Chapter 1

The smell of disinfectant, chemicals and death woke me up. I had somehow fallen asleep curled up with my back to the wire mesh of the cage door and my thin nightgown didn't stop it from being pressed into me, so I probably had that design covering my back.

I was in a medium size dog crate, being upsized last year had been a nice change and I was so far from normal that I didn't even care that a bigger dog cage wasn't something to be happy over.

I am a 10 year old girl, I have three brothers and two sisters, and only 98% of my genes are human. My name was Maximum or Max, but the scientists or white coats that did the experiments on me and my family called me specimen 1. The other 2% of my genes were bird, so yes I had wings, and other bird things, like air sacs and hollow bones.

The rest of my family had the same gene percentage but we were not actually related by blood. Well Angel and Gazzy were, but me, Fang, Iggy, and Nudge didn't know any of our real family. That didn't matter though because we had gone through so many horrible experiences that nothing could break our bond. We were the flock.

I heard the quiet squeak of shoes as they moved across the hard linoleum, and I pressed myself against the mess, if I had thought for one moment that they were coming for me I would've pressed myself far against the back of the cage, but I knew they weren't because, I could sense Fang, and hear his moaning.

I was the leader of the Flock and all of my family looked for me for help, but Fang was my right hand man and he never showed emotion, I figured it was his way of not completely losing it, but his moaning meant he was in immense pain.

The crate next to me was opened, and the limp Fang was laid inside, I went over to him and stuck my hand through the narrow gap between the cages and I put my hand on his brow, waiting for a reaction.

"Hey," he said weakly, he hated to be touched without permission, but he did take my hand in his.

"What happened?" I asked

"Injections," he slurred and I knew what he meant. Last week had been my turn for this treatment, they put almost twenty different kinds of viruses into our body, that attacked the inside of us, and they waited to see how it affected us, it was extremely painful though and I had thrown up for days.

"Max" Iggy cried from across the hall, his crate, which he shared with baby Angel was across from mine, and next to that was the crate that held Nudge and Gazzy. He wanted to know how Fang was.

"He will be better soon," I said, "he will survive."

But in my heart I knew that even through Fang would survive, and the next experiments we would be able to live through, by the end of the year we would all be dead. I didn't know if it would be from a disease, starvation, a new experiment or if they just got bored and released us to the Erasers like they did with those poor chimps that we heard every night.

"No, Max," Angel said from her crate, she could read minds and even though she probably hadn't understood half of what I had thought, she had got the drift.

"Relax honey." I soothed "Iggy please help her go back asleep."

"Ok Max," he said and he started murmuring to her.

Every time something happened to one of the Flock I felt it was my fault, even through I knew that was irrational, but Iggy was the one I felt the worst about. Almost a month ago, the white coats had taken him away and when he had come back he had been blind, they wanted to give him better sight, but oops, they had made a tiny mistake and now Iggy would have to live with it for the rest of his life.

He never complained, and I doubted he ever would, but my heart still ached when ever I saw his clouded over eyes.

"Hi Max" someone said outside the cage. I looked out and saw Ari. Ari was Jeb's son and he was seven. Jeb was a white coat and he was the only one who was nice to us. He never did any experiments and sometimes gave us candy. Ari had grow up in the School, the name of the lab we lived in, and he always followed me around, in the annoying seven year old way.

"I have something for you" he said stuffing some sort of pastry through my cage with some candy.

"Thanks." I said smiling at him, making his face light up, but then he frowned when I gave the pastry mess to fang and threw the candy skillfully across the hall to the rest of the flock.

"Oh, I also made you this," he muttered, now not as happy, it was a crude handmade pot. "I'll leave it out here though." he said

"Well thanks," I muttered, now getting annoyed, I needed to check on Fang more.

Luckily now Jeb came into the room. "Ari leave Max alone" he called. Ari turned at his father and frowned, but he left obediently. Jeb walked over to my cage and bent down, he smiled in at me, and I smiled back. He started to open the cage and I quickly scooted back even though I had been moving foreword slowly.

I glared at him, and squeezed Fang's hand in fear. Only people who were about to do experiments ever took us out, was I really about to loose one of the only people I trusted.

"Leave her alone." Fang hissed but the obvious pain in his voice made the threat a little less menacing.

Jeb frowned. "I would never hurt any of you," he said and I relaxed, but I was still curious about why he was taking me out. "I need to talk." He said, answering my unspoken question. Then he reached in, letting go of Fangs hand I crawled out and took Jeb's hand. I looked up, my eyes full of trust.