Author's Note: This is an idea I've been working on, but before I really commit myself I want to make sure people are interested in it. In other words: review or no more will come. :D

~Jennedy~

I rocked back and forth, knees drawn up to my chest, white spikes of hair blocking the view of the bars on my medium sized crate. I knew that Valkyrie, my left wing man, was behind me- dark and silent and brooding to herself, she wouldn't interrupt me once I got in a mood like this. We shared a crate, and she let me have more room than her, though I was smaller. We were both 14, and she knew me as well as I knew myself. My extreme sense of claustrophobia, along with the panic of my Colony being at the School once more, was driving me half crazy. A bead of sweat trickled across my brow, and I shut my eyes tight as a memory flashed behind my eyelids.

We burst out of our cages, sending Erasers scattering. Sprinting towards the window, we spread our wings to their full extent for the first time in what seemed like forever. I let the rest of the Colony go before me, urging them to go faster and faster. When at last it was my turn, I braced myself on the ledge and prepared to jump. But something stopped me. A tiny whimper, so quiet it would have been unperceivable to the human ear. I whirled around. Lying in a lone cage on top of a counter was a baby. An infant mutant freak, like us. I hesitated, then ripped the lock off his crate, feeling my fingernails snap. Ignoring the pain, I flung the cage open and gently took the child in my arms. He cooed at me softly, his caramel eyes meeting my dark green ones. I fell in love. My Colony was calling me, telling me to hurry, hurry, hurry. I leapt out the window, spreading my ice-white wings and soaring out to meet them. "You'll never live in a cage again," I told the baby boy. "I promise."

I snapped back to the painful reality of my situation. We had been recaptured. My promise had been broken. Angry tears streamed down my face, the salt stinging the gash that stretched from my right cheekbone, to my chin, down my throat, and ended at my left collarbone. I suddenly was terrified for my Colony, and I lunged forward and pressed myself against the door of my cage. My hungry eyes scanned the small hallway stacked with crates.

Abe, the 7 foot wonder, got his very own crate simply due to his gargantuan height. His crate was directly to the right of the one I shared with Valkyrie. Though Abe was two years older than my 14 years, he had somehow been bypassed as a leader-of-the-team candidate, leaving the job to me. Like he always did to make himself feel at home, Abe had spread his giant, silvery-black wings out as far as they would go- (not very far, in this case)- and enclosed himself in a sort of wing-canopy. All I could see was wings and a bent head of curly brown hair in his crate.

I looked across the hall. Directly in front of me was the crate shared by Blaze and Jagwing. Blaze, who in a normal situation would have been jabbering his head off and yammering my brain out of my skull, was perfectly silent. We had decided a long time ago that he must be of some sort of Asian descent; he sure looked like it. His black hair was knotted into 1 inch thick, round dreadlocks, of which he was ecstatically proud. (Though it is hard to be ecstatic when locked in a dog crate in a school full of evil white coats). Blaze was 8, and a total pyro when he got the chance. His rust-colored wings, though folded tight against his back, were aching. I knew because his face was scrunched up in pain as Jagwing slowly pressed his long, thin fingers against them.

Poor Jag. He's only 11, but he got the brunt of the bad test runs. When we were still really young, even before we busted out for the first time, Jag had surgery on his throat. The whitecoats were trying to "improve his echolocation" or something. (On a side note: Yes, we can echolocate. Deal with it.) But the surgery failed, and all of a sudden, Jag couldn't echolocate OR talk. Then, an Eraser grabbed him by his right wing, and pretty much mauled the bottom of it. One of his beautiful, crème colored wings is jagged. (Hence his name.) But he's okay. He manages by overcompensating with one wing to make up for his bad one. Being upbeat and optimistic does have its perks. Jag was rubbing Blaze's back gently, angrily brushing his bush of crème hair out of his eyes once every ten seconds. Jag usually has a pair of old-fashioned, Amelia Earhart style aviator goggles that he either wears the correct way when flying or pushes his hair back with. Unfortunately, the whitecoats don't tolerate aviators. Sheesh. Blaze noticed me looking and smiled broadly at me, then winced as Jag poked a tender spot. I gave a half hearted grin back, then checked on the rest of my Colony.

On Jag and Blaze's left (my right, as I was across the hall) was Liam and Stella's cage. I peeked over, only to have my heart drop to my toes. Liam wasn't there. Where is he? I mouthed to Stella frantically. She closed her big gray eyes and focused. They're almost done with him, she mouthed back. Stella has a strange ability, one that sometimes freaks me out, even though I love her to death. She just "knows" things about us. If someone's sick or hurt, she knows. Stella can always tell me where any person in the Colony is at any given time. So if Liam was in danger, she would tell me. Of course, we were all in danger now. Stella was huddled in the back corner of her crate, her wings wrapped protectively around her. She looked a lot like Abe, her older brother, though she was not nearly as tall for her age (which was 6) as he was for his. Stella had Abe's curly brown hair and silver wings, but hers were more silvery powder gray than silvery black.

Four M-Geeks marched down the hall, dragging Liam between them. I could immediately tell he was okay, because he was struggling and cursing like a pirate. They opened his crate and chucked him in like a pile of dirty laundry. Carefully pulling himself off of Stella, he saw me staring and sat at the front of his cage, smiling wearily. I let out a relieved sigh. Liam, who was also 14, was my right wing man. His thick, chocolate brown hair, which was usually long and tied back in a ponytail, had been cut to his jaw line. Liam tousled his hair with one large, tan hand and grinned sheepishly, his dark eyes sparkling despite our circumstances. Liam was brawny like a football player, and though not as tall as Abe, he still towered over my 5'3'' at 6 feet even. His wings, which were the same color as his hair, were tucked in almost to his back.

I turned again and pounded myself against the left side of the cage to check on the last member of my Colony. There he was. My baby, Broda, only one and a half years old. His wavy golden brown hair was actually clean for once, having been washed thoroughly by the whitecoats. He was in his own crate, but a divider had been put up in the middle of it, so he didn't actually get much space. Broda was crying silently, tears streaming from his caramel eyes. A lump grew in my throat. I had always drummed the virtues of silence into his head, knowing it would save his life time and time again. Bro pressed himself against the bars and stared at me, his wings raised in a sad salute.

"It'll be okay, baby," I whispered, speaking for the first time since they started electrocuting us when we talked to each other. "It's okay."

I played a game with myself, in my head, of course, as I leaned back against the bars of my cage. WWMRD, or What Would Maximum Ride do? I knew all about the Flock, the human-avian hybrids with bird wings. I knew that she was on a mission to save the world; she was just about all Jeb Batchelder talked about as he stuck needles in my arms. But even I didn't know how she would get her Flock out of a situation like this. Besides, we were no angels. I reached over my shoulder and rubbed the muscle where my wings were grafted to my back. I extended my wing as far as it would go, stroking the sinew and bone that were clearly visible under the skin, which was covered in a light layer of white fur. I cut my finger open on the white piece of bone that jutted out of one of my joints, just to make sure it was still sharp. We weren't angels, my colony and I- we were bats.