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

Chapter Twenty: New Danger, New Mission

By this time, only Iggy was awake. Everyone else was asleep. Angel laid in her bed, sleeping peacefully, until a vision overcame her. Instead of seeing darkness, she watched as an event and a couple of familiar faces unfolded before her eyes.

---

Dylan was skinnier and weaker than he used to be. Chained to the wall in shackles, his wings bound together with chains, he screamed, his lungs about to give out.

"Now, Dylan, screaming isn't helpful to The Greater Good, now, is it?" Dr. Gunther-Hagen said tauntingly, giving a couple of clicks with his tongue and shaking his head. His face suddenly changed to rage.

"What did you do with her?!" Gunther-Hagen growled at Dylan, slapping him across the face. Dylan spit blood at the whitecoat, most likely staining the man's tie, which was bright red to begin with. After heaving a sob, Dylan whispered with more anger and spite than Angel had ever heard escape someone's mouth.

"She's dead. Don't you get it?! One of your minions killed her. All because I brought her here. For you! You sick twisted bastard! I love her. All I wanted to do was leave her be, let her be happy. She saved the goddamn world enough times! She's dead now, all because of your sadistic games and experiments. Are you happy?! ARE YOU HAPPY?!" His sentence ended in a hoarse shout, his voice cracking.

"She's not dead, she escaped somehow, and I know you helped her. It is impossible that one of the underlings 'accidentally' killed her on her way to play another one of my 'sadistic games'. She's somewhere in that world, and believe me, I'm going to find out where! Even if it takes you to your last breath." Gunther-Hagen sneered, his face inching closer and closer to Dylan's as he spoke. Dylan began to scream again, and this time, Angel could hear that he was screaming out Max's name. He pulled and fought against the chains as Gunther-Hagen left.

"Max, please," Dylan spoke softly, his voice scratchy and weak. "Hide, save yourself and the flock. He'll kill you all. You, the flock, your children. All of you. He will not rest until he finds you. Run."

Then the vision ended, and Angel woke up sweaty and terrified. She ran into Max's room, shaking Iggy.

---

I woke to hear Angel and Iggy speaking softly.

"How do you know it actually happened?" Iggy whispered.

"They always do, Iggy," Angel said. It sounded as though she was sobbing. Or terrified. Maybe both. "All I know is that Gunther-Hagen is still alive, and so is Dylan. He was there. I saw him. He looks terrible."

"If you really think it's true, then we need to tell Fang and Jeb and Dr. Martinez. They'll know what to do." Angel nodded, and then looked over at me. I pretended to still be asleep. They probably didn't want me to hear this.

"I hope she stays for good this time. I don't want her to leave again," Angel said softly. She sniffed, and wiped her face. They walked out, probably to go talk to Fang, who was probably watching over the triplets.

A few minutes later, Nudge came in. She sat next to me on the bed and spoke.

"You can stop pretending, you know. I always know when you're awake. You get restless when you sleep." I opened my eyes, sat up, and put my arm around her shoulder. She rested her head on mine.

"They constantly worry about you, you know. More so than they ever did when you were gone."

"Yeah, and this whole thing about the people who took me in the first place is just going to make it worse, isn't it?"

"You heard them talking?"

"It'd be hard not to," I replied, laughing a bit, but not for very long. We all knew that this was not a good time.

"I don't want you to leave again, Max. If you do, you might never come back."

"I won't leave, Nudge. I promise." She hugged me. "Although we should probably make sure old Dylan comes back, huh?" Nudge looked up at me in surprise.

"Why would you do that? Doesn't Fang hate him?"

"Nudge... listen, I'm not going to tell you all what happened while I was gone, but I will tell you this. Dylan was there too. Everything I went through, he did with me... except for having the triplets, obviously. Dylan was the one who brought me there. He said that they told him we were going to receive an award for the hard work we had done to save the world and all that crap. But when we got to the place he was told to take us, it was... not an award ceremony. It was a military prison. Gunther-Hagen came at us with sedation needles. Dylan tried to protect me. He told me to run while he fought. But... it was too late. We were surrounded. We were shoved in a bunker, and eventually they started doing experiments on us. Every experiment we were taken to, Dylan tried to fight against the whitecoats' underlings. Eventually, they bound him to the gurney during transport. When they decided to impregnate me, we were moved to separate bunkers. I'm not surprised he's still there. I doubt Jeb even knew he was there, or if he did, if he would have saved him." Nudge's face suddenly became very serious.

"We need to save him. I'm gonna go wake everyone up. Stay here."