PREVIOUSLY: As my scream filled the room, I had only one thought:Let it end. Please. Just let it end. Let it end. Let it end let it end let it end…

Max

"Screw this," I muttered after our tenth failed escape attempt. Note key word: failed. "Ange, can you hack into their minds?"

She sighed. We'd been here before. "No, Max. I-" She broke off as a party of five Erasers and one of the female whitecoats paraded past. Two of the Erasers were dragging something.

"Not something," Angel whispered. "Someone." She looked toward me, her big blue eyes filled with horror. "We're getting a new neighbor, Max."

"What?" I gasped when I realized what she meant. "Who?"

Her name is Gabriella Hoag. Here, she's known as Subject Sixteen.

"Okay," I muttered. "Guys, the Voice says the girl's name is Gabriella. She's known to the whitecoats as Subject Sixteen." Anything else, Voice?

Yes, the Voice miraculously responded. They're going to inject her with avian DNA. The DNA of a raven.

I swallowed. "The Voice also says - they're going to inject her with avian DNA."

Nudge put a hand over her mouth, Iggy and Gazzy both looked horrified, and Angel closed her eyes. Suddenly, I heard an earsplitting scream.

That's her, Max, my Voice prodded me.

What are they doing to her?

Torture, the Voice replied grimly. Electric shocks. Stabbing her with a scalpel. Stuff like that.

"Wonderful," I muttered. "Pre-injection torture. Great. Just what she-" The rest of my words were drowned out by another, more horrible scream.

Suddenly I could hear that whitecoat's voice. "Are you done?"

I could hear the girl's ragged breathing. Then she croaked out, "You… remind me… of Hera…" A moment's silence, then she began to laugh. The broken sound of it send shivers up my spine. Suddenly the laugh turned into another scream that split the air. This time, I could make out words: "Let it end!" The girl was sobbing now. "Please," she begged. "Just let it end."

"Your wish is granted," the whitecoat said stiffly. A thump, then silence. The flock and I sat in our cages, stunned and horrified. We had just heard the awful sounds of a girl getting tortured.

-THREE DAYS LATER-

Scuffing sounds in the hall preceded an Eraser, grinning toothily at us and carrying something under his arm. He tossed the girl into the crate next to mine, locked the door, and left. I strained to catch a glimpse of the girl next to me. I saw pale freckled skin, long wavy golden blonde hair with a blue-green streak in it, and a slender yet muscular figure. Then I really saw her. Practically every inch of her skin was covered with bruises and cuts from two days of tests and torture. Some of the deeper cuts were still oozing blood. "Oh, god." Gross.

"Gods," the girl mumbled, her eyes still closed.

"Excuse me?"

"Gods." The girl's voice was clearer, and her eyes opened. Instead of the baby blue I'd been expecting, they were a brilliant green - sea green. "You know, Greek mythology, gods!" She pushed herself up, wincing slightly. "Ow."

I slipped my hand through the bars and touched her shoulder. "Look, you should lie down. You've been tortured and tested for three days."

"Aw, hell, no." She glared up at the ceiling, then sighed and turned to me. "I didn't catch your names."

"I'm Nudge!" said birdkid squealed immediately from across the aisle. "Or Subject Four, if you want. Or Monique. Or-"

"NUDGE!"

"Iggy," the blind birdkid said softly. "A.k.a. Subject Three."

"Subject Five, but I named myself Gazzy, short for the Gasman." Gazzy smiled angelically at the new girl.

"Don't ask," I muttered as she opened her mouth. She giggled. Wow. This girl has been tortured for a couple of days and here she is, giggling at Gazzy's name. Impressive.

She smiled at my expression and Angel projected a grin into my head. "I'm Angel. Also known as Subject Six," she directed at the blond next to me.

"Fang," my boyfriend said simply. "Or Subject Two."

The girl's sea green eyes bored into me. I was positive I'd seen those eyes somewhere before. "And you?" she prompted.

"Subject One," I said. "Max. Maximum Ride."

She smiled. "Unique name. I like it." She sat up a little straighter. "My name is Gabi. Gabriella Hoag. Or Subject Sixteen."

"I'm assuming you weren't born here?"

"Nudge!" I was shocked. "At least try to control that motor mouth, please."

Gabriella's green eyes had hardened at Nudge's question. "Hell, no. I wasn't born here - wherever here is."

