I stifled a yawn as I followed Ezzy down the pavement, rubbing my eyes and going by sound alone to keep me on the right path. I wish I could have gotten a power useful for this situation, like sleeping walking, or maybe sleep waking – where you could be asleep and awake at the same time. No wait! I wish those scientists had made me without the need for sleep in the first place!

"How are you holding up buddy," Ezzy leaned back and studied me, a flicker of guilt crossing her face when she saw how tired I was. I instantly tried to stand up taller and ignore my fatigue (and yes, I do know big words like that thank you!).

She slowed down and offered me her hand, keeping us on the fringes of the stream of people, but close enough to be considered a part of the current.

It had been an hour since we stole our breakfast, and I was starting to wonder what her plan was. If the dark sky was visible from above the flood of city lights, I could imagine the first rays of dawn brightening the horizon. It would the ideal cover for escaping the city. I thought we would be leaving New York as soon as we called Mr. Peter's friends.

Ezzy recognized a sign she must have been looking for, and practically dragged me across the street without any warning.

I felt the familiar tingle as she changed our colors again, like she had been doing every hour as we wondered the city. She took us inside one of the buildings and slipped through an 'Employee Only' door. She led us down several twisty halls until she found another door and led us into a tiny room of cushy seats overlooking an auditorium. Finally, when I couldn't stand not knowing any longer, I tugged hard on her hand and met her annoyed gaze with my curious one.

She smiled and leaned down to whisper, "We're going to watch a Broadway show kiddo."

I looked at her incredulously, but I trusted her enough to follow without questions.

The show had already started, but Ezzy was eagerly following the drama. I rolled my eyes and settled down beside her, the two of us leaning into the shadows of the wall.

I'm sure it was nice and all, but I wound up watching the back of my eyelids instead. I didn't dream much, just flickers of broken memories in time with the music from the show.

The next thing I know, Ezzy gently shakes me awake, and I discovered that she scooped me up into her lap and the show was over. We slipped out before the lights got bright enough to reveal us to anyone below looking up, and I felt much more rested.

Ezzy tapped my hand in two sets of three, our code for, 'Play the lost kid card and I'll steal some food.'

I let go of her hand and wandered away until I couldn't see her, and then I started with wide eyes and cautious calls of mom. As people started looking, I worked my way up to full blown panic and started screaming. Attendants flocked to me, and the patrons stopped to stare at and/or pity me.

Less than three minutes later, I was tearfully reunited with my equally panicked mother, and we were able to walk away with a stash of food from the concessions stand. I devoured my cotton candy slowly, enjoying the fluffy sugariness. I hadn't had cotton candy in so long…

Ezzy waited a few more minutes before speaking, but I could tell she was getting ready to tell me her plan; she always has this look for telling plans.

"We have to try one more time."

I felt some color drain from my face when she said it, but I couldn't say no. I touched the bandage on my arm, which she changed this morning before we bolted. It was really just scabbing now, but I didn't want to tangle with any more erasers.

She noticed, and picked me up, (much to my embarrassment), hugging me tightly to her, "I won't let them get you, I promise."

"Yeah, yeah," I said squirming, glaring at the people who turned to look at me.

Ezzy laughed as she sat me down but held onto my hand. She changed our colors again, I looked over to see a very tan girl in a black trench coat with shiny black hair. She winked at me with brown eyes and ruffled my hair with her other hand.

I looked over at my reflection in one of the shop windows, noting the brown eyes, hair, and freckles. "Really," I had to ask with a scowl, "I hate freckles."

She laughed again, enjoying my suffering.

We walked right into the building, like last time, but the receptionist stopped us, "Do you have an appointment?"

"I thought the building was open to the public," Ezzy said, her voice sugary sweet and slightly confused. I think she's going for a ditsy persona.

"It was, but we have had some security issues recently. You need an appointment to go past this point," the woman practically sneered. I bet she was a white coat in her spare time. I hate white coats. A lot more than I hate freckles.

