“Fang!” I evened myself out till I was flying close to him. Our wings kept us about eight feet apart. “I’m sorry – I didn’t know it was you. Why were you sneaking up on me?”
“Who else would it be?” He sounded cranky and kept rubbing his face.
“Anyone! An Eraser, or a Flyboy, or -”
“There aren’t any more Erasers,” he said, giving me a confused look. “And I don’t think there are any more Flyboys either. We haven’t seen any in ages. Who else is going to be flying after you except one of us?”
We both thought of Dylan at the same time. “Sorry,” I muttered again. “I just reacted.”
His cheek was pink and already swelling – he would have a helluva shiner by tomorrow. “Look, there’s a tree over there. Can we stop a minute?”
A huge pine stood at the edge of the tree line on the mountain. We swooped down, slowed, and landed on a large branch.
“Sorry about yesterday,” Fang said. He leaned his back against the broad, rough trunk. “I let Dylan get to me. It was stupid. I can’t believe I didn’t notice the house almost burning down.” He gave a brief, wry smile.
“It didn’t almost burn down,” I said. “Just the couch, really. Gazzy and Ig were making a new stash of detonators, and ‘something happened.’”
Fang shook his head and let out a breath, then looked deeply into my eyes. I got that hollow, fluttery feeling again. I wanted to melt into him and forget everything, but something still felt like it had changed.
For some reason, Dylan’s face popped into my mind, and it was as though the two of them were side by side: Fang and Dylan. They were night and day. Dylan’s face was more open, wanting to talk, to ask questions, to learn. Fang’s face was closed, secretive, strong, like the most interesting riddle I would ever find.
“Jeb said the others were complaining about us,” I told him. The fresh pine-scented breeze blew my hair around, and I tucked it behind my ear.
“We’re all getting used to the… changed dynamics,” said Fang. He reached out and took a strand of my hair, immediately getting caught in a tangle. “It’s pretty, in the sun,” he said, holding the strand out to catch the sun’s rays. It was mostly brown but had streaks of dark red and even a little blond.
“Still,” I pressed on, “we have to think -”
“No, we don’t,” Fang whispered, and he tilted his head. I barely had time to breathe in before his warm lips were on mine, for the first time in… days. He put his arms around me and angled his head more.
I was so familiar with him that I could feel how swollen his cheek was, right under his eye. I mean, I knew Fang. I’d always known him. Literally always, my whole life. He’d always been my best friend and my second-in-command. I didn’t really know when our feelings had changed. All I knew was that he was the best thing I had in my life.
He held me closer and closer until we were practically glued together. I don’t know how long we stayed there, kissing and murmuring to each other. Finally my stomach rumbled, making us both laugh and break apart, our foreheads still touching.
“I guess I better get to the store,” I said, feeling like everything would be all right again in my world. “You coming?”
Fang nodded, and then a low buzzing sound, like a swarm of bees, distracted me. We both looked up through the top of the tree. Very, very high, higher than helicopters usually go, were four black choppers. We could barely see them, barely hear them. Most humans wouldn’t have been able to spot them, wouldn’t have known they were there.
But they were. And they were headed in the direction of our house.
Without speaking, we let go of the tree and fell outward, then opened our wings as the ground rushed up to meet us.
Time for reality again.
43
DYLAN HADN’T BEEN ALIVE much longer than eight months and didn’t know much about flock taboos, but one thing he instinctively knew: Don’t mess with a bird kid’s wings.
And Nudge’s were about to be snapped. Then they’d throw her out the window.
“Don’t you dare!” Dylan cried as he leaped for Nudge. Snarling, an Eraser shot out a boot-clad foot, caught Dylan squarely in the chest, and sent him flying across the room. He slammed into a wall and hit his head hard.
In the midst of the battle, Gazzy raced to the kitchen. One of Iggy’s big carving knives, maybe…? A fast glance revealed nothing – the kitchen was cluttered with dirty plates and pots.
He spied a possible weapon, grabbed it, and raced back to the stench-filled living room, where Nudge was still struggling. An Eraser clamped a hairy paw over her mouth, its rough claws scraping her cheek. Gazzy punched a button on his weapon and jabbed it hard into the back of one of Nudge’s captors.
“Attack of the Kitchen Appliances!” Gazzy yelped hoarsely, never a great one for stealth.
The mixer blades quickly began to spin, and just as quickly got horribly tangled in the Eraser’s long, greasy fur. Gazzy pushed the speed button to “high,” and fur actually started to rip out.
The Eraser howled and whirled to kick at Gazzy. The moment he dropped his guard, Nudge twisted away from him hard, and freed one arm. Then she pulled back and gave the other Eraser a huge snap kick right to his stomach.
When he loosened his grip on her, Nudge instantly dropped to the floor and grabbed his ankles, yanking them as hard as she could. In the next moment Akila lunged at him, barking and snarling, and the Eraser couldn’t regain his balance. He went tumbling out the window, down, down, down into the canyon below.
Gazzy pushed the mixer into the other Eraser again, ripping out more chunks of fur and skin. The Eraser shrieked in pain, trying to bat the mixer away, but it was hopelessly entangled in his fur.
Iggy’s keen sense of smell had been the most assaulted by the gas bomb and Eraser stench. But the upside was he could easily gauge each Eraser’s position. Just as the wounded creature roared at Gazzy, Iggy flung something that glinted in the light as it spun through the air: the blade from his food processor. It sliced through the fur and embedded itself in the Eraser’s back.
“Same bat time,” said Gazzy, grabbing the Eraser’s feet.
“Same bat canyon!” Nudge coughed, helping Gazzy heave the struggling half-man out the window.
That shifted the balance. The flock, Akila, Total, and Dylan could now gang up on the remaining Erasers, two or three on one, and over the next few minutes managed to shove, kick, tip, and otherwise eject every single one of them out the canyon-side windows.
Then it was eerily silent, except for a few wheezes and coughs.
Angel jumped off the deck and flew upward, to see if there were other threats.
“Turn on all the fans!” gasped Dylan, then he leaned over and retched. He’d been breathlessly taking out Erasers since the moment they hit the floor.
Angel came back in, rubbing big dark bruises on her upper arms. “I don’t see anything else,” she said. “Everyone report.” She walked around the room, estimating the damage the way she’d seen Max do.
“Um, this place is shot to hell,” said Gazzy.
“Bloody nose,” said Iggy. “With red blood.”
Now that he’d been able to clear his lungs, Dylan was examining big gouges in his arm. “I’ll be okay, pretty much,” he said bravely. “But I’m worried about Nudge.”
She was crouched on the floor, twisting awkwardly to look over her shoulder. “I’m not sure, but one of my wings doesn’t feel right. Can you sprain a wing?”
“I jammed my pinkie finger,” Angel said, frowning. She gritted her teeth, gripped the end of it, and fearlessly yanked it back into alignment.
Akila was panting, and she and Total touched noses. “We’re okay,” said Total. “But I will never get the taste of Eraser out of my mouth.”
Angel held up a hand. “Shh! Incoming!”