" Don't be a fool." Fang snapped.

" I'm not." I said in a voice totally calm for a Max under pressure.

" You are. This is foolishness."

" I still have my mission, and you won't help me." I turned a withering stare to each member of the flock. " I have no choice but to do it myself."

" Don't do it, Max." Angel begged. She gave me her Bambi eyes, but for once in, like, never, I was too angry to care. " You can't search for Itex alone."

Nudge's mouth opened. Oh, no. " You could get shot or skewered or harpooned and then we wouldn't be there to help you and you'd die and we'd be without a good leader! I mean Fang's a good leader and all and but he's just clueless sometimes no offence Fang you are good really but we can't loose you Max 'cause—"

" Come with me then!" I interrupted, hoping against hope. I even enjoyed the flush of anger creeping into Fang's face at Nudge's statements.

" We need a home, Max! Fang is right." Iggy said. Gazzy nodded ecstatically.

" But the mission—"

" To hell with the mission!" Fang roared.

" Fine!" I bellowed back at him. " Then I'm on my own!" Glaring at every one of them, I began to spiral downwards.

Fang dove after me, grabbing me by the upper arm. " You don't want to do this." He hissed into my ear.

I glared at him. I mean really glared. I glared so hard that he let go of my arm and leaned away from me.

" Yeah, I really do." Then I folded up my wings and dropped two hundred sixty miles an hour towards the Canadian wilderness about a thousand feet beneath my feathers.

Even after flinging my wings out, I landed heavier than I intended, and then realized that I had no idea where I was going. I had heard that there was a program around here that experimented on human beings. For all I knew, it wasn't a branch of Itex, but just as bad or worse. But now that I was here, I had no clue what it was, or how I could get there.

Turns out I didn't need to know. Life is funny like that.

Ten men jumped out of the forest around me, armored and carrying guns. I quickly assessed the situation. Yeah, sure, I could take on ten...if they didn't have guns. OK, yeah, I was screwed.

" That one's a mutant, right?" One of them asked another.

" Yep." He replied. " Look at the wings."

" Capture, then." Said another.

They all sprang towards me at once. I managed to give one a roundhouse kick to the stomache, knock another one out with his own gun, and break another's nose over my knee.

Suddenly a solid piece of metal struck me in the back of the head, and everything went black.