sorry," Jeb says loudly. "We don't accept solicitors." He pulls me quietly into the house and shuts the door. He then half escorts, half drags me and my mother upstairs and into a room I recognize as my mom's home office, where she takes care of other people's pets.

But I am not a pet, and they sit me down on the table.

"We need to talk, Max," Jeb says quietly, "before they see you."