Thanks go to emotionalpoemgirl, who's reviewed every chapter of this story!

I have prepared a long, boring A/N about why I haven't been updating as often lately, but you probably don't want to hear about that...so here it is. The next chapter.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

- Blackbird, by the Beatles

Max POV

"So...You're saying that, during the night, a group of giant wolf-men burst through this window and attacked you? And that they left immediately afterward?" Mom asked, eyebrow raised.

Well, if you put it like that..."Yes."

She sighed. "Where's Fang? Is he all right?"

We went upstairs, and Mom looked over the still form under the sheets.

Fang lay, sleeping, on his side, cradling his arm in a way he would never in real life. He looked so...young when he was asleep. Younger. As if he wasn't on the run from mad scientists or Flyboys. He looked almost...normal.

I wasn't yet sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Mom checked the bandaging, and nodded.

"You did a good job of cleaning the wound and bandaging it up. You'd make a great doctor." she said the last prt so softly, I wasn't positive if I heard it right.

"Me? Doctor? Nah." I replied, shaking my head and smiling.

But really? I had no wish to be a doctor. For doctors to succeed, there must be a steady stream of sickly, injured, or dying people. I'd rather there be none of those, and no doctors.

And being experimented on be whitecoats kind of destroyed any chance of doctoring and science in my future.

"He should be fine," Mom said, closing Fang's door after her. "Does...this kind of thing...happen often?"

"Well, it happens often enough." My injured side twinged with pain, as if agreeing.

We walked back to the scene of the battle in a kind of uneasy silence, with me wondering if I had scared her too much, and my mom thinking...whatever she was thinking.

Returning to the kitchen, we were met by the rest of the Flock, looking worried.

"Well? How is he?" Total demanded, sitting up. "Max wouldn't let us get anywhere near him door for the last who-knows-how-long. I mean, we're not that-"

"He's fine," I interrupted. Since when did he become such a Nudge? "Mom says that he'll be completely healed within the week."

Relief on everyone's faces.

Iggy frowned. "Well, what are we going to do about this attack? Do we just let Itex get away with it?"

My mom, sensing that this was something that was to be discussed as a Flock, moved away and began arranging the forks and spoons that one of us had thrown haphazardly into the drawer.

I leaned against the doorframe. "Of course not. But we're not going after them right away. Not so soon after the battle." Not when one of us was injured so badly. They nodded, as if they could hear exactly what I was thinking.

"But what then? We find the Itex branch that sent those Flyboys after us-then what? Demand a refund?"

"Iggy?" Nudge said, sitting on the counter. "Do you want to go after the Flyboys or not? Make up your mind! I personally think we shouldn't. I know things are really messed up right now, but maybe, oh, I don't know, we should take a break. It's only been a month since we last fought Itex, after all. Don't you think we deserve a break?"

Everyone in the Flock started talking all at once, about what they think we should, and why. It was enough to make anyone want to bang their head against the wall.

"Enough," I exclaimed, rubbing my forehead. "Look, Nudge. I know you deserve a break-we all do-but that's not the question. The question is whether we actually have a choice in this."

Iggy snorted. "Because the whitecoats are all about giving choices. Of course."

I wasted one of my patented Death Glares on him. "Still...there's something I don't like about this. The Flyboys look weird, for one. I don't know why, but they do. And even more, they ran away after that one Flyboy bit Fang. At the same time. What Flyboy backs away from a fight, and at the same time as its buddies, even? They're not built to be that way."

"I know," Gazzy chimed in. "It's weird. Maybe the whitecoats have decided to change things up a bit, to confuse us?"

You know what's sad? When a eight-year-old begins to talk life-and-death strategy, that's when you know things are beginning to get out of hand. And it's even worse when what they say actually makes sense.

"Well, the whitecoats have done something to the Flyboys, that's for sure."

"Are you sure? Maybe it's just adrenalin messing up your perceptions, or something," Iggy replied.

"No, Max is right." Everyone's heads swiveled to look at Angel, who was sitting calmly on the ground. Even Mom's, who I was sure was listening intently to our discussion to decide whether it was time to start panicking or not. Evidently, from her expression, it was.

