I glanced up to see about five whitecoats in the room including the one I clawed. They were all staring at me. They never looked at me, they observed. I stood on my back legs like they did and stared back at them.

"Down!" the one with the rod said. He poked me and a sharp pain made my entire body spasm. My knees buckled, but I managed to catch myself gracefully Whoa, they'd never zapped me that hard before. I must be in really big trouble. He pointed rod's end at me.

"In the cage! Let's go," he said. I curled my hand into a fist frustrated. Then I ducked into my little cage. Once Jason was ushered out of the room I grabbed my tail that had been painfully pulled.

"That thing attacked me!" the clawed whitecoat said outraged. The rest of them started their way out of the room I was locked in. Secluded from the other mutants.

"Relax. We'll show you why it lashed out," said another whitecoat. My eyes widened. No. They saw? "If Jason's calmed down let him back in here to guard it. Get Alex too." Soon a blonde boy named Alex walked in with a glaring Jason right behind him.

"Freak," Jason said. My heart wrenched. My dad's voice echoed in my head. No, honey. You're not a freak. You feel, think, and love like everyone else. That makes you normal.

"Takes one to know one," I hissed.

"You're pathetic. I could've killed you," Jason said. "You're lucky you were spared. You must be more of a freak than I thought if they want you enough to study alive." I crawled to the cage door.

"Hey, I got an idea. How about you come in here and say that to my face," I challenged. The end of my sentence ended with a growl.

"No, you see that's the difference between you and me. You're the one in the dog cage," he said.

"I'm not the one who should be caged." He smiled and shrugged.

"Yeah, but I'm not the one who is," he said. The rest of the day was filled with blood test and skin cell scraping. Jason watched me mocking my every move. Making my life even more of a living hell than it already was. Because, you know, things aren't hard enough. Every time I tried to curl up and get myself a nap he or Alex would kick my crate. Apparently, I'm pretty popular with the Erasers.

The night came, and someone changed shifts with the two of them. Finally some relaxation. So I curled up as I tended to do when I wanted to sleep and watched my tail tap up and down on the floor. If it wasn't for that tail I could be out there. With you and all of your people. I could be a part of your people.

Suddenly I heard something. A sharp scream of a kid. I lifted my head seeing a boy that had to be around fourteen being carried away. His hair was brown and his eyes were a dark blue. His skin just happened to be white covered in black stripes. My eyebrows lifted. A tiger. I remembered it from my big cats book my mom made me read. Maybe a white tiger.

The whitecoat treating him put his hand over his mouth. Bad move, he must be new. The tiger boy bit down with huge fangs that the whitecoat seemed to have forgotten about. The whitecoat dropped him. The tiger started up to his feet but could barely stand before there was a swarm of Erasers on him. After a few punches were thrown, I started to worry. The glass in the room only showed the top half. I can only see the Erasers bouncing up and down as they beat the kid. Then I heard something shocking.

"Get the hell off me!" No, it wasn't the mature language he was using that shocked. It was the fact he'd said something. Anything. Experiments were brought in from infancy and for the most part, never learned more than the words food and ow. This boy here said an entire sentence. The Eraser guards looked at each other and shrugged.

"I guess their taking in older kids now," one said. "Hey Muzz? What do you think the whitecoats are doing this for?"

Good question. Muzz shrugged. The other one pointed at me.

"How come she can talk," he said.

"She escaped early on, moron. She learned. Is she awake?" Muzz asked. Moron cocked his head to peer inside. My eyes closed as I lay down and I took slow deep breaths. Moron nodded.

"Good, because I heard something strange," Muzz said. Interesting. "They're doing something new here. You know why we're getting female Erasers?" I could barely keep my tail from twitching.

"No."

"They're going to start a breeding program when we all come of age," Muzz said. My eyes snapped open, I calmly kept my breathing steady so they would think I was asleep. Go on. "We're all going to be getting some!" Moron started to slobber.

Males... This was bad.

"Oh man!"

"Yeah, they'll be crossing breeds and starting pure breeds. You know, stuff like that," Muzz explained.

"Crossing breeds? Like mixing us with the turtle girl or something?"

"No. The kitty is what reminded me. They're going to try the mixing the kitties and the doggies," Muzz said. My eyes widened. Jason was the first thing to come to mind. I was sixteen and technically able to breed. So was he.

"Oh no," I mouthed. Jason would just love that, wouldn't he? Another way to make my life miserable. Moron giggled.

"Oh man. How many cats are there?"

"Six. Most of the are too young though," he said. Most of them. Not me though. Six cats. There were six others like me in here. The poor things.

"What about the birds? The ones that are outside," Muzz said. My brow furrowed. There were others outside. Winged ones. I'd heard about them. But that was three years ago. They were still out there? They were still being hunted? They were still alive?

"Who cares? They're long gone. If they get caught there's going to be little mercy from me. I still got a scar from those birds." Bird kids were out there together. Birds together. A flock. Why couldn't I be out there? Maybe with these other cats. A pack! No, dogs were packs. A pride! My pride.

My lips curled into the first genuine smile since I was with my family. Then something weird happened. There was a rumbling in my throat that tickled. My smile only grew. I was purring!

Then they had to go and ruin my fun. Apparently they'd been bored and heard my purrs. Suddenly my cage was knocked on my side. I toppled over from my comfortable position and there went all sounds of happiness.