It took a couple of days to fly from North Dakota to New York. The fresh air felt awesome against my skin. The sun warmed my wings as I flew through the sky. It had been so long since I flew. At the facility, we were confined to an area around the building. We could jump off the roof and fly around, but the scientists had an electric fence that marked our boundaries. Plus, to go with the electric fence, we had shock collars. When we tried to go past the fence, we would receive a painful shock to the throat. It sucked, but now I had freedom. Wide, open space. It was amazing...but that amazingness was cut short when the girl spoke.

"Where are we going to live once we get to New York?"

I didn't want to tell the others because I thought they would disagree and then go off on their own, but I thought about finding a woman who visited the facility a couple of times. She wasn't evil like the scientists. In fact, she tried to get the scientists to stop their experiments once, but she was shot down. She gave the scientists information on hospitals that would soon have newborns and was paid heavily. When the scientists threatened to find someone else to get them information, the woman said she would stop trying to stop them. She said she needed the money because she ran an animal shelter in New York City. I knew that anyone who dedicated their lives to helping animals was definitely a good person. I remember once when she was leaving she actually stopped and looked at me. It was right after I got sent back to my cage because I bit one of the scientists. He had gotten mad and backhanded me hard across the face. He wore a ring and the side cut deep into my cheek. So I ended up with a bruised cheek along with a deep slash that eventually scarred. The sorrow in the woman's eyes told me how sorry she was for me. I haven't forgotten that day.

"Hello? I asked you a question."

"I heard you. I was just thinking that you guys wouldn't like the place I thought of."

"Where is it?"

I paused a moment before telling them. "I was thinking that we could find the woman who used to visit the facility. You know? The one who tried to stop the scientists?"

They all looked at me and then nodded their heads.

"That sounds like a good idea. The woman was the only person who showed us any sympathy. I think she would be excellent to live with." The girl smiled as she responded.

I was relieved. We had a place to live. Now, if only we could find the place. It might take a couple of days of searching and hiding but, at least we had a plan. I was thinking of a way to find the woman when one of the boys started to get excited.

"Look! Look down there ! I think we made it!"

I looked and was happy to see the bright lights of New York City. We had made it. The sounds of cars and the smells of food rushed up through the clouds. I felt like I was in heaven. I looked down at the city, trying to find a safe place to land, when I noticed that there was a small section that was dark. It looked like a safe place to fly down to.
"Hey. Down there in the dark section. I think we can land there for the night. We can start our search for the woman when we're fully rested. What do you think?"

The others pondered my suggestion for a bit and then nodded their heads. I smiled, glad that they agreed, and angled my wings so I flew down towards the dark section of New York City.

The section of city we landed in was quiet. Everybody was either inside for the night or away in the bigger parts of the city. We landed on the rooftops just in case there were some people on the streets. All of us were tired from flying and needed to rest. We were near a water tower so we decided to sleep by it. We didn't mind sleeping on the concrete. We were used to sleeping in cages with hard bottoms so the concrete wasn't much of a difference.

When morning came, we woke up refreshed and ready to start our search. We were about to go down to look around when I saw a slight problem. People were on the streets and there was a good number of them.

"I don't think we'll be able to search till it gets dark again. There are too many people down there. We can't be seen yet."

The others looked slightly disappointed but they didn't argue. They just sat back down on the ground. With nothing to do but wait till nightfall, we hid in the shadows of the roof and went back to sleep.

We searched the streets as quietly as we could. We didn't know the woman's name so we couldn't look her up in a phone book. But we figured that we would try to see if we could find any animal rescues. There had to be a number for that so we looked in the phone book. Sure enough, we found a number for an animal rescue that was actually in the area we landed in. I dialed the number and prayed that the voice on the other end was the woman. I shook as the ringing stopped and a voice spoke.

"Stray No More Animal Rescue. How may I help you?"

"H-Hello? I know this may sound strange but... did you visit a science facility a while ago? They did experiments on kids and threatened to stop paying you because you asked them to stop."

"...How do you know that? That's classified information. Who is this? If you think you're trying to be funny you're sadly mistaken. Who are you?" The woman sounded mad, but I answered her anyway.

"I know because I am one of the kids they experimented on. I escaped along with three others. You looked at me once when you were leaving. You may have seen the tag on my cage. I am SSE-04."