"Oh, that's terrible, I've been promising to show my daughter where her uncle works," my 'mother' lamented, almost hyperventilating like a stereotypical airhead. I fought the urge to growl when she called me a girl. I guess she was going for a feminine look with the doe-brown eyes and cutesy freckles.

And I won't admit that it makes a smidge of sense since they aren't looking for two girls.

Finally, the woman waved us off, too annoyed to waste more time on us.

Ezzy led us to the bathroom, sniveling about rude people, and after checking to see if the coast was clear, she changed our colors again.

She made herself way older, like white hair and wrinkles, and then changed her coat to look like the janitors we saw in the lobby. Grabbing my hand, she made me a red head again, and added enough green to my brown eyes to make them hazel.

We walked out of the bathroom, nabbing a cleaning cart and following the wall, with me hidden from most eyes and cameras beside the cart. We got off the service elevator on the fifth floor, and quickly headed to the secret stairs, avoiding major hallways and their security cameras.

When we got back to the file room where we met Peter and Neal, Ezzy nodded to me to use my power, just in case.

The way I understand it, our (meaning every human) vocal cords vibrate to create sound by disturbing molecules in the air to reach our ears where it is decoded in our brains, so we understand the different vibrations. (I paid attention in science class, thank you.)

Like I tried to tell Ezzy a few months ago, it really feels like singing to me. I start by vibrating my vocal cords like anyone does to speak or sing, and then…I don't know exactly, but I feel all the vibrations around me, and I can alter them. I can make a vibration match any other vibration I want, like a car horn or someone's voice. I can also make a vibration cancel out other vibrations.

I sound-proofed the room and looked over at Ezzy, nodding to let her know I was done.

She was already on the computer, scowling. "What's wrong," I asked, still nervous about being here in the first place.

"This stupid computer is harder to hack than I thought," she answered, never taking her eyes off her work.

I started to pace, having nothing else to do. Ezzy was way better with computers than me, so I couldn't help her even if I wanted. Three agonizing minutes later, she slapped the table and grinned wildly, the files she wanted being downloaded onto a flash drive she must have stolen at some point.

She hurriedly started to shutting down the computer and turned to me, "We'd better get out of here faster than ASAP; there might have been a silent alarm that I missed for downloading files like tha –"

She was interrupted by the sound of a building alarm, and dozens of feet headed our way. "Or it could have triggered a regular alarm," she said dryly, running with me for the windows.

Just as we were in sight of them, a white coat woman stepped out between us and the windows with a gun in her hand, pointed right at us – well, me.

Ezzy never slowed down as she pushed me out of the way and barreled forward, striking the woman and sending the gun skittering past me.

For a long second, I stared at the gun, just out of my immediate reach, and I thought long and hard about at least picking it up.

Then I looked over at Ezzy, who was shouting at me to run for it, while barreling into an eraser.

My heart was hammering in my chest, and I felt like freezing up. But I wasn't leaving here without Ezzy, so I turned back and reached for the gun. I could feel the cold hard metal under my fingertips, and if it were possible, my heart sped up even more.

The next second, a furry foot stomped down on it, and I looked up into the wacky grinning face of an eraser. The next second I felt something heavy hit the side of my head, and the whole world went black.

I woke up slowly, and the first thing I registered was the smell of a hospital, like the kind my mom used to work at and take me to visit, you know, before.

I was in a cage, just like the kind they had us in before we escaped. I felt like I was going to be sick.

As I fought the nausea, I forced myself to look around – there had to be some way out of here. And then I realized there was someone watching me.

She was a girl, in the cage beside mine, studying me carefully, but not speaking. She had long curly brown hair, light freckles, and huge (like abnormally because of experiments) black eyes.

"Hello," she tried, in a very small voice, and leaned forward a fraction to better see if I was friendly or hostile.

"Hi," I answered, feeling a strange mix of relief and anxiety in seeing someone else like me. Ezzy and I had been the only ones at our little facility.

