Sometime in the next half hour, I realized the “experiment” was no longer breathing. It had died, right next to me.

Horror-struck, I looked across at Angel. She was crying. She knew.

Finally, much later, the door to the lab opened. A crowd came in, and I heard human voices and Eraserlike croons and laughs. They wheeled a big flatbed cart to our aisle.

“I count only four,” a man said in a prissy, concerned voice.

‘Two bought it,“ Ari said, sounding triumphant. ”Back in Colorado. This is what’s left.“ He kicked my cage, making the bars rattle. ”Hi, Max. Miss me?“

“Is the Director quite sure about this?” a woman asked. “It seems a shame-there’s so much more we can learn from them.”

“Yes,” said a third whitecoat. “It’s just too risky. Given how uncooperative the little one has been.”

I caught Angel’s eye and gave her a thumbs-up, proud of her resistance. She sent a weak grin back at me.

Then her cage was grabbed roughly and swung onto the cart like luggage. She winced as her bruised cheek hit the side, and fury flamed in me again.

In the next second, Ari grabbed my crate and swung me up next to her on the cart, letting me drop with a crash that made me bite my lip hard. Like I needed another head wound. He grinned through the bars, letting me see his long yellow fangs. “Strong, like bull,” he bragged.

“Your dad must be so proud,” I said snidely, and he angered instantly, punching my cage so hard I almost toppled over.

“Easy,” murmured a whitecoat, earning herself a murderous snarl from Ari.

Then two more Erasers loaded Nudge and Fang on next to us. With Ari trailing behind, looking angry, they pushed us through wide double doors. The hall outside was painfully bright and overlaid with the smells of floor cleaner and office machines.

Clutching the bars of my crate, I peered out, trying to recognize a doorway, an office-anything that would tell me what section of the School we were in. The Erasers poked their fingers through our bars, trying to scratch us, taunting, literally rattling our cages. I wondered how much strength it would take to grab an Eraser finger and snap it.

We took a sharp left turn and got pushed through more double swinging doors, and then we were outside. I inhaled eagerly, but even outdoors at the School the air was tainted and foul.

Squinting, I shifted from side to side in my cage, looking for landmarks. Behind us was the lab building. Ahead of us, maybe a hundred yards away, was a low redbrick building. We were in the yard in back of the School.

The yard I used to look out at, in the dead of night, from our lab window.

The yard where Erasers were trained to bring down prey and tear it limb from limb.

Which was probably why they were laughing.

The funny thing about facing imminent death is that it really snaps everything else into perspective.

Like right now. My choices were to either give in and let them kill all of us or fight back with everything I had.

I chose the second one, ‘cause I’m just funny that way.

In the split second I had to ponder what form my “fighting to the death” would take, a shadow blotted out the sun.

“Got your running shoes on, piggy?” Ari asked, pushing his hairy fingers through the bars of my cage and wiggling them. “Feeling like a little exercise? Wanna race? Wanna play food fight? You’re the food!”

I grinned evilly. Then I leaned over and chomped hard on Ari’s fingers. He sucked in a deep breath, then yelled in awful pain. I gathered my strength and bit down harder, until I actually felt my teeth break his skin, tasted his horrible blood. But you know what? I didn’t care. Seeing Ari hurt was worth it.

After the car wreck, biting anything hurt majorly, but I shut out the pain and put every ounce of my fury into my aching jaws. Ari was shaking my cage, slamming it with his other hand, and my head was getting snapped around like a paddleball.

But I hung on, thinking pit bull thoughts.

The whitecoats were yelling at me now. Still screaming, Ari began savagely kicking my cage. Suddenly, I unclenched my teeth and let go. His next kick smashed my crate sideways. It rolled over a couple of times.

I landed upside down, right next to Angel’s crate door. Being smarter than the average bear, it took me only a few seconds to unlatch it.

“Go!” I ordered. “Go! Don’t argue!”

She edged her door open and scrambled out just as Ari slammed down on top of my crate in a murderous rage. I braced myself as best I could, but he was tearing into the crate, roaring with pain. The crate tumbled sideways on the grass, and for just a split second, I caught a glimpse of the sky. It was streaked with dark, fast-moving storm clouds. Then I was batted upside down again, making me feel like laundry in a dryer.

Ari was screaming furiously, calling me awful names and shaking his bleeding fingers so that flecks of gore spattered me through the bars.

But I was smiling now. My first really good smile in days.

I knew what the storm clouds were.

They were hawks-led by Iggy and the Gasman, who else? And they were storming the School to save us.

Call me crazy, but there’s just something cheering about seeing huge raptors tear into Eraser flesh.

Just as Ari, ignoring the latch in his murderous rage, finally succeeded in ripping it open, he was dive-bombed by a hawk with razor-sharp talons and a huge grudge against wolves. As I popped out, I saw him swatting at it, screaming like a big weenie as the bird sliced into the back of his neck.

“Angel! Get out of here!” I yelled, racing to her.

Two whitecoats were chasing her, but I got there first. I elbowed one out of the way, grabbed Angel’s waist, and threw her up into the sky.

Then I managed to unlatch Fang’s crate. The whitecoats fell on me, but a regular grown-up versus an angry Max doesn’t stand a chance. I backhanded one across the jaw, feeling teeth knock loose. The other I kicked right under his double chin. His head jerked back, and he dropped like a brick.

Fang burst out of his cage, then grabbed a whitecoat and slammed him against the cart. He drew back a fist and punched, looking cold and determined. The white-coat’s eyes rolled back, and he crumpled.

Getting to Nudge took no time. She tumbled out of her crate just as Iggy and the Gasman led their hawk swarm in for round two.

Close by, one of the female whitecoats was struggling to her feet. I darted toward her, then jumped into the air, my right leg already swinging out in a huge roundhouse kick. I hit her in the chest, wham! She sank to her knees, unable to breathe, a stunned look on her face.

“Think of this as an occupational hazard, you witch!” I snarled, then spun to check on the rest of the flock.

Fang was venting his hostility on Ari, who crouched defensively on the ground, his arms wrapped around his head. Fang smashed him sideways with a kick, then punched the side of Ari’s head. For good measure, Fang hoisted a crate and crashed it down on the wicked Eraser. Now it looked as though Ari had been caught in a cage.

I shot into the air, feeling exhilarated as fierce hawks rushed past me. I counted four whitecoats, Ari, and three other Erasers on the ground, two Erasers still standing. One of them pulled out a gun, but promptly had his wrist muscles slashed by an unforgiving beak. Ooh. That had to hurt.

“Fang!” I bellowed. “Iggy! Gazzy! Let’s go! Go, go, go!”

Almost reluctantly, they pulled high into the air. Iggy moved through the hawks. By some unspoken message, he communicated that our battle was over. Those beautiful birds swerved gracefully and rocketed upward, making my ears ring with their wild calls.

“One, two, three, four, five,” I counted, rounding up my own flock and urging them higher. “Fang! Get Angel!” Angel had managed to stay airborne all this time, but she was sagging and losing altitude. Immediately, the Gasman flew to one side, Fang to the other, and they held her as they rose.