General POV

It was hard to believe for a second that we were trapped in The School together once again. Nudge had met her parents, and so had Angel and Gazzy, they were both overjoyed. But the decided to stick together until everyone knew their parents – and they meant it.

They were sitting in separate cells; just sitting there, silence overwhelming them. They were shaking after the capture, a lot of The Flock were bruised and bleeding, everyone except Angel, who had been forced to watch in mid-air.

It had been a hard day. It seemed to take years until moonlight slowly appeared through the windows of… wherever they were.

Suddenly the doors barged open and two white-coats came in, followed by several Erasers, they all looked hungry. The flock looked up to see who was there, and shuddered at the thought of being with the Erasers.

One white-coat took a thin, white folder in their hands, and read a note quickly. "Uh… Maximum, Fang and Iggy?" he questioned.

He seemed nice, maybe a newbie – but he'd probably be brainwashed sooner of later… Three Erasers stepped forward, opening the cell doors and hand-cuffing the three, Max, Fang and Iggy.

They were led to a room, and that's when the story began…

"Um, where are we going?" Fang asked loudly, when they were left with a white-coat (the Erasers and second white-coat were guarding the door).

"You'll see," the white-coat replied. He might sound nice, but there was a glint in his eyes that immediately made Max wary of him.

Fang and Max looked at each other, but they couldn't hatch a plan, because a white-coat was with them, and they couldn't fight him, because they were hand-cuffed.

Instead, Max took a glimpse at the sheet of paper he was holding. There were four names underlined, seven names all together. It was obviously in age-order, and underneath the names there was a description of each bird-child.

The Bird-Children

Maximum, Fang, Iggy, Dark Rose (the), Nudge, Gasman (the), Angel.

Max skimmed the list to see 'Dark Rose (the)'. This was new… she'd never heard of whoever it was before.

Dark Rose (the)

Abandoned in an alleyway fourteen years ago, parents never came to collect her. The Dark Rose is also known as 'Rose'. Has the ability to fly, levitate objects, and can turn invisible/make force-fields.

Max was shocked, another bird-child? Did this mean there was another member of the flock? Max searched for her name, but the white-coat closed the folder, and opened a door.

Fang was watching her, and she knew he was about to ask her what she'd seen. 'I'll tell you later,' she mouthed to him. He nodded.

By the time they were un-cuffed; Max looked up to the second floor balcony and came face-to-face with another bird-child.

She looked about the same age as Max, younger but prettier. She had blonde hair that curled and mysterious green coloured eyes. She had beautiful wings, they started white, faded into grey and then into black at the tips. She was dressed in grey and black, and tattooed on her arm was a black rose, that crawled around her wrist.

"Rose!" a female white-coat called, she was standing at the top of the stairs, which were leading down to where Max was. Another white-coat was at the computer.

Rose turned to the female, and followed her down the stairs, without question. There was a beep, as some kind of computer kicked into gear behind Iggy.

Max hadn't noticed, but she was starting right next to a cage. A creature (perhaps a mixture of monkey and lizard) grabbed a string of her hair and pulled it hard.

"Ouch!" she yelled, pulling her hair back, and stepping away from… whatever it was.

The female white-coat chucked. "Ah, the lizard-monkey combo, a bit of a trouble-maker, you better watch out." She smiled at the three, and then went over to the male white-coat.

Rose approached them and stood next to the cage, pushing her finger through the bar and teasing the lizard-monkey. It was about to bite her, before she pulled it out and leaned against the wall.

The Dark Rose's POV

They were just like me… two were boys and another girl. Not like I cared, they could be evil or maybe out to kill me. A trick even… but it just didn't seem possible.

The girl looked like she was going to burst – she wanted to ask so many questions. The tallest boy – blind, obviously, but the other boy was just interested in whatever the white-coats were doing.

I wanted to trust them – but could I?

"OK," Brenda began. She was a white-coat, had only been there for a week or too. But every white-coat that came into this place left evil. Every child that entered here either never came out, or left as a mutant.

Most didn't ever come out.

A lot of them died of old-age, my lifespan was about fifty/sixty years apparently. But if I kept escaping like I did, I'd never live to see fifteen. The Erasers would be better off if they just shot me.

Others died because an experiment went wrong. The fish/cheetah combo died because it would suffocate underwater and on land. They might as well have booted it up into outer-space to see if it could breathe then. How about no.

Brenda began to tick my name of the list, and then read out the other's names. "Maximum?" she asked. The girl turned to look at her.

"Um… hi," she uttered.

"Fang?"

The boy that wasn't blind told them he was present just by looking at them; Brenda ticked his name off as soon as he turned his head.

"And I take it you're Iggy."

The blind one nodded.

I felt really sorry for all of them, they'd been here before, I could tell, but it must have been years, because they were looking around this room as if they couldn't remember it much.

I smiled at the girl; she looked a little shocked, but smiled back. I then continued to mess with Links, the lizard-monkey combo.

"Right, how old are you all again?" Brenda asked, beginning to write something. "Sorry about this," she added. "We've lost the documents."

"Oh, we're all fourteen," Maximum told them quickly. "Uh… we don't know when our birthdays are though… or second names-"

"Oh, that's alright, we have those already."

Fang and Maximum looked at each other – I knew what they were thinking. If they knew that how come they didn't know our age?

Simple – they were just checking. The older you are the more they put you through, the more they try to hurt you. If someone in this room was fifteen, then they would have run more tests.

Brenda and Simon (Simon was the male white-coat) left the room for a couple of moments. They always take about twenty minutes, so I took the opportunity to introduce myself.

Fang's POV

Her name was apparently 'Rose'. She was prettier than Max, and that was saying something. When she stood up straight, she walked towards us.

"So… more bird-people?" she asked us.

"I know, we can't believe it either…" Max replied, smiling.

"Yeah – I'm Rose, by the way," she told us, shaking Max's hand. "Maximum is it?"

"Everyone just calls me Max, though," she said to Rose. "I prefer it, but you can call me Maximum if you want."

"Nah, it's alright… I'll call you Max," Rose smiled. "Anyway, how long you been here? Well… how long have you had wings?"

She began to mess with her own wings. They were about the same size as Max's, but completely different. Hers went from white to black, with a few shades of grey between the two colours.

She probably dressed in greys and blacks a lot. It kinda made me feel that if she wanted to wear pink, she would dye her wings pink – I just don't know how she could do it. Everything had to match.

"Since we were babies," Max said sheepishly.

"Aw, me too – but I haven't been here for about six… seven years because I ran away, is there just you three?"

"No there's three more of us," I told her. She turned to look at me, her eyes smiling.

"Three more?" she repeated. "God, and just to think, ten minutes ago I thought it was just me."