"What do you mean?" I asked, curiosity piqued. But of course, this was Angel we were talking about, not some other six-year-old girl. She had a reason for everything.

"The Flyboys' minds weren't like before. Before, they're all just like 'kill', and 'capture', and things like that. Now, they almost actually thinking. Like, as if they're carrying out a plan or something. A plan they made up."

"Yeah, so what if they're Flyboy version 2.0, or something. The question remains: what do we do?" I didn't mean for that to sound as harsh as it did coming out of my mouth, but that's exactly what I was thinking.

"You were sitting on that for this whole time?" Iggy exclaimed. "You should have told us right away!"

"I thought you guys already knew," Angel sai, sounding small and quiet.

I smiled. "Don't worry. You did fine. Just tell us these kinds of things earlier, 'kay?"

Angel looked up at me and nodded. "Sure."

I looked at the rest of the Flock. Nudge was right-we all really needed a well-deserved break. Now if the whitecoats would ust comply with our wishes...

But hey. We've all been up for the whole night, and I could tell that some of the younger members-like Gazzy and Angel-were ready to drop. We needed to sleep.

"Guys, it's been a long day...I mean night. Let's go to bed and sleep for now, and we can talk about this better tomorrow, agreed?" I suggested.

A chorus of yeah's and sure's were heard, and everybody trudged upstairs to their respective rooms. Well, everybody except for Mom and I.

I wasn't quite ready to sleep yet. So much had happened in so little hours, I was far too jumpy to even think about lying down. And the words of the mysterious Flyboy-thing that had visited me were too clear. I mean, what if it was right? Then everything I've strived for in the past year has been for nothing, and everything I would ever do would just take humanity backwards.

And most of me believed that. Deep inside, I guess I knew I was never the person who would end up saving the world.

Searching around the room for something to clean up, for anything to do, my eyes landed upon a crunched up piece of paper on the ground.

It was Mom's rule list. I smoothed out the creases, and straightened the tape, rubbing my fingers over the many wrinkles and stains (of what, I didn't know, nor did I want to).

"Are you sure you're going to be alright?" Mom asked, from somewhere behind the counters.

"I'm going to be. Nothing good night's sleep won't fix," I lied.

"Okay, just...be careful."

Be careful for everything-be wary of your enemies, for there are too many. Be careful fo your friends, because you can never know what is going to happen next. Be watchful of yourself, for you can't know if what you do now will have an impact on your future. Be careful.

I stuck the rule list back onto the wall, tracing rule number 1 with the tip of one finger.

Clean up after yourselves.

Well, the Flock has tried to, judging from the now clean(er) tables, doors and walls. But I was afraid that what we've started can't be cleaned up with a bottle of Lysol and a sponge.

Fang POV

I snapped my eyes open, and bolted up, searching around the room for shadowy phantoms only I could see.

After a while of eye-darting, heart-pounding panic, I calmed down and flopped back onto the bed, instead, staring at the ceiling.

I couldn't seem to sleep. Not that I would want to.

But why was I here? In this...bed?

Oh. Right. Max carried me to my room after I fell asleep. (I would never live that down.)

What else?

And...I had my arm bitten by...a Flyboy. Right. Flyboy. Thats right. That's why there is a huge aching pain in my left arm. That's why there are so many bulky bandages around it. That's why I fell asleep.

Right. I remember now. I remember everything.

I picked at the edge of the bandage absent-mindedly. Now, why was I awake?

A nightmare. Yeah, that's right.

What was wrong with me? I chuckled silently. That Flyboy must have knocked my head around a lot worse than I had thought.

Something flickered in the corner of my eye, and I snapped my head around, tense, ready to fight.

Oh. Ha. It was only a stray moonbeam.

Wow Fang, so jumpy, I chatised myself. Calm yourself.

And I lay there, in the darkness, trying to keep my nightmare under control. It didn't work. I ended up just trying to stay as still as possible, fighting invisible demons in my head, shivering slightly. Pathetic, not that I could help it.

And as I lay there in the darkess, one part of the nightmare kept coming back to me, making me relieve it over and over.

A malvolent voice, whispering from the inscrutable emptiness that surrounded me.

Be mine...

R&R?