Salt (A Maximum Ride fanfic)

Chapter One

The moment you believe you're safe, is the moment you're most vulnerable.

Nudge's POV

The flock and I always loved Thanksgiving. When we were staying with Jeb he would always bring home a huge dinner. That was really the only time we got to fully pig out and not worry about having to save food for later. After Jeb had "died", we ate and lived day-to-day. But on Thanksgiving, Max and Fang took us to this, I don't even really know what it is, but they give people food for free. Everyone there kind of looked like us. Homeless, I mean. The only one who always looked perfect or decent at the least was Angel. How she does it, I wish I knew. Now we stay with Max's mom, Dr. M, and her sister Ella. I wish this was our permanent situation, but with fly boys, erasers, and whatever other hybrids Itex and the school come out with, we'll never be completely safe.

Oh how I'll miss this. The smile on Gazzy's face when Angel realized he put a whoopee cushion under her seat. Angel's adorable shrieks of grief. Dr. M's amazing cooking and genuine good nature. Fang's well, I guess his laid back-ness. He's still all ninja-y and silent but he's not as tense as he use to be. The chats Ella and I have about boys and pop culture all the time. Max's everything. She's always been there for all of us and I couldn't even imagine a flock or life without her. Last but certainly not least the guy who I couldn't live without and my boyfriend for just a month over a year: Iggy. Other than his great personality and perfect smile, I think I'd really miss his cooking. Can you blame me? Now that we've been staying here and we all refuse to let Max cook, Iggy usually takes over when Dr. M' isn't around.

Total had been gone for some time. One day he and Angel had a fight and he ran, or flew, away and never came back. We've searched for him for weeks but he didn't want to be found.

"Can you pass the salt Nudge?" Ella asked me snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Sure," I say as I reach over but as I grab the salt I get distracted by whats on the tv and accidentally knock the salt over. "Zomg! Sorry!" I quickly apologize and hand Ella the salt. I try to go back to eating my food but Gazzy and Angel are just sitting there staring at me. After two minutes of their intense stare I finally give in. "Okay, why do you two keep staring at me?"

"Nudge, don't you knooow" Angel says with a serious kind of derpy face.

"Knooow what?" I seriously didn't know what she was talking about. I don't remember it being anyone's birthday or anything and I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything embarrassing. At least I didn't think so. "What are you guys talking about?"

Gazzy just looks at me like I'm an idiot and remarks "the salt. The saaalt Nudge." Okay. This was really starting to get me. I guess from the continued look of confusion on my face Angel finally decided to explain to me what they meant.

"Well, Gazzy and I were watching tv the other day..." she paused and I nodded for her to continue "and they said when you spill salt, its like super bad luck."

"Angel" I started, "I don't think 'luck' is even real and that show was probably just saying that because you guys are gullible. I'm pretty sure spilling salt is really going to do anything." I slowly rose up to go to the counter where the dessert was. "Besides," I say as I start cutting a slice "if this 'luck' was real, how come whenever we were on the run and I grabbed four-leaf clovers, nothing good ever happened. We always ended up getting chased or captured." They both sat silent.

"Hey Nudge, can you grab me a slice too?" Max asked, raising her voice a little.

"Sure thing Max!" I don't know why or how I hit the floor but when I did, everything came crashing down. Literally. The pie I had in my hand for Max flew up in the air and as I crash landed into the ground, the pie found its home on my head. I guess in my state of shock I lost control over my power over metal and as I brought my hands to fish out the pie from my hair, the rest of it in the counter just feathered down on me. I felt like I was in a food fight except I was the only one getting hit. "Ack! Oh my god! My hair!"