Max screamed, she was scared to death, I could tell. She normally wasn't like this, not in this type of situation. I looked sidelong at her through my cage, if she was scared was I meant to be scared?
She had been like this for a very long time, "Max! What's wrong?!" I screamed at her, trying to get her to hear me, "STOP IT! You're scaring everyone!"
She looked at me, tear filling to the brims of her eyes, "I can't do this anymore Fang," She sounded dead inside, I shivered at the tone of her voice, "It's me. I'm next. I'm going to die…"
I looked disbelieving at her, she had reached her limit, and she was burnt out.
"Don't you dare say that!" I yelled at her, clutching the bars of my cage so tightly that my knuckles turned white, "This flock needs a leader! I want you to be that leader! We all do!"
I breathed in deeply, catching my breath. I shook with rage at Max's indifference of the situation, what happened to her? She used to be so brave, and now she cowered in her cage like a dead corpse. I kicked myself mentally for thinking like that, she wasn't dead, she might want to be, but she wasn't. Not yet, a voice in my head said, she might not be now but she will be soon.
I hated myself for thinking like that…
"Max," Angel called to us from across the room, "Please, your scaring me." Angel's voice sounded like she was about to cry, the lack of light in the room prevented me from seeing her small face.
"Max your making her cry!" I screamed at her, more out of fright then anything else, "We need to get out of here! We need a plan! Think of something!" Something in my voice failed me and I broke down into a blubbering ball of tears.
"You think you're the only one in here that hates cages?" I said cruelly, "Think again Max, we grew up in these, just like you. Don't go thinking you're the only one who hates small cramped places!"
I lowered my voice, looking at my barely visible hands in the darkness, "I woke up screaming in the middle of the night because of the things I went through here," a tear rolled down my cheek, "So did Angel, Gazzy, Nudge and Iggy! You comforted us but we still remember."
I heard Max shift in her cage, "I'm sorry everyone," She had a hint of regret in her words, "I just want to go home, to our real home. Let me think of a way to get outta here, okay?"
I looked in the direction of Nudge's sobbing and had a brilliant idea.
"Nudge, can you please use you're…uh…powers on the metal cages?"
I heard shifting from her direction, "Why didn't I think of that before?!" Nudge enquired. The next thing that I heard was the creaking of metal cages, bolts coming lose to fly towards Nudge's cage. I kicked hard at my cage door, it flung in front of me to land on the floor with a clang. I heard the others do the same, but my attention was turned on the door that lead into the heart of 'The School'. My gut twisted, escaping wasn't going to be easy like it had been before...