Sorry for the wait on this one! If I could get even MORE reviews, that would be awesome. You may think what you have to say isn't important, but every bit of critique helps me make future chapters even better. I'd like to acknowledge the following readers for their reviews: IwriteUread, , The-Winged-One, Charlene Ryder, Aimee, and SmartA55. Thanks for your help.

~jennedy

I sat in my crate. Silent. Docile. Waiting for my prince charming to come back and whisk me away.

Haha. That was a joke. Get it?

I'm just going to get this out there now. I was furious at Liam for going. If the whitecoats had wanted me to know what they made him do, I would have known, but at this point I was totally in the dark. I had the sinking feeling that the chore hadn't been a trip to the grocery store. He had probably agreed to something he hadn't expected just to stop me from, well… Dying of illegal poison testing? That's what the black stuff had been. They gave me an antidote after Liam agreed to their demands, but I was still in pretty bad shape; the black liquid had shown right through my super-translucent skin, leaving weird, spidery black webs all over my body. In the major veins, it had washed away pretty quickly, but in some areas it still clogged up my capillaries.

The point is, I was in a pretty sticky situation. But I would have found another way. I know I would have. And he had to go all noble on me and disobey a direct order. The thought just blew me away.

My Colony was still getting over the major scares of my close call and Liam's absence. Valkyrie hunched in her corner of the crate, eyes closed. She had just gotten back from a test, a grueling physical one. She would probably sleep for a while. But I couldn't sleep. I played with a strip of white fabric I had pulled off my shirt, unable to move or think or rest. I felt like I was stuck in limbo. The whole situation was driving me crazy. My mind was turning in circles over and over again, and the pure simple fact that I had about half an inch of personal space was slowly tipping me over the edge.

My keen hearing picked up noise. I sat up straighter and listened hard. About 30 seconds later, five robots and a single mutant marched down our hall. The robots opened the crate directly to the right of Abe's (and so two down from mine) and chucked the girl in. She looked beaten. Not physically; her eyes weren't blacked and her lip wasn't split. She looked as if she had given up. Her eyes were big and sad, and she hardly even flinched as her body crumpled against the cold metal bars. It got me down just looking at her. Then she turned on her side, facing away from Abe, and I saw her wings. Her wings. Her brown and white feathered wings.

"They say her wings are beautiful, brown fledged with white like an American eagle's…" I heard the soft voice of the recombinant who had told me about the Flock, though that particular mutant had died a long time ago. Maximum Ride was here. A jolt of adrenaline ran through my system. I wondered if Jeb knew, if he would release her. And maybe… Maybe then she would release us.

But my attention was jerked away from Max as another body was wrestled down the hall. I craned my neck, pressing my face against the bars. It was him. Liam. I clenched my teeth, clenching and unclenching my fists. He appeared unhurt, lacking even bruises or scrapes. His face had the same downcast expression as hers. It scared me. Liam was always strong, physically and mentally, like an unflinching wall of stone. To see him broken like that wormed fear into my brain.

As usual, my fear and worry came out as rage. "What the hell were you thinking, Liam?!" I screamed, my agitated voice sending every unstable recombinant into a fit of panic. Around the cage-rattling and anxious bellowing, I heard Liam say, "I'm sorry." He couldn't even look at me as the robots slammed his cage door shut. I snarled and threw myself against the bars, pleasure filling me when he flinched. He deserved it.

In the crate with Liam, Stella wrapped her arms around his chest and squirmed into his lap. Tears ran silently from her gray eyes. I sucked in my breath hard, forcing myself to back off. The kids were worried about him. Heck, I was worried about him. We had to let Liam settle back in and then he could tell us what they had done to him.

And then there was her. Maximum Ride. Huddled, unmoving against the side of her cage as she was, I figured that an Eraser would be more helpful than she would be on the premise of escape.

Yes. Escape. Now that I knew the exact location of every member of my Colony, nothing was going to stop me from getting us out. I knew I was going insane in this cage, and the little kids had better things to do than watch me go crazy. Once we were out, Blaze could play with all the fire he wanted. Jag could buy new aviator goggles. Stella could play with Abe, her big brother, and he could teach her more about the night sky than I would ever be able to. Valkyrie could get a new sketchbook and draw- anything and everything, whenever she wants to. She doesn't think anyone knows that she has a passion for sketching, but Liam and I have seen her at it- and she's amazing. Broda could have a real childhood- maybe not with real parents, but with his family, flying every day and learning how to survive our hectic lives.

I needed to get out. That much was for certain. But I had no idea how. And just then, I was pretty much unable to start planning, because a long, gleaming needle stuck through the bars of my crate and punctured my leg, sending my thoughts spiraling into blackness…