Sage's POV

Max and I walked back to my room.

"So you know what I don't get? Why they felt that they didn't need me to rescue you two. I mean, they did a great job. I'm not mad or anything, but it's weird. Fang especially tells me everything."

She seemed kind of hurt that they'd come after me and Arseny without her. I opened the door to my room to see Iggy sleeping on the bed heavily. Rescuing people took a lot out of you, I suppose.

"Can you watch him while I take a shower?" I asked Max.

She nodded and I handed the sleeping boy to her. He stirred a bit in his sleep; Arseny had never really been a heavy sleeper, unlike me. As I started down the hall again, Gazzy came out of his room and rubbed his eyes. They immediately widened when he saw me.

"You're back! We missed you, but I missed you like, the most. I missed you lots!" Gazzy hugged me around the waist tight.

"I missed you too, Gaz. I think you better get to sleep now, its late. I'll see you in the morning."

He nodded and went back into his room. In the bathroom, I decided to see if anything was wrong with me. Other than minor scratches and a bruise or two, I was fine. I saw exactly where my tears had fallen; there were streaks on my face. My eyeliner had run, and so had my mascara. Tiredly, I went over to the bathroom closet and grabbed a new washcloth. The hot water over me was a relief; my tense muscles loosened up and I was no longer freezing, even though it was like seventy degrees out.

After my shower I groggily made my way to Max's room to retrieve Arseny and then back to my room. He was sleeping, so I laid him on his stomach in his crib. I collapsed onto my bed after that, and was glad I could finally close my eyes and just sleep. But you know, that didn't even go well.

I tossed and turned and at one point dreamed the whole kidnapping scene. I guess I screamed in my sleep, because Iggy shook me awake. He wore a worried look on his face. He brushed the hair out of my eyes and just stared at me with his unseeing eyes. That blue was like an ocean. They were so beautiful, but you could get completely lost in them.

"Are you okay? You screamed and you were fighting in your sleep," he yawned when he said sleep. Sadly sleep was something what wouldn't come to me very easily tonight.

He rubbed my wings the way I liked, and I suddenly felt drowsy. I don't know why, but whenever he did that it put me right to bed. I dreamed that nothing bad ever happened, that the white coats were out curing cancer and A.I.D.S. and H.I.V. and tuberculosis and all those incurable diseases. I even dreamed that Arseny never lived the way he does. Everything was just perfect. Nobody was out to kill us, and we could live our lives in ease.

Sadly when I woke up, it was the exact opposite. Arseny was crying, Iggy was trying to keep him quiet, and it was seven thirty two in the morning.

"Did he eat last night? Maybe he's hungry?" Iggy asked.

"He probably is. He didn't eat last night. I'll go get him something."

I rolled out from under the covers and walked sleepily down the hall. Everyone else was already up, getting ready for school and work. Nudge was eating at the table; it was surprising to see her up in more than ten minutes before their bus came. Fang gave me a nod of acknowledgement as I looked for a baby spoon and some strained bananas or something.

Caleb's POV

They had escaped. Half of me was ecstatic that Sage and her son had gotten away from this hellhole, but the other half of me was really ticked about the whole thing. Plus my guilty conscience was wiped clean when I ignored the alarms, so, bonus. That's right; I had the chance to kick their butts, but I chose not to take it. That whole time, the monitors showed the live footage of two other bird kids breaking in to rescue Sage and her kid.

"You're such a softie," said Joanna.

"For once, I agree with her," added Sammy.

It didn't really matter that they'd gotten away, because the white coats had planted a tracking device into him. No matter where he went, we'd know the exact coordinates. There was only one flaw; if for some reason he got injured with a deep cut anywhere near the tracking device and any kind of fluid got in, then it would stop functioning completely.

"Caleb, I think we should get the kid back. Since he's so young, we could train him. Who knows; maybe he'll turn out valuable?" Cassie said without looking away from the Xbox 360.

I honestly didn't care what they did. As long as I wasn't involved with this, I was okay.

Iggy's POV

"Sage, he's not okay. There's something wrong with him. Feel his forehead."

Sure enough, Arseny was burning up. Earlier he had been coughing fiercely and sweating like never before. Now his temperature was rising and his hair was soaked with sweat. More than once I changed his shirt to find out that an hour or so later it was re-soaked with sweat.

"What should we do? Should we call Dr. Martinez?" asked Sage.

"Get a cool washcloth and put it on his forehead. Just take his shirt off and stick him in shorts for now. We'll keep checking his temperature for a couple hours before we call Dr. M. This is probably just a little thing that will fix itself. You know that our genes are altered so that we don't get sick. This is probably a tiny flaw in his genetic makeup."

Hopefully. I mean, you had to take into account that even though Arseny was like us, he wasn't made in a lab. There were no white coats to fix problems like these.