• Chapter One:

    I'd grown up here. I'd lived here for as long as I can remember. I'd been experimented on here. I've been given the greatest gift a girl could want: wings.
    It felt strange to leave that behind. But I had no choice at the moment; my flock and I were being chased by Erasers trying to shove us back in our cages. They tumbled after the four of us clumsily, still getting used to their newly attached wings. Silly scientists. We, their first creations, were perfect. An Eraser with wings was just wrong -- not that an Eraser without them was right. We are all abominations here.
    Using my newly found power, I concentrated on putting a force field between us and the Erasers, dragging poor Grace along by her tiny hand. She's only nine. Her light brown hair whirled crazily in the wind of our flight. This worked for me. It meant we were faster than those refrigerators on wings.
    Just as we exited the tunnel in a flurry of feathers, I glanced back at the others. Matt, my blood brother and identical twin, stared me straight in the eyes as I looked at him. It was a relief to see he was okay. Kel, the younger boy in my flock, looked a little winded, but otherwise fine. His chocolate brown hair was sticking up in every different direction, and a few feathers on his black wings were ruffled. Not that it mattered, so long as he could fly.
    Sometimes being a mute is annoying. Okay, all the time being a mute is annoying. Especially when you're trying to tell your flock to GET OUT OF HERE.
    "Guys, let's get the heck out of here!" Matt yelled, easily reading my thoughts. Our psychic twin link came in handy often. The two of us led the way away from the School, the horrid lab where we were.... created. We'd been given the name of Ravens, as all of us had beautiful, pitch black wings that shimmered just like a raven's.
    Oh. And we each had a slightly red tint to our eyes when we got pissed. Don't forget that.
    But that didn't matter. What DID matter was that I tried to get me and flock out of there before the Erasers caught up to us and trapped us. I needed to see Maximum Ride. She could help us.
    We darted through a few layers of atmosphere, higher than an Eraser could go. Erasers weren't meant to fly.
    I released Grace's small hand and flapped over to Kel. He was our direction guy. Seriously. If you gave the kid ten minutes to find a doughnut that had been hidden miles away, he'd find it with minutes to spare. I used another one of my powers to talk to him; did I mention I can use telepathy if I'm touching someone?
    'Kel, can you give us a heading to lead us to Max?' I asked. He nodded, contemplated, and then pointed northeast-ish, saying "That way!" with a sort of finality. Gotta love the eleven-year-old with a GPS in his brain. I turned and glanced at Matt and Grace, ensuring that they'd heard him, and then promptly started flying towards Maximum Ride and her flock.
    'Please, please, please don't reject us, Maximum....'