Maximum Ride: ENEMIES AND FRIENDS

Cookies

Ari plays with his toy cars, imitating the sounds they would make if they were actually real. His father promised him that one day, if he was a good boy, he would get him a real Lamborghini. All he had to was complete his new mission. Operation Sundown. If he brings back his older sister for reprogramming, he will never be under the School's rules again. He'll get to go to a real school where kids go play, and never will he have to be a lab rat in a White Coats' experiment.

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  Needles are stabbed into my arms, blood drips down the walls near the place where my mother gave birth to me.

Her sandy blonde hair matted with sweat and goo. She screams each time I wail. Jeb and Coats pin my little infant arms to the gurney, trying their best to kill me. Kill me because their little experiment wrong. They created me to improve mutants like Max and me, but instead what they created was a born killing machine.

Every time I scream and whine, my voice sends shadows spurting out of me, attacking their threat. My mother. I couldn't control them. They were killing my sweet mother. The one who kept me safe for nine months, the one who kept me only for money the School was willing to pay her.

Before the Jeb could stop me, my mother was dead. My mother. Only seventeen years old. Only trying to keep me secret from her overly strict father, who would have no doubt killed me if he got the chance.

Before Jeb knew it, the girl who carried his experiment was ripped from her stomach to her heart by her own little newborn. Her green eyes left wide open in shock, a trickle of blood running from her open mouth...

"Jesse, wake up! It's time for a snack! Iggy's making chocolate chip cookies!Hurry and get up, sleepyhead. Time's a wastin', and I want some cookies!" Nudge babbles.

I roll my eyes, following her down the steps of the treehouse Fang, Jacob, and Iggy made to keep watch for intruders. This girl seriously talks too much. Sometimes I wonder if she's on something.

Not forty feet away from the house, do I smell the delicious aroma of fresh baked cookies.

I smirk at Nudge, pushing her to the ground. "Race ya!"

"Hey, no fair, you meanie! That's cheating!" She picks up speed behind me, with a pout on her face.

I laugh again, moving into a sprint. I want to get to those cookies first before her.

Quickly ripping the door open, I come to find Max wearing a white lace apron, and her hair braided in the back in a fishtail. She places the cookies on a plastic tray that is decorated with little comical ponies.

Nudge groans. "Aww! I thought Iggy was making the cookies! Bummer." She slouches down on the coach, flipping on the TV to watch a movie she calls, The Fault In Our Stars. Some movie or something.

Max glares. "Hey! That's mean! I don't see you making any." she defends.

Nudge shrugs. "Eww. No. I get all sweaty, and nobody wants to eat dessert with sweat oozing in evey, single bite!" She wrinkles her nose.

I come into the kitchen. "I'll try one." Grabbing the largest one, I take a bite, the taste of warm chocolate chips melting into my mouth. "It's good!" I smile.

Max looks surprises. "Really, thank you!" she says, frowning at Nudge.

She just shrugs, and puts her dark hair in a bun. "Okay." she sighs. "Let me wash my hands and I'll try one too."