Max POV

Janie's body was under a sheet that Josh brought along with him in his backpack. We couldn't look at her lying there. Josh and Xavier hadn't left Janie's side since Hawk flew off hours ago. I wanted to give Hawk some space, but hours had gone by and there was still no sign of her. Fang, who was trying to comfort Xavier, walked over and sat down next to me. We didn't talk; we didn't have to. I knew what was going through his head at that moment. I didn't know Janie for all that long, but she was always happy and optimistic. Janie reminded me so much of Nudge that it hurt to think of a soul like that dead.

"I didn't know you could care for people like that." I said, looking at Xavier, who was drifting off to sleep.

Fang draped his arm around my shoulder, "I can comfort people when the time comes. Everyone can. It's a natural instinct." He sighed and looked at me. "I know I should probably do this, but I want you to. Can you go find Hawk? I want to stay here and make sure Josh and Xavier don't go nuts." He looked me in the eyes when I nodded. "Thank you." He said before he kissed my cheek and walked over to a half awake Xavier.

"I'm going to go look for Hawk." I announced to Josh. He nodded his head, not looking away from Janie's body.

I ran in the direction Hawk went and opened my wings. Finding Hawk was all a blur. I don't even remember taking off into the air. All I remember is feeling the wind blow all of the tension away while I was flying. After a few minutes, I saw a giant canyon. Someone was laying at the top of it, curled up in the fetal position, crying. The huge black and white wings gave away that the person was Hawk. Seeing Hawk in this state made me have a lot of respect for her. She didn't cry in front of her flock. She waited until she was alone to let her feelings out. She wasn't all that different from me. I landed a few feet away from her. When my feet thudded on the ground, her head turned toward me. Tears mixed with dirt stained her cheeks. I walked over to her and sat down. We didn't say anything at first but finally she spoke up.

"Sorry you had to see me like this." She sighed and wiped her face with her shirt sleeve. "Usually I keep my composure." Another sigh. "I found the attacker. I beat the sucker into a pulp." A small smile leaked onto her face. "It was really weird though… I slammed him into the canyon wall and got a good look at him. At first he was the guy who attacked us, but then… he changed."

My forehead creased, "Excuse me? He changed? Like appearance?" That's extremely confusing.

She nodded, "Yeah. At first he was the dark skinned-dark haired guy and then his hair became blonde, his skin a light pink, and his eyes were blue." Hawk rubbed her temples. "Then as soon as the blonde-haired boy came, he turned into the guy who attacked us again. I dropped him in shock. I didn't see if he got away or not. I'm pronouncing him dead; he was unconscious when I dropped him."

Well then… How could a person change their appearance in a split second? Is it possible Itex created shapeshifters? My eyes went wide. A distant memory came to me from when I was trapped in the School.

"The bird children are our latest success!" A whitecoat said from the hallway. If it weren't for my brilliant hearing, I wouldn't be hearing this conversation. Especially because I was behind a cement wall and inside a dog crate.

"The bird children are not the success you idiot!" Another whitecoat yelled. "They headquarters sent us a new sample of DNA last week. We put it inside a child. The kid can transform into any other human being they want. One minute they can look like a sixty year old man, the next they can look like a six year old boy! It's amazing. I saw him switch appearances with my own eyes."

I looked down at my eight year old hands and sighed. They shouldn't be doing this to us. I looked over at Fang, who just came back from a test. His face was hard, ready to pounce on the next whitecoat that came through the door.

"Momayella" I said in our made-up language. In the School, the flock and I created a code language so the whitecoats didn't understand us. 'Momayella' meant 'listen to their conversation'. Fang nodded. I saw his dark eyes go wide. Did we have the shapeshifting DNA in us too?

I shook the memory off and looked down into the canyon. That couldn't possibly have been a shapeshifter. Could he have been?

I told Hawk about my memory and how I believed that the attacker could have been a shapeshifter, "Wow…" She muttered. "That would explain why he turned into his original form. When I slammed him into the wall he rendered unconscious." Her hands clenched into fists. "He must have woken up a second later because he turned back into the attackers form… That means when I dropped him he was conscious and able to fly!" Hawk yelled. She punched the ground and laid back. "I'm so dumb. I let him get away!"

I didn't dare say anything. I just sat there watching Hawk mentally hit herself on the head.

"Let's get back to the others. I want to get some sleep." She said after a while. I nodded and stood up. Hawk did the same and looked me in the eyes, "Thanks Max." I smirked and gave her a hug.

"No problemo, kemosabe." I took a deep breath and jumped off the canyon ledge. I snapped out my wings and started soaring through the air. Hawk did the same. I thought back to when Josh took me to the cave. Not once did I doubt the owl kids and I am happy I didn't.

Dylan POV

That owl girl can pack some pretty good punches. I flew away from the canyon as fast as I could. The girl must have thought I was dead because she didn't look down at me when she dropped me. I stood by a lake, looking down at my reflection… Well not my reflection, but some random person I saw off of the streets. I morphed back into my original form. The original form that the owl girl saw when I was unconscious.

Yes, I was the one who attacked Max and the owl kids. I am a shapeshifter. Itex hired me to capture the six remaining flocks of bird children left on the earth. Itex thought the flocks would join together and try to destroy the company, so they created me to join the flocks and bring them back too Itex. They were going to be destroyed. Right now I am pretending to be Max's soul mate to make Fang jealous. If Fang was jealous, he would be unguarded; an easy target for me. I called Fang and told him to leave during the wedding so Max and the flock would be vulnerable. With the flock in the vulnerable state, I could simply inject them with a serum and drag them back to the School. Unfortunately, I came home from the wedding to Max wanting to leave. I couldn't inject just some of the flock; I had to do it when they were all there. I tried to convince Max to stay, but she just wouldn't have it.

Last night I morphed into an Eraser and tried to inject Iggy, but he woke up because I slipped on the rug and punched him in the back of the head. The rest of the house woke up and threw a fucking bomb down my pants. I got the bomb out just in time to save myself, but I got blown into the ground that was hundreds of feet down. I ran into the house in my original form and pretended that I was caught in the crossfire of the bomb. When Iggy said he wanted to talk to the flock, I went out for a 'fly'. If you haven't caught on, I was attacking Max. During that fly I saw a boy about my age on the street. I transformed into him and added wings into it. Attacking Max was fun, until that owl chick got a piece of me.

I looked at my reflection in the water. I had cuts and bruises all over my body. My wings were ripped at the tips. And my left eye was almost swollen shut. My plan was to capture Max and Fang, but they were with the owl children. When Max ducked away from my attack, I grabbed onto another owl kid and injected her with a knockout serum with a needle that is embedded into my finger. According to my watch, the serum would ware off and she would wake up in about an hour. The way that owl girl was hitting me I could tell that they thought she was dead.

I need to get back to the flock and tell them I was attacked by and Eraser. That would explain why I looked this way. Max was probably on her way home when I attacked her. A person attacking her would make her go on high alert and want to get to the flock faster. I would have to wait for her there. When they were all asleep, I would inject them all and take them to Itex and then move onto my next victims.

The Owl Flock.