Despite the blackness inside the truck, Nudge could see pretty well, and so could Gazzy. They wriggled over to the pieces of bread. Nudge was so hungry she felt sick. Even with their hands tied behind their backs, they managed to wolf down every bit of the stale bread and all but the grossest parts of the fruit.
"When we get out of this, every one of those robots is gonna have fang marks on 'em," muttered Total. His paws were trussed with duct tape.
"We'll never get out of this one," said Iggy. "I have a really bad feeling."
Nudge couldn't remember hearing Iggy sound so defeated. He was one of the older kids, like Fang and Max. Most the time she forgot he was blind. He was strong, powerful, and a mean fighter. Hearing him say that made Nudge feel as though a cold fist gripped her fast-beating heart.
"We'll get out." Nudge wished for the thousandth time that the doors would burst open and Max and Fang would be standing there.
Iggy was silent.
"We have to find Angel," Gazzy whispered. "We can't let them do...all the stuff they did to her last time."
Angel had been a mess when they'd rescued her last time. It had taken her weeks to recover. And since then, she'd been different somehow. Sadder. Quieter.
The thought of what they might already be doing to Angel made Nudge shiver.
"We need a plan," she said under her breath. "Max and Fang would make a plan. Let's think."
"Why don't we ask Santa Claus?" Iggy sounded bitter. "Or the Easter Bunny?"
"I say we just bite 'em," Total said. "They open the doors, we're on 'em, snarling and fangs and everything. Or I could rush their legs, trip 'em, and then you guys attack them."
"We don't have fangs," Gazzy explained patiently, sounding tired and without hope.
"No, but we have teeth," said Nudge. "We should have been chewing off the tape all this time! Come on! Total will chew on mine, I'll try to get Gazzy's off, and Gazzy, you work on Iggy's. Then we'll kick some Flyboy butt!"
With a new bloom of hope, Nudge scooted across the dirty metal floor so that Total could reach her hands, in back of her.
She'd just felt his first whiskery approach when the metal doors slammed open again, and five Flyboys climbed in. They walked to the front of the truck, not caring if they kicked the bird kids on the way.
Nudge lay very still, her head resting on the floor. So much for her plan.
28
"Is he your boyfriend?" Ella had been incredibly happy to see me. We'd hugged for a long time, until I heard Fang sigh impatiently. Now we were in her room, where she was changing out of her soccer uniform into regular clothes, while Fang made lame, stilted conversation with Dr. Martinez in the living room.
Regular people's backs look so naked and...flat without wings. Just an observation.
"Fang? No! No, no," I said quickly. "No. I mean, we grew up together, so we're more like...uh, siblings."
"He's adorable," she said matter-of-factly, pulling on some jeans and a hoodie.
I was still processing this and my reaction to it when she looked over at me and smiled. "But not as cute as Shaw Akers, in my class."
I grinned back. Ella flopped next to me on the bed, and it was so normal, so like sisters or best friends or something, that my throat got tight.
"Shaw is seriously, amazingly adorable," Ella went on, her face softening. "He asked me to the Christmas dance, but someone else had already asked me, so I have to go with the first one. But there's always Spring Fling..." She wiggled her eyebrows, and I laughed.
"Good luck with that." I had no Spring Fling in my date book. Mostly I had "kick Eraser butt," "destroy evil School," "save world," stuff like that.
A gentle tap on the door made us look up.
"Ready?" Ella's mom asked, opening the door.
"Ready as I'll ever be," I said.
29
Dr. Martinez drove us to her clinic. It was after hours, so she said we wouldn't be disturbed. She parked in the back, sort of behind the Dumpster, so her car wouldn't be noticed right away.
Inside the building, she didn't turn on the lights, and she locked the door behind us.
"We don't board animals, so there's no one on night duty here," she explained, leading us to the OR.
The operating table was meant for animals up to the size of, say, a large Saint Bernard, and my legs dangled off it. The metal was cold under my back, and the lights were way too bright. I closed my eyes.
Max, I forbid you to take out the chip. The Voice sounded uncharacteristically stern.
Yeah, forbid me, I thought tiredly. That's always worked so well for everyone else.
"First, I'm going to give you some Valium, just to help you relax," said Dr. Martinez, starting an IV in my nonchip arm. "I'm also going to take a chest X-ray and do some blood work, just to make sure you're not sick or anything."
Because of my less-than-socially-accepted bizarro childhood at the hands of evil scientists, I have an overwhelming reaction to science lab-type smells, like alcohol, plastic tubing, floor cleaner, etc. When Dr. Martinez put the IV in, I had to grip the sides of the table to keep myself from leaping up and racing out of there, preferably punching a couple people first.
My heart was pounding, my breath coming shallower, and I could feel the white lightning of adrenaline starting to seep into my veins.
You know what? Turns out Valium just shuts that stuff right down!
"This is great," I said with cheerful grogginess. "I feel so...calm."
"You're okay, Max," said Ella, patting my shoulder.
"You still want to do this?" Fang asked. "Bark once for yes."
I stuck my tongue out at him. With any luck at all, whatever grotesque thing would probably replace the Erasers wouldn't be able to track us once the chip was out. And maybe the Voice would be gone forever too. I wasn't positive the chip was connected to the Voice, but it seemed likely. Even though the Voice had been kind of helpful sometimes, I still wanted everyone out of my head except me.
Which is such a pathetic sentence, one that probably not a lot of people need to say.
Then Dr. Martinez stretched out my chipped arm and fastened it to the table.
30
Instinctively I started to panic when Dr. Martinez strapped my arm down, and then the panic just melted away, la la la.
Someone took my other hand. Fang. I felt his calluses, his bones, his strength.
"I'm so glad you're here," I slurred, smiling dopily up at him. I took in his startled, worried expression but dismissed it. "I know everything's fine if you're here."
I thought I saw his cheeks flush, but I wasn't too sure of anything anymore. I felt a couple of needle pricks in my arm, and said mildly, "Hey."
"That's just a local anesthetic," explained Dr. Martinez. "I'll give it a minute to take effect."
"Oh, look, the lights are so pretty," I said dreamily, having just noticed them.
I smiled at the way the lights were dancing overhead, pink and yellow and blue. I felt some pressure on my arm and thought, I should look over and see what's going on, but then the thought was gone, sliding away like Jell-O off a hot car hood.
"Fang?"
"Yeah. I'm here."
I struggled to focus on him. "I'm so glad you're here."
"Yeah, I got that."
"I don't know what I'd do without you." I peered up at him, trying to see past the too-bright lights.
"You'd be fine," he muttered.
"No," I said, suddenly struck by how unfine I would be. "I would be totally unfine. Totally." It seemed very urgent that he understand this.
Again I felt some tugging on my arm, and I really wondered what that was about. Was Ella's mom going to start this procedure any time soon?
"It's okay. Just relax." He sounded stiff and nervous. "Just...relax. Don't try to talk."