Next to me, Angel froze and screamed.

Startled, I stared down at her, and in the next second, men with wolfish muzzles, huge canines, and reddish, glinting eyes dropped out of the sky like spiders. Erasers! And it wasn’t a dream.

There was no time to think. Jeb had trained us not to think-just to act. I launched myself at an Eraser, spinning and planting a hard, roundhouse kick in his barrel chest. His breath went oof, and the odor was just awful, like raw sewage left out in the hot sun.

After that, it was like a movie, a bunch of superimposed images that hardly seemed real. I landed another blow, then an Eraser punched me so hard that my head snapped around and I felt a burst of blood in my mouth. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fang holding his own against an Eraser-until two more ganged up on him, and he went down under flailing clawed hands.

Iggy was still upright, but one eye was already swelling shut.

Beyond shock, I scrambled to my feet, then saw the Gasman out cold, lying facedown on the ground.

I leaped toward him, only to be grabbed again. Two Erasers pinned my arms behind my back. Another leaned in, his reddish eyes glinting with excitement, his jaw fully morphed out and snoutlike. He pulled back his hand and curled it into a fist. Then he brought it in hard, punching me in the stomach. An unbelievable pain exploded inside me, and I doubled over, dropping like a stone.

Dimly, I heard Angel screaming and Nudge crying.

Get up! I told myself, trying to suck in air. Get up!

As weird mutant kids, we’re much, much stronger than regular grown-up humans. But Erasers aren’t regular grown-up humans, and they outnumbered us as well. We were dog meat. I struggled to my hands and knees, trying not to retch.

I staggered to my feet, bloodlust in my eyes, ready to kill. Two Erasers held Nudge’s hands and feet. They swung her hard, and she went sailing, hitting her head against a tree. I heard a small pained cry, and then she lay crumpled among the pine needles.

With a hoarse, blood-muffled shout, I ran up and clapped my cupped palms around an Eraser’s furry ears. He shrieked as his eardrums popped, and he fell to his knees.

“Max!” Angel screamed, high-pitched and terrified, and I spun around. An Eraser had her by the arms, and I raced forward, jumping over Iggy, who now lay unconscious. Two Erasers fell on me, knocking me down, one pressing a heavy knee into my chest. I wheezed and struggled, and one of them cuffed my face hard, his ragged claws digging deep welts in my cheek.

Dizzily, I fell back, the two Erasers pinning me, and with uncomprehending horror I saw three other Erasers stuffing Angel, my baby, into a rough sack. She was crying and screaming, and one of them hit her.

Frantically struggling, I tried to scream but could make only a hoarse, choked cry. “Get off me, you stupid, freaking-” I choked, but I was slammed back again.

An Eraser leaned over me, smiling horribly.

“Max,” he said, and my stomach clenched-did I know him? “Good to see you again,” he went on conversationally. “You look like crap. You always acted so much better than everyone else, so this cheers me up.”

“Who are you?” I gasped, feeling cold at the center of my being.

The Eraser grinned, his long, sharp teeth barely fitting in his jaw. “You don’t recognize me? I guess I’ve grown some.”

My eyes went wide with sudden, horrified recognition.

“Ari,” I whispered, and he laughed like a mad person. Then he stood up. I saw his huge, black boot come at my head, felt my head jerk to one side, and everything went black.

My last thought was disbelief: Ari was Jeb’s son. They’d made him into an Eraser. He was seven years old.

“Max?” The Gasman’s voice was very young and very scared.

I heard a horrible, low moan, then realized it had come from me.

The Gasman and Fang were leaning over me, concerned expressions on their bruised, bloodied faces.

“I’m okay,” I croaked, having no idea if I was or not. Memory came rushing back, and I tried to sit up. “Where’s Angel?” My voice was strained.

Fang’s dark eyes met mine. “She’s gone. They took her.”

I thought I might faint again. I remembered being nine years old, looking out the wired-glass lab window, watching the Erasers in the semidarkness. The whitecoats had released chimpanzees onto the School grounds and let newly made Erasers loose after them. Teaching them how to hunt.

The sounds of the chimpanzees screeching in terror and pain still echoed in my mind.

That was who had Angel now.

Rage overwhelmed me-why couldn’t they have taken me instead? Why take a tiny kid? Maybe I would have had a chance-maybe.

Shakily, I got to my feet. My head was spinning, and I had to lean against Fang, hating my weakness. “We’ve got to get her,” I said urgently, trying to stay upright. “We’ve got to get her before they-” Horror-filled images flashed through my mind-Angel being chased, being hurt, being killed. I gulped, shutting them down.

“Check in, guys-are you up for a chase?” I examined the four of them. They looked like they’d been stuffed into a blender set on “chop.”

“Yes,” Nudge said in a tear-choked voice.

“I’m up,” said Iggy, a split lip making his voice thick.

The Gasman nodded solemnly at me.

To my horror, hot tears momentarily blurred my vision. I wiped them away with the back of one hand and called on fury to keep me going.

Just then Iggy cocked his head slightly. It was a clue for me to start listening intently. Then I heard it too: a faint engine noise.

“There!” Iggy said, pointing.

The five of us ran stiffly and clumsily toward the sound. A hundred yards through the woods brought us to a sharp drop-off maybe fifty feet above an old, unused logging road.

Then I saw it: a black Humvee, dull with dust and mud, bumping roughly over the unpaved road. My heart pounded. I knew, just knew, that my little one, my Angel, was inside. And she was on her way to a place where death came as a blessing.

It wasn’t going to happen, not while I was breathing.

“Let’s get her!” I cried, then backed up about ten feet. The others scurried out of my way as I ran to the edge and simply jumped out into space.

I started to fall toward the road.

Then I unfurled my wings, fast, catching the wind.

And I began to fly.

You see, that nightmare I had is actually hard to tell apart from my real life. My friends and I really did used to live at a stinking cesspool of evil called the School. We were created by scientists, whitecoats, who grafted avian DNA onto our human genes. Jeb had been a whitecoat, but he’d felt sorry for us, cared about us, and kidnapped us away from there.

We were bird kids, a flock of six. And the Erasers wanted to kill us. Now they had six-year-old Angel.

I gave a strong push down and then up, feeling my shoulder muscles working to move my thirteen-foot wingspan.

I banked sharply, heading after the Humvee. A quick glance back revealed that Nudge had jumped out after me, then Iggy, the Gasman, and Fang. In tight formation, we swerved down toward the car. Fang snatched a dead branch off a tree. He dropped straight down and smashed it against the Humvee’s front windshield.

The vehicle swerved, a window rolled down. A gun barrel poked out. Around me, trees started popping with bullets. The smell of hot metal and gun smoke filled the air. I looped back into the tree line, still tracking the car. Fang smashed the windshield again. Bullets spit from several windows. Fang wisely surged away.

“Angel!” I screamed. “We’re here! We’re coming for you!”