"Death Valley," Iggy supplied.

Gabi looked confused. "Aren't you blind? How do you know that?"

Iggy slapped a hand over his mouth and the rest of us were silent. How could we keep from revealing our powers?

Angel broke the awkward silence. "Yes, we have powers. And, yes, I can read minds." She smiled at Gabi apologetically.

Gabriella grinned. "Same, and so can I."

We all gasped. We'd never met another mind reader before. Angel's eyes widened, and both she and Gabi began to giggle. I was struck by how similar the two of them were. Blond waves, determined expressions, freaking scary mental powers. The differences were the blue eyes vs. green eyes, seven years old versus sixteen or seventeen years old, secretive and scary versus mysterious and seemingly ordinary. "That's funny!" Angel gasped out. "Oh, wow! Seaweed Brain!" She dissolved into giggles again.

"What?" Nudge, Iggy, and Gazzy all asked in unison. Fang merely raised an eyebrow: his version of total confusion.

"What is it, Ange?" I asked pointedly. Angel smiled and looked from me to Gabriella, who grinned. She took a deep breath and began to tell us a story. An insane, wonderful, horrifyingly vivid story. A story of her life.

Gabi

"...so, yeah. That's when I woke up here in a freaking dog crate…" I kicked the bars halfheartedly. "And, well, you know the rest." I leaned back against the bars with a sigh. "Now we die of dehydration. Yay. Did I mention how much I love water?"

"I think you did," Max replied. "Miss I'm-the-daughter-of-the-freaking-sea-god." Her blond hair hung limp around her shoulders, the brown streaks fading into the background.

Her chocolate brown eyes flashed as Gazzy leaned forward in his crate. "So what you're saying is," he checked, "you've saved the world not once, but three times. You've held the sky on your shoulders for a day and a half, you've stopped the evilest of all evil dudes from destroying the world, became practically invincible, and you're only sixteen?"

"That about sums it up," I mumbled.

"Wow," Nudge said softly.

"Massive understatement," I muttered.

-TWO MORE DAYS LATER-

I sat in my crate, my eyes closed, playing with the blue-green strand of my hair. Suddenly the pipe next to my crate burst. I gasped as the water formed a mist in which the light made a rainbow. Max sat forward and stared at me. "What is that?"

"You have a collect call from Camp Half-Blood. Will you pay the charges now or later?"

"Later." I smirked. As the rainbow glittered, I held my breath, until my brother's face appeared. "Jason!" I called.

"Gabi!" His face split into a wide grin. "I can't believe it - hey, guys!" he called to people beyond my view. "It worked!"

I heard running feet, then my friends appeared. "Gabi!" they all yelped in unison. "Are you okay? Where are you?"

I couldn't help it - I laughed. "Hey, guys. I'm good - really! As to where I am - Iggy, where did you say we are?" I muttered the last part to Iggy.

He promptly replied, "Why, in sweet Death Valley, of course."

"Thanks, Ig. So… yeah! Death Valley. Whoa, Taylor, did you seriously dye your hair again?"

The slender girl edged out from behind my brother. "Yeah. Blue-green. The same color as the streak in your hair."
I touched the small streak of color in my blonde waves, touched that she cared enough about me to do something like that. "Well, Tay, everyone can change." I was tempted to unfurl my wings just to shock them, but I resisted the urge.

Suddenly, footsteps sounded from down the hall. "Erasers," Max muttered.

I nodded, then turned back to the Iris-message. "Guys, I gotta go. IM me later, okay?"
"Okay," they chorused as one.

"Okay, little sister." Percy stuck his head in the frame, ignoring the cries of "Percy!" "Dude!" "Percy Jackson, get your fat head out of my face." Max and Angel both gasped.

I swallowed. "Percy, go tell the others. Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Leo, Frank, Hazel. Please, big brother. They deserve to know."

He nodded. "All right, little sister. Love you. See you soon." I nodded, and he swiped his hand through the mist, breaking the connection.

Max tapped my shoulder. "Care to explain?"

I sighed. "That was an Iris-message. We use them to communicate instead of phones."

"PERCY JACKSON?" Gazzy and Iggy asked in unison, their voices and faces filled with awe. "The Percy Jackson?"

"Yep." I smirked. "He's my half-brother on my dad's side. Only slightly older than me."

"Your half-brother?" the flock chorused as one.