I let out a battle cry as we ran into the hallway, not even bothering to try and be stealthy. Immediately, whitecoats' heads swiveled in my direction. They charged us, but we were faster.

"Up and away!" I shouted. Luckily, the ceiling was high enough for us to actually attempt it. I could feel my flock flying behind me. We dodged hands as they reached up to try and grab our ankles, kicking them away. I couldn't afford to feel guilty when I heard the bones in their wrists snap.

"Find Leslie!" I shouted to my flock. "We're bringin' this whole enchilada down!"

Normally I would just fly out of there and get my flock to safety, but I was thirsty for vengeance after what they'd done to Fang and my Angel. I wanted to find Dr. Leslie and kick the wits out of him.

We flew through the hallways, ignoring the angered shouts that came from below us. At least they weren't aiming guns at us or anything. And there were no signs of the Bieber-Hulks either. I didn't know if that was good or bad.

"Max!" Angel shouted. "Over here!"

I stopped and circled back around to where Angel was flitting around in the air, trying to evade the whitecoats that jumped up to grab her. Gazzy was at her back, kicking her assailants away. Angel was peering into the glass rectangle above the door she was in front of and pointing. "In there!"

I kicked the door down before she had time to say anything else. We barreled inside, startling the whitecoats who had been working in there. The first thing I noticed was that it smelled nasty. When I looked around me, I realized why.

This must be the room where they assembled the Bieber-Hulks.

The process was gruesome and terrifying. I won't scar you with the nightmarish details, but let me just say that those monsters didn't start out like that. They started out as humans. As soon as the whitecoats had their way with them, their humanity was taken from them in the grossest way possible. It involved a lot of slime and a lot of screaming in pain and a lot of horrible, agonizing sounds that I really hoped I would never hear again in my life.

I almost threw up at the sight of it. But I was stronger than that. I turned away from the gruesome mess and looked around the room, searching for Dr. Leslie.

"I thought you might somehow manage to escape."

The voice had me looking up, just a few feet above where we were circling the room. A metal catwalk was suspended from the ceiling, and on it, Dr. Leslie was standing, a smug smirk on his face. I balled my hands into fists.

"You," I said.

"Me," he replied. "Good job, Max. I'm truly impressed. I never expected you to get past my soldiers, but you exceeded all expectations."

"Soldiers?" I spat bitterly. "Is that what you call them?" I gestured down below to the once-humans groaning in pain.

"Soldiers," he repeated. "They will be great assets to the U.S military, don't you think?"

I laughed. "You're crazy."

"Not crazy. Just advanced."

"Is that what they're calling it now?"

Leslie's smile faltered, and suddenly he pulled out a tranquilizer gun from behind his back.

My flock scattered. Leslie fired away, trying to aim for our unprotected backs. I tried to lead my family towards the door we'd come through, but we were too slow. The fresh batch of Bieber-Hulks that had been recently created swarmed us, attacking us. My heart shattered into a thousand pieces as I saw Fang go down, a tranquilizer dart in his back.

"NO!" I screamed, shooting down after him. I caught him in my arms before he hit the ground. I looked back up at Leslie. He was grinning maliciously.

"Your turn," he said, and he aimed the gun at me.

I closed my eyes and curled my body protectively around Fang's before the world went dark for the second time today.