Since she was six, Angel has watched her family die, one by one, because of the evil minds who created them.

Now, after six years, Angel is the last of her kind and, since her brothers been wandering all around, unable to harm herself despite the terrible grief she holds tightly inside of her.

One fateful night, she encounters the last of the Erasers, another experiment by the same scientists who created her. Angel tries at first to defend herself, but discovers that her lack of fighting for the past few years has made it impossible for her to win.

Wounded and afraid to fly and get spotted, Angel flees on foot, somehow losing the Eraser. Tired and bleeding to death, Angel somehow finds an house, a mansion, tucked away in the woods.

What she finds there is what she least expected.

(I am using the Maximum Ride characters, but none of the books actually happened. No characters are mine; most will belong to Stephenie Meyer and James Patterson. The storyline is mine, and any similarities to any other story is a coincidence.)

The stone of the patio was cold under her bare feet, and she slipped a few times on her own blood as she climbed the handful of stairs, but Angel pushed on until she reached the deck, where she staggered to the glass door - locked - and slumped against it, more blood smearing on the glass.

Using her...abilities...she let her consciousness wander, searching for thoughts that would tell her if anyone was home.

There was no one, and when Angel realized, she let out a half-sob and huddled against the freezing glass as a cold wind blew, cutting through her clothes and raising goosebumps on her skin.

It seemed like forever before her barely-conscious mind detected thoughts; there were five females, four males, and one with slightly animal thoughts, although there was an unmistakable tinge of human.

Panic overtook her - the thoughts of the last one was very similar to Erasers. Desperately, she tried to push herself to her feet, but she slipped on the blood pooled beneath her, and collapsed once again.

She didn't know how, but the people she'd sensed had heard her. As tired as she was, and with her trying to focus on the thoughts of twelve people/animals at once, she didn't get much of a clear message.

They became cautious, and Angel could feel their confusion. Their thoughts all took a similar route, and she was finally able to understand.

What's that? they wondered. I/we smell blood...but it's not a human. What is it?

Angel got the impression that all of them had advanced hearing, like she did, but that it was much better, better even than Iggy's had been.

Mustering up courage and her voice, Angel said, so softly that she herself barely heard it, "Help me."

Almost instantly, there was a presence hovering above her, and her eyes lifted to see a man who was possibly in his late twenties or early thirties, blonde and paled-skinned with golden eyes.

She shifted through his thoughts, watching his brows furrow when he felt the strange sensation in his mind it caused.

Angel's mouth opened so she could speak, but her chest heaved and she coughed, so hard her shoulders shook and her head throbbed. The man's fingers, cold as ice, touched her forehead.

"Car...lisle?" Angel asked. "That's...your name?"

After a second, the man answered, "Yes. That...in my mind...was you?"

Angel's head bobbed. "Yes. Your family is scared of me. I'm scared of them, too." Angel knew this second statement, that she'd tacked on to the end of the first, was heard by the others, lurking back in the trees.

Carlisle nodded. "You won't hurt them?"

"I...can tell what you are, from your thoughts. I couldn't hurt you if I tried, even if I wasn't in this state - " the last syllable of Angel's answer was cut off by another round of coughing. "Hey, Doc?" she asked, when it was over.

Carlisle didn't seem surprised that she knew he was a doctor. "Yes?"

"Got any experience with veterinary medicine?"