Chapter Nine

When I woke, I subconsciously felt for my necklace. It gave me adrenaline, getting me ready for a new day. It made me feel loved- that I was never going to be alone, no matter how I felt. It made me want to kick some whitecoat ass.

Like always, the white lights gave me tunnel vision, and the chemically smell made my nostrils burn for a minute.

'Angel' I asked in my mind, knowing that she was awake, too.

She answered right away, too- like I'd expected, 'Max? That was a nice gift. I'm sorry that you told him how you fe-'

'Sweetie, I know. It's alright because when we get out of here- and we will get out of here- we're gonna destroy every single one of these places. They will not hurt anybody else ever again! Ok?' She nodded, which I took as a yes.

'Now, where is Gazzy?'

'Wind tunnel experiment,' she replied. I winced-the wind tunnel experiment was one of the worst experiments. It was where the scientists test how far and for how long you can fly. The bastards make you stay in there until you die, faint, or break your wings. We always either passed out, or pretended to pass out.

I finally looked Angel over. She had three or four showing burn marks on each arm. She had a healing bruise on her left leg, and claw marks on her right. She had a scabbing gash from her right temple to her chin.

'Oh, baby. What did they do to you?' I exclaimed in my head. We talked like that in fear of cameras.

'experiments: wind tunnel, coal tracks, and mazes. I fought.' She said.

I was torn between congratulating her, and ripping the door of my cage open to go see if she was ok.

'It's ok, Max, I heard you. I understand,' she thought to me, melting my heart like she used to when she was a four-year-old. I looked over to her cage and smiled, which ended our conversation.

After a while, she slowly went to sleep. I sat back on my heals, trying not to think of how Fang and I could have been- together, like a couple. Instead, I thought about how we were going to escape, what Iggy and Nudge were doing, stuff like that.

Some time later, they brought the Gasman back in. He was fast asleep, the poor little guy.

I checked my watch. It read 7:26 P.M. Bedtime for the oldest bird kid.