Maximum Ride X Reader [DISCONTINUED]

Chapter Thirty

The gray door was, of course, was locked and Max clicked her tongue before she stepped aside. "Iggy, you can pick it?"

"Of course." Iggy's sensitive fingers reached out and skimmed the door, feeling its almost indistinguishable edges, hovering around the keyhole. He then dug through his pockets and pulled out his lockpicking kit.

"I thought you tossed that thing out years ago," I questioned Max as she sighed.

"I did, but I guess he managed to find it, probably helped by a little stinky rat." Max gave Gazzy a look and he whistled and looked the other way.

"Speaking of rats, why are they getting closer. I'm not liking it." I said as I scrunched up my nose in disgust.

"They're going to bite us," Angel whispered, clutching Max's hand, patting Celeste through her grimy shirt. "I can read their minds too."

"No, sweetie," Max said softly. "They're just afraid of us. They've never seen such huge, ugly... creatures before, and they want to check us out."

"I hope they don't bite us, that would be so grosssss." Nudge whined as she hid behind me and held onto my arm while I mumbled out, "So I'm your meat shield?"

It took Iggy three minutes to unlock the door, which was a personal record for him.

Max, Fang, and I gripped the edges of the door with our fingernails and pulled since there was no doorknob.

Slowly, the immensely heavy door creaked open. Revealing a long, dark, endless staircase ahead of us.

Going down.

Of course.

Cause why not?

"Yeah, this is what we needed," Fang muttered. "A staircase going down to the Dark Place."

"Are you kidding me?" I huff out.

"Ladies first," Fang said and stepped aside.

I let out a dry laugh, "What a gentleman."

We began our descent down the stairs and it grew darker and darker the farther down we went. Soon it was pitch black, fortunately, we could all see pretty well in the dark. Especially Iggy. The steps seemed endless, and there was no handrail. I guess whoever built this wasn't too concerned with safety.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Fang asked softly.

"We're approaching our destination," Max said, descending into the darkness. "We're homing in on the answers we've dreamed about getting our whole lives."

"We're doing what your Voice has told us to do," Fang said.

"Yeah? The Voice has been okay so far, right?" There was a bottom at last. "Here we are," Max said.

"There's a wall in front of you," said Iggy.

Max reached out and felt the surface in front of her and grasped a doorknob. "Door..."

It opened silently and a wave of cool air wafted over us. I shivered slightly but sigh in relief from the fresh air. There was also a light, a very dim yellowy glow showed another door and Max opened it to show a lab, a lab just like the one back at the School, thousands of miles away in California.

"We're in the Institute," Max said.

"Uhm, is that a good thing?" asked Gazzy.

"Holy shit," Fang said, stunned.

"No kidding," I said. There were banks of computers taller than me. And tables with first-class lab equipment. Dry-erase boards covered with diagrams-many of which I'd seen during my brain attacks. Things were in "sleep" mode, quietly humming but not working-it wasn't yet dawn. We wove our way among the tables, trying to take it all in while quaking in our boots.