Chapter One • Miri

Call me stupid, but all I could do was stare dumbly at Max's outstretched hand. Was this just some joke of the scientists', trying to see what I would do in a situation where I believed that, even for a second, escape from this horrible place was a possibility?

I really, really hoped not, because I believed it.

I took Max's hand and she hauled me onto my feet next to her in my cell, facing the door. "I bet if the both of us cause enough of a scene, they'll come to separate us." She said confidently. "That's when we make a run for it."

Not the best escape plan I'd ever heard, but I wasn't about to offer a better one. "What kind of a scene?" I asked, completely on board.

"A fight." She said, looking quickly around the cell. "The we're-going-to-pretend-we-want-to-kill-each-other kind."

I knew how to fight; I'd been groomed to be a kickass warrior since I could walk. Pretending to fight couldn't be that much harder. "Alright." I said, clenching my fists in anticipation. "When—"

Before I could finish the question, Max threw a wild punch in my direction, her face having gone from calculating to killer in less than a millisecond. I ducked out of the way, going under her arm and behind her, managing to tilt my body and whap her in the head with my left wing. I was now completely in fight mode. Max spun quickly and we began to circle each other slowly, putting on a show for the security cameras. I lunged at her feet-first, aiming a kick into her chest. She leapt out of the way in record time, just as I thought she would. I was a good fighter, but Max obviously had more experience.

I rolled as I landed, getting out of the way with my back against the wall. I could hear running footsteps in the hall already, coming straight to us. I started to grin; Max's crazy plan was working and she hadn't even been in here for an hour! I quickly turned the excited expression into a grimace of determination.

Max feigned to the left, then shot a spinning kick my way from the right, which I dodged, cartwheeling out of the way and getting behind her again. I grabbed her wings and gave them a small yank, but made it look like I was giving it my all. Max cried out in imagined pain, keeping up the act by turning on me and throwing me to the ground. We rolled across the tile floor, kicking, punching, and biting with everything we had. Or so it seemed.

Then, miracle of all miracles, the door of the cell opened and we jumped off one another and at the small group of lab-coated fiends. I unleashed all I had on the first guy, using my nails to rip into the skin of his arm with one hand while punching him square in the face with the other. He dropped and I turned around in time to see Max deck another guy and then make a run for it down the empty hallway. I didn't need any encouragement to follow, so I took off running right after her, easily catching up. The white lab garment I was wearing helped, letting me fully stretch my legs with every stride.

Max turned and asked "Do you know how to fly?"

I wasn't even breaking a sweat with this mad sprint, but her question nearly made me stumble. "No! They never let me try!"

"Then I hope you're a fast learner!" she yelled, leaping into the air and spreading her wings wide. She flew straight through a large skylight, tucking in her wings at the last second before she went through and immediately pushing them back out again as soon as she was free.

I pumped my wings hard behind me and managed some lift, then gave another push that got me off the floor. My flapping was crazed and erratic, but I got high enough to grab onto the edge of the shattered skylight and pull myself onto the roof with my hands. The shattered glass cut sharply into my skin, but now wasn't the time to complain.

Max was hovering a few feet above the roof, waiting for me. I had the feeling she wasn't planning to wait for long, so I sprinted for it and jumped into the air for the second time in my life, only twenty seconds after the first.

"You're doing great!" Max called, flying higher into the air. I copied the way she worked her wings and managed to get close below her while she streaked through the sky towards anything that wasn't the place below us. I could hear shouts and alarms from the building, but didn't dare look down to see if anything was being sent after us.

Max flew ahead, but even I could tell that she was holding back so I could keep up. I was surprised that I was still airborne, considering this was my first real flight. I kept my eyes on Max's wings, watching how she worked them and copying the movements to stay aloft. "We gotta pick up speed!" Max yelled over the wind.

My eyes were starting to tear up, but I ignored it. "How do I do that?" I called back, looking down. In the lab, I could see lights flashing, horns were blaring, and people were scurrying around in crazed patterns, yelling at one another.

"Flap faster, keep your legs straight, and put your arms at your sides!" Max instructed. Immediately, she followed her own advice, rocketing over the electrified fence that surrounded the lab. I did as she said and shakily sped up, definitely going faster, just not as smoothly and easily as Max was. I pumped my wings up and down as hard and fast as I could, barely keeping up, but not falling behind either.

Max turned around to look behind us and I could see her eyes widen. Something was coming. "Flyboys!" she yelled, dropping back to get closer to me. I peeked around too and wished I hadn't: a cloud of those robot flying wolf-men was coming up fast. "Grab my hand!" Max yelled. I spun around to see that she'd come really close, flying just above me with her wings in sync with mine. I raised my arm to wrap my fingers around her wrist and suddenly we were blasting along like a jet plane.

Max yelled something else, but it was lost in the wind created by her speed. I had no idea what she was doing or how she was doing it, but one look behind us convinced me I didn't care. We had pulled away so far already I couldn't see the lab or the cloud of robotic doom that had been following us only three seconds ago. Whatever Max was doing, it was definitely helpful.

I don't know how long I was towed along in the air, but when Max finally slowed, the sun was just barely holding itself above the horizon. Max let go of my hand as she brought down her speed, so I had to remember to flap again fast. "Did we really just escape?" I asked, trying out the wonderful word on my tongue.

Max turned around to grin at me. "Yeah, we did." She looked tired from her crazy-turbo-speed-flight, but definitely happy.

I punched a fist in the air, which made me lose my balance and drop a few feet. "Whoa!" I yelped, thinking Remember to flap. Remember to flap. Remember to flap. . .

"I guess you meant it when you said you couldn't fly before," Max said casually. "But now's as good a time to learn as any, especially since you're in the air already. That's the hardest part."

I got myself back into the pattern of flapping and gave Max a skeptical look. "You sure about that?" I asked.

She laughed. "Not at all. But it sounded legit, right?" I just rolled my eyes and she got serious, going into instruction mode.

I won't get into a lot of detail, but Max gave me a crash course in flying until we lost the light. I say "crash course" because I did crash. Twice. Into trees. Which hurt. A lot. But, I got the basics down on flying, so it was totally worth the pain.

So, to sum up my situation, I was free, I could fly, and I had somebody who could show me the ropes. Life was looking up for me. Way up.

That was my last thought before the shooting started.

Yes, I'm leaving you with a cliffy. *insert evil, muahahaha-type laughter here*

~N~