On seeing I wasn't hostile, she got as close to my cage as she could and introduced herself, "I'm Mouse, and as you can guess from my name, I have Mus musculus DNA. It's Latin for the common house mouse, and I've been in this facility for three years."

I felt like I had to respond in kind, "Oh, um, my name's Ade. I have some kind of bird DNA, but I don't know what kind. And I just got here."

Mouse giggled, revealing her oversized front teeth, "Most of us don't know what our other DNA is, but I have good hearing and I listened closely whenever the white coats talked to find out what I was."

I nodded, and then I realized something important. In fact, I felt horrible for not realizing this until just now, "Hey Mouse, was there another bird girl in here that came with me?"

She shook her head, "You're the only bird-kid I've seen."

My heart sank. I hoped she was okay. She had to be; she's Ezzy!

Mouse eagerly spoke again, "Let me introduce you to the others!"

"Others," I asked, looking around to see other kids in cages.

"That's Hook, in the cage below mine one level and to the right. He has sugar glider DNA, but he can't speak. He's been here almost a year now."

"In the cage beside Hook's is Rake. He can speak, but he won't. He was here before me. I think he's got something like gopher DNA, but I'm not sure."

"In the first cage on the wall across form us is Pan. He came here about a month after I did, and he's part armadillo."

"Hey," the boy called, his voice faint and disinterested. "Hey," I called back, sort of glad that one other would speak to me.

"And last but not least, in the cage left of Pan's is Maze. She's been here two years as of Monday last week, and we think she has squirrel DNA."

"Hello, it's nice to meet you Ade," a soft but jittery voice called.

"Nice to meet you too Maze," I said politely.

Turning back to Mouse, I wanted to ask her about escaping, but I was a little afraid to. The white coats could be listening.

Mouse continued, "Things usually work like clockwork around here, so as long as you get used to the schedule, it's not so bad. Just last week we got a whole hour to –"

Mouse was interrupted by two white coats entering the room with a dolly. They detached my cage from the wall and loaded me onto the dolly. I looked back to Mouse, and from the corner she had shrunken to, she shook her head. This was not a part of the schedule.

All of them were looking at me, even Rake and Hook. They had varying degrees of sympathy and fear in their gazes, certainly not making me feel any better.

The white coats took me to the woman Ezzy had tackled earlier and left me with her.

She was sporting a nice bruise, and I felt a swelling of pride that Ezzy had given this woman a thing or two to remember her by.

"Where's Ezzy," I asked right away.

"My, my little boy, you like getting to business don't you," with no reaction from me, she frowned.

"Very well," she paused as she circled my cage, "she left you behind and flew away as fast as she could."

"You're lying," I shouted at her, feeling insulted she would think a lie like that would work on me, "That's bull; Ezzy would never leave me. Where do you have her!?"

"I see fooling you won't be an option," she said coldly, and I hoped Ezzy would be proud of me for standing up to the white coat.

"Do you want the truth?"

I was suddenly afraid and couldn't find the words to answer.

She smiled again and toyed with her hair just to draw it out.

"I would have put her in the same room as you, but in her condition, she wouldn't have made it," cold fear turned my stomach to lead.

After another pause for my suspense, she continued her tale, "I don't know how much you remember, but just before you were knocked out, you fought an eraser – that's what you call them, right? – over control of a gun."

"You never got your hands completely on it, but I'm afraid that during the struggle, the gun went off, and right into Ezzy, as I believe you insist on calling her."

I could just feel the blood drain from my face, "That's right, you almost killed your 'sister'. I suggest you cooperate, or we let her die."

She left suddenly, and her words replayed over and over in my mind. I felt numb, cold, empty. I would have felt afraid for Ezzy if I wasn't in such shock.

When she returned asking if I would obey, I only nodded. I was a docile puppet, unable to understand what she was saying or understand when she was talking to someone else.

I did feel the cold metal of the gun against my temple, but it felt refreshing, real. I didn't recognize Peter or Neal; I didn't know anything.

Until a blur of pure blond fury slammed into us from nowhere.

And then I registered Ezzy.