Iggy's POV

I wanted to know what she looked like, but according to Fang she was gorgeous, the type of girl he'd date any day.

"You know, it would be so funny if both of you asked her out and she didn't like any of you," Nudge chucked. I didn't see what was funny in that, a girl thing probably.

"I thought if she was a bird-kid like us, she'd be staying in here with us," Fang frowned, thinking about it.

"Yeah, but she can levitate objects apparently, I read it when I grabbed a glimpse of the folder, I read a paragraph about her. She can levitate objects, turn invisible and make force-fields. So she could levitate keys and unlock the door," Max told us, rubbing a stone against the hard floor.

"The Dark Rose," Angel muttered while humming to herself and messing around with Celeste. "Is it me, or does that name seem slightly… familiar."

"Yeah!" Gazzy suddenly yelled out. "I was thinking the same thing!"

This was weird, the only blood related siblings knew of someone called The Dark Rose (or Rose, as we were told to call her).

Gazzy and Angel's parents gave them away when Gazzy was four, Angel was two. The other three and I were given away at birth apparently. Did the two know someone called Rose then? We have these really great memories, we remember being born, we remember our first words, first steps, etc…

Fang and Max looked at each other. There was a lot of love in those glances; I thought that one day they'd get married. Max kissed Fang on the beach once, but she only didn't because she was afraid of losing him.

Apparently…

But, hey, that's not the story – we're talking about Rose here. If Rose kissed Fang, it would be nothing compared to Max kissing Fang.

I've been blind four years now, I believe that suddenly one day I'll wake up and I'll be able to see. I reckon it's possible, I do. And I know what a person looks like by how they smell. OK, Gasman, for example… uh… no comment. Rose smelt like – yep, you guessed it – roses. And as you know, roses have got a reputation for being beautiful. Another thing – there was something dark about Rose though… The Dark Rose… who the hell named her? They must have known her well (and most likely weren't blind).

That made me wonder what her real name was. 'Gasman', 'Maximum', 'Fang'

… Well, you know, you don't name kids that anymore do you? Those three have got real names; we just don't know what they were. It's just based around nicknames. What nutter would call their daughter 'The Dark Rose'?

No offence to ANYONE who has a name like that though…

The Dark Rose's POV

The good thing about being to levitate objects is that when a body-guard falls asleep on duty, they get killed.

Oh, yeah, and I get to open the cell door.

Now I can just leave the cell door open, small an object wake the body-guard up, and when he goes to investigate in the cell, I'll shut the door on him and go and meet the other bird-kids.

Life rules!

Anyway, that's not the point… I'll just sneak off. As I pushed the key through the lock, and the door swung open I looked around to see if anyone was coming.

No one. Yes! I walked down the corridor, hoping not to make any noise, but singing a human song under my breath anyway. Not to brag, but I had a voice like an angel.

"You don't know that we're…" I sang under my breath. It would just be hilarious if I was caught right now! I'd be laughing my head off… because I'm like that. Danger sticks to me like glue (even if glue doesn't stick well on bird/human/creature-things).

I heard voices, I stopped singing, I stopped walking, and I stopped everything. And pressed my ear against the door curiously, and listened.

There was complete silence until. "Fang – do you know what your real name is?" Oh my God! FANG! My heart began pounding in my chest… I got attracted to human boys easily, but I was a bird for crying out loud.

"Uh… no idea," I heard a second voice say. "But Nudge knows her real name, don't you?" Ohmigod! It was Fang and Iggy!

A younger female voice came into the picture. "Yep, my real name's Monique!" she chanted proudly. God, I didn't care if her real name was Monique or not – I was going in there!

I opened the door quietly, to see six faces suddenly going silent and looking bored. Ha, they'd been talking all night and were trying to make it look like they'd been sleeping.

"Max!" I whispered loudly. It grabbed her attention, and she looked up shocked.

"Rose?"

"That's me!"

Max was older than me by about eight months I'd say… me and her were the same size, but I was younger than Iggy, and he was the youngest out of the three I met that day. And the tallest.

It grabbed everyone's attention, and I saw the cutest six-year-old ever! There was three more, six altogether.

I jammed the key to all the cells in The School (who decided that? They're so freaking thick!) out of my pocket and rushed to unlock her cell, quickly and quietly. "Hurry up and unlock the rest of the cells," I ordered her. "We'll be dead meat if they catch us."

Max was willing to take that risk. I was ready to unfold my wings, and pegged it over to Fang's cage.

"How did you get those?" he asked me, as a little eight-year-old was released from his cage.

"Uh, I… stole them?"

He laughed, and I stepped back for Max to unlock his cell. "Get ready to fly," Max told everyone, she was the mother, a born leader, I knew it.

Iggy was the last to be released. Max picked Angel (how cute is that name!) up and opened the door.

To come face-to-face with… you got it! Erasers.

"Oh shit!" I muttered under my breath…