Chapter One

"Piper."

I turn around and lay eyes on a little girl, about four years old, black and pink cat ears poking out from her dirty blond hair. Trying to keep my temper under control, I crouch down to her level. "Yes?"

"Have you seen my brother?" she asks.

"Your brother…" I echo, mentally begging for some other information. When she just looks at me, I say, "What's his name?"

"Seyah," she replies.

"Is he here?" I ask.

"I don't know, I've been waiting for him," the girl replies. "Another rescue mission came in earlier. I haven't seen Seyah."

Oh. This girl is waiting for her brother. To come out of the Schools. I breathe. "We'll find him," I reply finally. "Come on." I take her hand and walk toward the infirmary. "What's your name?"

"Sage."

"Sage, what does your brother look like?"

"He's like me," Sage replies softly, "but older. He's eight."

"Do you know what state he was in?"

Sage shakes her head. "Wherever I came from. Seyah never made it out with me."

I open a brown door, with a bullet-proof glass window, and look around at the load of newcomers we rescued earlier. Beds lie everywhere, but not too many or not too much white to make it look like a School. I scan the scared faces of children, and find none that match Sage's description. Umm, plan B. I scan the older faces, and find my friend, Eventide, sitting on a bed next to a young girl who looks about ten. I slowly make my way toward her.

"Even," I say.

She looks up from her conversation. "Hey, Pipes. What's up?"

"Sage is looking for her brother," I reply. "Have you seen anyone who looks like her named Seyah?"

Even looks down at Sage, trying to match her face with any others she's seen. Sage looks down, refusing to make eye contact. A sign of distrust. Bad sign. We try a lot to get the kids to trust us, but they just can't. It's instinct now. Like mutants have been trained since they've been in the Schools that they can't trust anybody, no matter what. I know the feeling. I was there.

You should know what I'm talking about, with the Schools and mutants.

Finally, Even looks back up at me. "No, I haven't seen anyone like that."

I practically feel Sage's heart sink through her hand.

"Don't worry," I say to her. "We won't give up."

Sage looks up at me, glances at some of the other kids, and shakes her head. "I can't—" she chokes.

"Hey…" I crouch down to her, and she tenses when I touch her. "We'll find him. I promise."

A tear rolls down Sage's cheek, and she runs out of the room.

I straighten up, sighing as I let her run away. Then I turn back to Even. "What am I doing, Even?"

"You're trying, that's one thing," my friend replies.

"I don't know how to not let them be scared," I say. "It's just like punching stone. You only hurt yourself and do nothing to the rock."

"That is not true," Even replies. "Inside of them, when the time is right, they'll realize that you do actually care."

"I do care about them," I reply. "A lot."

"They'll know. Soon."

I smile genuinely. "You know, Even, you have your jokes, but sometimes you'll go all 'Eventide the Wise.'"

She laughs. "You're funny!"

We both laugh, then it fades.

"Hey," I say, "I'm pretty exhausted. I'm going to get some sleep."

"You'll know where to find me!"

I smile as I walk away, through the door. I take the stairs up two levels, to my quarters, then plop down on my bed.

This is like a… Mutant orphanage, but we call it the Sky Orphanage. My friend, Dawn, thought of the idea a few months back, so we carried it out. We're all mutants here, and boy, have we grown lately. The groups of mutants me and my friends bring nowadays…

Sorry, let me back up. I'm Piper. I'm about thirteen, with bat wings, and my "gang" consists of eight members: me (Piper, just in case you forgot), Taylen, Dawn, Landy, then the guys, Cahya, Melee, Nattie, and Dusk. I know, Dawn and Dusk just had to go together, but it doesn't bother us too much.

Taylen is about sixteen, the oldest girl, also with bat wings, like me. Dawn is around fifteen with Landy (though, I don't think they like each other). And the guys: Dusk is about sixteen, Nattie is thirteen, Melee is seventeen, and Cahya is about fourteen. I'm the youngest of the bunch. We just guessed our ages, and I think we came close. But we don't care. Anyway, we all lead the "mutant orphanage", and some of the mutants even look up to us. We are the "rescue". We fly to all the Schools we can find to break out the other mutants. Once we can bring them to the orphanage, we bring them straight to the infirmary, where some of our experienced mutants do everything they can to heal them of their recent or not-so-recent or oh-my-it's-infected wounds, feed them up, nourish them back to a livable state.

After that, we'll see about their names or give them one, make them feel like a person. Soon later, we do our best to educate them a little bit, just if they've never heard of the Internet. We teach them how to fight, in case they ever come across some of the School's guards (or whatever you want to call them), and once in a while we'll do drills, evacuating to the underground shelter in case we see any of the School's dudes. That's basically how things roll around here.

I groan, tracing the stitches I got earlier above my left brow. Got that earlier today, rescuing this round of mutants. Ugh, why does it hurt so much? This isn't usual. How'd I even get it?

Before I can think back to the time, my window slowly opens, revealing a familiar, evil grin.