I thought my chest was going to explode. “You brought me up in a dog crate,” I said, trying not to shriek. “Those days are over. Forever.”
40
I HAD NIGHTMARES THAT NIGHT. I dreamed that I slapped Angel, hard, and her head split open – then her face peeled aside to reveal Mr. Chu, my old nemesis. I dreamed that Fang and I were dressed up and walking down an aisle in a church, but when I turned to look at him, he had the head of an Eraser. I dreamed that Ivory boy Dylan had disgusting boils on his face. Eew. I guess my subconscious was trying to make an oh, so subtle point: People aren’t always what they seem.
It was late morning when I finally woke, feeling almost as if I’d been drugged. The amount of sun coming in the window told me it was almost lunchtime. I padded down the hall, the smell of smoke and charred couch becoming stronger. When I reached the living room, I stopped in surprise.
It was almost empty. All the ruined furniture was gone. The water had been mopped up. Nudge was on a step stool, spraying the sooty ceiling with cleaner. Without a word, I went into the kitchen for some chow.
Gazzy and Iggy followed me in, carrying dirty dishes and a pile of dirty clothes. Iggy dropped the clothes by the washing machine. When did these guys get so industrious?
“What’s all that?” I asked.
“I told them to clean up their pigsty,” Angel said. “Gaz, put those dishes in the sink. Iggy, start a load of laundry. Some of your clothes have mold on them.”
Was I still having a nightmare? Since when did Angel give orders?
I opened the fridge, but it was empty. I looked around and saw a couple empty cereal boxes, an empty bread wrapper.
“Are we all out of food?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Angel, tapping a piece of paper with a pencil. “I’ve been making a list. Jeb said he’d stop at a store on the way back from the dump.”
“Bless his heart,” I said sourly. “But I’ve always provided the food for this flock. You’re all acting like I’m not even here or something.” I felt the first prickles of tears starting in the backs of my eyes.
Go figure: I didn’t cry when I had my ribs broken, but the flock taking care of themselves made me weepy. Angel stared at me.
“Give me the list,” I said, trying not to rip it out of her hands. “I’ll deal with it. It’ll be faster, anyway.” Angel pushed the paper over to me. I poured a cup of coffee and sauntered out to the deck.
My chest constricted when I saw Jeb down below. He had a pickup truck with an open-bed trailer hitched to it. Fang was on the trailer, tying down all the ruined, sodden furniture.
Dylan was on the ground, shaking water off books and tossing them into the truck bed. He and Fang were careful not to look at each other.
“Get that lamp, Dylan,” Jeb commanded, checking the hitch of the trailer. Dylan nodded and placed a lamp on top of an armchair. “The dump said they’d take anything.” “Oh, really?” I called down to him. “Do they take reject mutants and scientists too?” It was mean, but Jeb and Dylan didn’t seem to be getting it.
They were not our family.
I grabbed my jacket inside and jumped out the front door, over the canyon.
41
GAZZY WAS HOLDING HIS BREATH, cheeks puffed out, belly pushed out, arms at his sides.
“Puffer fish!” Angel guessed. Gazzy shook his head.
“Blister!” said Iggy, poking Gazzy’s cheeks. Gazzy shook his head.
“Knish?” suggested Total. Gazzy shook his head.
“We give up!” Nudge said. “What are you?”
Gazzy let his breath out in a rush. “A grain of rice, cooking!” he said. “Obviously! I started off all skinny, then got bigger and bigger!”
Dylan laughed. “Good one,” he said. “Never would have guessed -”
A high-pitched whistling noise interrupted him and filled the room. Just as everyone was registering the smoking ball on the floor, it exploded.
The explosion was small – a flash of blinding light, followed by a sickening stream of pink smoke. Everyone began coughing, practically retching from the noxious smell.
Then, in the next second, there was a huge crunching noise – from above.
“Scatter!” said Gazzy.
They all fanned out around the edges of the room. Angel motioned to Dylan to keep his back against the wall.
“Oh, God, what is that stuff?” Nudge moaned, coughing into her sleeve.
The shock of the gas cloud rendered them useless as the roof above them was ripped apart with loud splintering noises. Then an inhumanly large, hairy hand grabbed some Sheetrock from the ceiling and tore it away with long, ragged yellow claws.
“Oh, my God,” Nudge breathed. “Is that an Eraser?”
“Everyone, outside!” Angel ordered. It was always better to fight in the air than inside a building, and the smoke felt crippling. But as the flock raced for doors and windows, those doors and windows crashed inward, followed by the hulking, horribly familiar forms of Erasers.
It was like waking up into a nightmare of the past.
“Dinnertime!” one of the Erasers growled, and the others laughed – the same way the flock had heard so many times before. Their wolfish faces were split into ugly yellow-toothed grins, and their small mean eyes glittered with the excitement of the hunt. There were at least ten of them, and they easily weighed more than two hundred pounds each.
The dogs bravely leaped at the wolfmen first. Akila managed to clamp her jaws around one’s ankle and draw blood before he kicked her away. Total took to the air, flitting around like a big black mutant moth, snarling and snapping, occasionally getting a bite of Eraser flesh.
It was a good distraction. The kids had a second to catch their breath as the smoke began to dissipate. Then instinct kicked in, and in moments they had launched themselves at their attackers.
“They still smell like garbage!” Gazzy yelled, as the first blows were exchanged. He felt like he might barf.
“Okay, now I’m mad!” Iggy shouted.
Angel glanced over to see a thin trickle of blood coming from his nose.
An Eraser lunged at Angel, and she dodged, screaming bloody murder. She grabbed a floor lamp and connected with the Eraser’s heavily boned head, snapping it to one side.
Nearby, Dylan was coughing and gagging from the lingering smoke. And yet he was mercilessly pounding an Eraser, his fists flying almost supernaturally fast. The Eraser was doubled over, unsuccessfully trying to block the blows.
So, the new bird kid had been programmed to fight.
The rest of them were even better trained to fight Erasers, but with the desperate impulse to keep their arms in front of their noses and mouths, they started to lose ground.
One Eraser grabbed Nudge and held her in a death grip even though she screamed and kicked with all her might. A second jumped behind her and grasped her wings brutally.
He was getting ready to break them.
42
THE SUN BEAT DOWN on my shoulders. It felt heavenly to be out flying, my hair streaming back, silence all around. I gazed down at the earth beneath me, the winding streams carved through red canyons, the striated layers of rock revealed by millennia of erosion, my tiny shadow on the ground, barely visible -
And the dark shadow following me, so close, practically right on top of me.
I took a breath, folded my wings down, swung my feet so I was vertical, and snapped my fist up hard. With unerring timing, it connected solidly with a face.
I heard a surprised hiss of breath, felt skin split beneath the force, then dove down, did a somersault in midair, and angled myself to attack from below.
“What the hell is the matter with you!” Fang shouted. One hand was pressed to his face, below his right eye.