A/N: This story is a continuation of The Bodyguard. read that story first to understand this one. oh, and if you'll notice ive made some redundant explanations to Max Ride. i did that cuz this was originally on dA, where some of my friends didn't understand Max Ride. oh yea, one more thing. all characters that are not part of Maximum Ride BELONG TO ME! no copying, revising, or stealing any of my characters!

"Yes! New York again!" Angel shouted in joy.

"I'm gonna die!" Iggy half-moaned, half-shouted.

"Fake a smile," I mused, giving Iggy a slight push. Iggy made a face at me. I couldn't help but feel bad for the poor guy though. New York can be so chaotic and noisy and such... it can be pretty upsetting for a blind guy.

OK, in case you're new to this, there's six of us. Actually... seven now. It's still inconceivable to me that Matt's back. But anywho, there's me, Max, age 14. Then there's Fang, 14; Iggy, 14, who is also blind, as I've said above; Nudge, 11; The Gasman, or Gazzy for short, 8; and Angel, 6, and is a mind-reader. That can come in handy sometimes, trust me, but sometimes she likes to use it to her own advantage...

But anyway, long story short, we're a bunch of mutants. We were raised in dog crates at the School, constantly being experimented on, basically tortured, et cetera. But we escaped, and now are on the run from the people from the School trying to get us and bring us back, plus some other people who feel like using us for their own benefit. But we're doing a good job of avoiding them, mostly because our personal bodyguard, Matt, has been protecting us for a little while now. He's 16, but he wasn't an original part of our flock.
Oh, and if you're wondering why I called us mutants before, I wasn't kidding.

We have wings.

We're part avian, or birds. Some geniuses at the School thought it'd be funny to splice some bird DNA with our own, and now we can fly, and pretty much kick butt. We each have our own distinct kicks in mutations, but we're all part bird. Actually... we think Matt is part bat, cuz we have bird-like wings, and he has bat wings.
But besides us, we have have Total, who is actually our talking dog, plus Akila, our non-talking dog. But we left them back with Dr. Martinez in Arizona. I didn't feel like bothering with them, and I figured they needed a break.

But anywho, back to the present.

Right now we were just kind of wondering up and down Main Street. Angel was jumping up and down, looking around for possible shops. Nudge was right there with her, chattering away. Gazzy was trying to get Iggy to play a game with him, while Iggy himself was plugging his ears, walking at my pace. Fang was staying quiet, as usual, and looking around for possible threats. Matt was looking around too, I knew he was, but he managed to find the time to agree with Nudge on some topic, or joke with Gazzy. I was kind of fading in and out of reality, from time to time trying to find a good chocolate chip cookie shop to compete with Dr. Martinez...

I gasped as my shoulder got bumped; someone brushed past me and I didn't even notice him beforehand. I turned to see who it was as we brushed past, expecting to see some business man who was on a cell phone or something. But instead, it was some guy in a weird, brown cloak, with the hood pulled up, who was turned to look at me as I did to him. I was about to question the oddness of someone wearing a cloak in the middle of downtown New York, when suddenly I caught sight of his eyes. They were bright red, like a sea of blood was in his soul. I felt immobilized as a sudden fear washed over me.

OK, if you guys know anything about me, you know I don't get scared often. I'm usually the one that does the scaring. But there was something about this guy that was just... spine chilling. I felt like he was peering into the depths of my soul; like every lie, every secret, every sin I've ever committed was laid out like a book before him. It very nearly drove me to the brink of insanity.

Suddenly his deathly gaze was torn away as the girl who was with him nudged him, and he turned his sights to her. I blinked to clear my mind, and the rest of the flock had stopped with me, feeling my unease. I looked to the girl, who I also didn't notice until just now. She had short brown hair, with bangs that fell over her right eye, sky blue eyes, wearing a black sweatshirt and jeans. She was looking at the guy with some concern, and I wondered why or how she could have such a fearful companion. The pair stared at each other for several agonizing seconds, until the girl jerked her head the other way. She began walking, and the guy followed.

"Max...? Maximum!" Fang's voice brought me back to reality. I shook my head and looked at him. He was looking concerned, but ready to kick some butt if something was amiss. I turned to Matt, who was getting prepared too. I saw the tips of his fingers glinting; he had iron from his body prepared there, ready to multiply and harden at any moment. It's his mutation.
"Relax guys," I said. "It was nothing." I felt them ease slightly, but they were still slightly suspicious. Yea, we have to be kinda paranoid in order to survive.
I took another look around, looking for that mysterious pair.
But they just seemed to... disappear...