Chapter 1 -

Charlie wanted to just stop and lay down. She was so tired. But they had dogs searching for her so she had to keep going. She heard them baying only a few streets away. She felt her heart flutter in her chest. Stupid FBI. They didn't even have a good reason to come after her. She hadn't done anything wrong. No crime had been committed. The only reason they were after her was because of supposedly mysterious circumstances. Because she had been around a stupid government facility. How was she supposed to know that the abandoned-looking building had been a secret facility that was housing who-knows-what?

Well now she had been running for a couple days and had managed to shake them. But that convenience store's camera had caught her on tape when she'd stopped for food and somehow they had found her image. But Charlie didn't see why they had to send federal officers after her just for wandering around government property. She hadn't gone inside or seen anything suspicious.

She was currently in some nice suburban community with old homes that were all different but somehow still looked good together. Charlie looked around at the charming homes around her and wished, not for the first time, that she had been raised in a nice home. Instead she had been raised in the middle of nowhere in some private laboratory where she was raised by crackpot scientists who used her in their crazy experiments. They even got paid to do it because they claimed they were fostering orphaned kids who had nowhere else to go. Same old sad story of the orphan. Whenever a kid went missing, people just assumed they had run away. But Charlie knew what had really happened. The other kids had died from the experiments. The scientists never told the kids anything, why they did this or even what to call them. In the bedroom, which they called the Cage, the kids were trapped at nigh to try to deal with the effects of today's injections and tests.

There were only two of experiments left the day of the fire. The only person other than Charlie was a girl who was dying from some random side effects of a supposed cure to some disease. She knew that she was dying so she told Charlie to make a run for it while she dealt with the scientists.

That night I ran. From the woods surrounding the labs, I could see the smoke rising above the trees and the air was suffocating. I was forced to move on, but guilt gnawed at my stomach. Charlie knew that along with the scum bags who had tortured all the kids, Charlie's only friend in the world was dead.

Charlie just kept going. She had been on her own for a couple of months, scrounging a life on the streets before she had stumbled onto the facility.

The police who were chasing her were from the area; local police who had been recruited to come after her. But there were two federal agents who had followed her from the beginning. They were a brains and brawn pair. The one was lanky and looked as though he had graduated from college at the ripe old age of 20. He was always the one whispering the possibilities and facts into his partner's ear. The partner was muscular and tan. His clothes bulged from different weapons. The pair somehow always managed to find her. How could a girl who didn't exist until she was 15 manage to become a fugitive in less than a year?

The dog howls shook her from the thoughts and she continued trudging up the hill, away from the agents.

Charlie debated making a quick fly away, but she knew that if she did they would never stop hunting her. She had a secret that the scientists had tried to turn into a weapon. She was their only successful project they ever had, and it had happened by accident back when she was very young. The two evil geniuses had accidently injected her with a serum meant for a lab bird. The result was amazing but unrepeatable. It shouldn't have ever been possible, genetic mutation of this scale wasn't possible. The bird's DNA had somehow attached itself to her own. The result was a full-sized pair of wings that grew out of her shoulders, the bird bones connected to the human bones and they fused into a hybrid's body. When the bones had first been growing, it had been agony. They wings sprouted from her back and forced themselves out and eventually grew feathers. Her bones had lightened and thinned and she had lost all excess weight; her appearance changed and become more bird-like. And now she was on the run from the feds, who would probably throw her back into a lab if they ever caught her. Which was why Charlie was determined to get away.

She reached a park and playground with kids running around. There were so many it had to be some sort of program. Charlie headed towards the group and immersed herself in the throng of children. It was the perfect camouflage.

She adjusted her jacket to make sure it covered her wings and joined the game of capture the flag. She pretended to be a guard for one team, but was watching for the police to pass by so that she could run the other way.
The police didn't pass by though, they entered the playground led by the young smart-looking agent. Stupid genius probably saw the odds of her going to the park or something. Agent Numero Uno approached the adults in charge and spoke to them while Numero Dos scanned the children. Charlie knew who he was looking for. She ran after a boy infringing on her team's territory to avoid suspicion.

A whistle blew and all the children froze and turned toward the woman in charge.

"Kids!" she called, "We're going to need you all to come here for a couple minutes. After short talk with Agents Corvy and Holland you can go home. But the game is over for tonight."

The children all converged on the adults, and Charlie knew she had to get away. Both agents and a couple police officers were already scanning the children and quickly sending them home. Charlie slid away from the crowd and onto the playground.

Climbing swiftly onto the equipment, Charlie crawled to the tube slide and hid inside. When all the children had gone home and the chaperones had followed them, they brought the dogs out again.

"No, no, no, no!" Charlie gasped frantically. Those mutts would easily pick up her scent and follow it straight to her. She took the little chance she had and launched herself down the slide, into a sprint away from the officers.

The dogs saw a moving target and went crazy. Their handler kept them on the leashes and followed them as the other officers and agents took off after her.

Charlie pumped her arms and pushed herself as hard as she could, but the full grown adults with physical requirements for their jobs were quickly gaining on her. She was aiming for a small patch of woods that skirted the park.

"Stop running and his will all go easy for you!" yelled Numero Dos who was the fastest and was closest to Charlie.

Before dashing into the woods, Charlie yelled back, "I don't even know why you're after me!" Once in the cover of the trees, Charlie quickly found a sturdy tree and climbed into a sturdy tree. She knew the dogs would track her but she couldn't just give herself up and running was pointless.

The agent with all the weapons slowly came into her sight. He was looking at the forest floor, following something. Footprints in the dirt. They disappeared at Charlie's tree. He came to a stop at the base as the others caught up.

"Liam," he called to his partner, "I think she's hiding up in the trees."

The younger agent came up and studied the tracks as the dogs followed and were engrossed in her scent as it rose from the base to the trunk.

"Kid, come down. We know you're up there." an officer called up to her. Charlie didn't move but she could feel the two agents watching for any hint of movement. The agents felt like Charlie's personal enemies; people who made her already horrible life even worse. She began to silently move towards the branches of the tree next to hers, making sure to not move the branches.

Suddenly what looked like a tranquillizer dart pierced the branch below her. She froze and looked down to see the athletic agent pointing a gun at her. He wasn't going to kill her, just shoot her out of a tree.

"My name is Agent Corvy and this is Agent Holland," called the younger agent, gesturing to his partner, "There is nothing to be afraid of. We just need to ask you some questions." Really? That's the best they can do? Obviously they were going to at least arrest her. And if they found her wings, it wouldn't just be police custody.

Charlie slowly began to spread her wings and the slight motion caught agent Holland's eye. His aim shifted directly towards Charlie.

Charlie knew she could either get captured now and have those cretins down there find out she has wings later or she could try to fly away and have them know immediately. Another dart embedded itself directly next to Charlie's face. She grabbed it and yanked it out of the wood. Definitely tranquilizer. They were going to take her whether conscious or unconscious. She felt something sharp pierce her leg and pulled out a dart. "Oh crap." she whimpered.

Charlie tried to launch herself off the branch, her wings outstretched and catching the wind. But the tranquilizer took effect and her vision went fuzzy. Her wings couldn't keep her in the air and she lost altitude. Charlie crashed through the branches and dropped heavily to the ground. Agent Corvy knelt next to her and checked her pulse as everything faded to black. "She's okay," he told Holland.

The last thing she heard was "What the hell is she?"