Chapter 11

Fang sat in his cage, a tray of food in front of him. That was the first bit of food they'd given him ever since they'd been captured. He wasn't about to eat it. He wasn't stupid enough to eat food that'd probably been loaded with a tranquilizer or poison. Then there was a hiss as a door at the end of the hall slid open. Metallic footsteps echoed down the hall as four flyboys walked down it. They stopped in front of his door and opened it.

"Come with us," one said in an emotionless voice. Then two of them grabbed his arms and they all walked out of the room. Fang looked back and saw Nudge and Total sleeping. He wondered if he would ever see them again.

They walked down another hallway to a door marked "Gas Chamber". The flyboy held up its hand and the door opened. The two holding him threw him into the room. He crashed into a wall and then onto the floor. The door slammed shut. He looked around. The room was completely made of metal except for a small glass window. He walked over to it and saw that it had an exclamation mark painted onto it, with the word "Danger" below it. Behind the glass there was a small plastic tube. He figured that was poison gas that was going to be used to kill him. He also saw small wires running through it.

"That must be a sensor," he thought out loud. Then he tried to think back to tests the whitecoats had performed on him, tests that involved holding underwater and seeing how long he could hold his breath. He remembered that when he was seven he'd been able to hold his breath for five minutes. Then he took a deep breath, held it, made a fist, and punched the glass. It shattered and immediately an alarm went off. He grabbed the tube and ripped it out of the wall. Then he jumped to the side as the door opened. He turned and saw four flyboys run through the doorway. Then his skin and eyes started to burn. He also saw sparks fly out of the flyboy's ears, eyes, and mouths. He ran and crashed into two of the flyboys, sending all three of them flying out of the room.

"Ahh!" he yelled as the burning sensation became worse. He looked down at his hands and saw that the skin on top of them was disintegrating, and a small flow of blood was starting to drip down them. He ran down the hall and took a left, trying to get to the cells and away from the acid gas. As he turned a corner he saw a whitecoat walking down the hall. As the whitecoat started to turn his head, Fang turned his shoulder toward him and ran into the whitecoat as hard as he could. They flew through the air until the whitecoat hit a wall. They both collapsed to the ground. Fang stood up and looked at the whitecoat. A trickle of blood was flowing down the side of his head and a card was lying on the ground next to his hand. Fang grabbed the card and saw the door to their cell block. He ran over to it and slid the card through a card reader next to the door. It buzzed and swung open.

"Fang?" asked Nudge as he sprinted over to her cell.

"It's alright," said Fang as he opened the door. Then he ran over to Total's cage and unlocked it.

"Hey," he said. "What's up?"

"We gotta get out of here," replied Fang.

"What happened to your hand?" asked Nudge.

"Don't worry about it," panted Fang. Just then a door opened and a whitecoat with two flyboys stepped in. Right away, Nudge grabbed the access card that Fang was holding and threw it like a Frisbee. It spun through the air and stabbed into the whitecoat's eye. He screamed and stumbled into a flyboy. Total jumped through the air and collided with a flyboy. He stabbed his teeth into the flyboy's eye and ripped it out. Sparks flew out of the eye's socket and the flyboy collapsed to the ground. Fang grabbed a tray of food and threw it at the other flyboy. The tray fell but the food stuck to his eyes, blinding him. He ran forward, spun the flyboy around, and kicked the flyboy in the back, cracking its spine.

"Let's get out of here!" yelled Fang. They sprinted out of the room and down three hallways. He slid his wings out of slits in his coat and flexed the so that they were as far behind his back as he could get them. Nudge grabbed Total and followed suit. The next hallway was so skinny that they had to run in a single file line. They turned a corner and a flyboy was in front of them. He pointed his gun directly at Nudge. Total jumped into the air, attracting the flyboy's attention. The gun moved and fired. Total was flung into the ceiling and then crashed to the ground.

"No!" yelled Nudge as she continued to run. The flyboy pointed his gun at her again, but Total had given her just enough time. She jumped into the air, twisting her body, and delivered a very hard kick into the side of the gun. It was broken off the flyboy and spun into the wall. Then the side of Nudge's body collided full force into the flyboy. They crashed onto the ground and slid across the floor. She got up on her hands and knees and started punching it in the face. "No! No! No!" Then a firm hand grabbed her and pulled her off of it. She looked up and saw that it was Fang. He was also holding Total's broken body.

"Keep going," he said. "Or he will have died in vain." A tear sliding down her face, she jumped out of his grip and kept running. They battled their way through an outer door and took off into the air. Nudge looked over at Fang. He was looking straight ahead, his face emotionless as usual.

But she could have sworn that she saw a tear slide down his cheek.