weeping, swooping, soaring, air-current thrill rides - there’s nothing better. For miles around, we were the only things in the infinite, wide-open, clear blue sky. You want an adrenaline rush? Try tucking your wings in, dive-bombing for about a mile straight down, then whoosh! Wings out, grab an air current like a pit bull, and hang on for the ride of your life. God, nothing is better, more fun, more exciting.

Okay, we were mutant freaks, we were on the lam, but man, flying - well, there’s a reason people always dream about it.

“Oh, my gosh!” the Gasman said excitedly. He pointed. “A UFO!”

I silently counted to ten. There was nothing where the Gasman had pointed. As usual. “That was funny the first fifty times, Gazzy,” I said. “It’s getting old.”

He cackled, several wingspans away from me. There’s nothing like an eight-year-old’s sense of humor.

“Max? How long till we get to DC?” asked Nudge, pulling up closer to me. She looked tired - we’d had one long, ugly day. Well, another long, ugly day in a whole series of long, ugly days. If I ever actually had a good, easy day, I’d probably freak out.

“Another hour? Hour and a half?” I guessed.

Nudge didn’t say anything. I cast a quick glance at the rest of my flock. Fang, Iggy, and I were holding steady, but we had mucho de stamina. I mean, the younger set also had stamina, especially compared to dinky little non-mutant humans. But even they gave out eventually.

Here’s the deal - for anybody new on this trip. There are six of us: Angel, who’s six; Gasman, age eight; Iggy, who’s fourteen, and blind; Nudge, eleven; Fang and me (Max), we’re fourteen too. We escaped from the lab where we were raised, were given wings and other assorted powers. They want us back - badly. But we’re not going back. Ever.

I shifted Total to my other arm, glad he didn’t weigh more than twenty pounds. He roused slightly, then draped himself across my arm and went back to sleep, the wind whistling through his black fur. Did I want a dog? No. Did I need a dog? Also no. We were six kids running for our lives, not knowing where our next meal was coming from. Could we afford to feed a dog? Wait for it - no.

“You okay?” Fang cruised up alongside me. His wings were dark and almost silent, like Fang himself.

“In what way?” I asked. I mean, there was the headache issue, the chip issue, the Voice-in-my-head-constantly issue, my healing bullet wound. . . . “Can you be more specific?”

“Killing Ari.”

My breath froze in my throat. Only Fang could cut right to the heart of the matter like that. Only Fang knew me that well, and went that far.

When we’d been escaping from the Institute, in New York, Erasers and whitecoats had shown up, of course. God forbid we should make a clean getaway. Erasers, if you don’t know already, are wolflike creatures who have been chasing us constantly since we escaped from the lab, or School as we call it. One of the Erasers had been Ari. We’d fought, as we’d fought before, and then suddenly, with no warning, I was sitting on his chest, staring at his lifeless eyes, his broken neck bent at an awkward angle.

That was twenty-four hours ago.

“It was you or him,” Fang said calmly. “I’m glad you picked you.”

I let out a deep breath. Erasers simpled everything up: They had no qualms about killing, so you had to lose your squeamishness about it too. But Ari had been different. I’d recognized him, remembered him as a little kid back at the School. I knew him.

Plus, there was that last, awful bellow from Ari’s father, Jeb, echoing after me again and again as I flew through the tunnels:

“You killed your own brother!”

Of course, Jeb was a lying, cheating manipulator, so he might have just been yanking my chain. But his anguish after he’d discovered his dead son had sounded real.

And even though I loathed and despised Jeb, I still felt as though I had an anvil on my chest.

You had to do it, Max. You ‘re still working toward the greater good. And nothing can interfere with that. Nothing can interfere with your mission to save the world.

I took another deep breath through clenched jaws. Geez, Voice. Next you’ll be telling me that to make an omelet, I have to break a few eggs.

I sighed. Yes, I have a Voice inside my head, I mean, another one besides my own. I’m pretty sure that if you look up the word nuts in the dictionary, you’ll find my picture. Just another fun feature of my mutant-bird-kid-freak package.

“Do you want me to take him?” Angel asked, gesturing toward the dog in my arms.

“No, that’s okay,” I said. Total weighed almost half of what Angel weighed - I didn’t know how she’d carried him as far as she had. “I know,” I said, brightening. “Fang will take him.”

I gave my wings an extra beat and surged up over Fang, our wings sweeping in rhythm. “Here,” I said, lowering Total. “Have a dog.” Vaguely Scottie-ish in size and looks, Total wiggled a bit, then quickly settled into Fang’s arms. He gave Fang a little lick, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from snickering at Fang’s expression.

I sped up a bit, flying out in front of the flock, feeling an excitement overshadowing my fatigue and the dark weight of what had happened. We were headed to new territory - and we might even find our parents this time. We had escaped the Erasers and the whitecoats - our former “keepers” - again. We were all together and no one was badly wounded. For this brief moment, I felt free and strong, as if I was starting fresh, all over again. We would find our parents - I could feel it.

I was feeling … I paused, trying to name this sensation.

I felt kind of optimistic. Despite everything.

Optimism is overrated, Max, said the Voice. It’s better to face reality head-on.

I wondered if the Voice could see me rolling my eyes, from the inside.

It had gotten dark hours ago. He should have heard by now. The fearsome Eraser paced around the small clearing, and then suddenly the static in his ear made him wince. He pressed the earpiece of his receiver and listened.

What he heard made him smile, despite feeling like crap, despite having a rage so fierce it felt as if it were going to burn him up from the inside out.

One of his men saw the expression on his face and motioned the others to be quiet. He nodded, said “Got it” into his mouthpiece, and tapped off his transmitter.

He looked over at his troop. “We got our coordinates,” he said. He tried to resist rubbing his hands together in glee but couldn’t. “They’re headed south-southwest and passed Philadelphia thirty minutes ago. The Director was right - they’re going to Washington DC.”

“How solid is this info?” one of his Erasers asked.

“From the horse’s mouth,” he said, starting to check his equipment. He rolled his shoulders, grimacing, then popped a pain pill.

“Which horse?” asked another Eraser, standing up and fastening a night-vision monocle over one eye.

“Let’s just say it’s insider information,” the leader of the Erasers said, hearing the joy in his own voice. He felt his heart speed up with anticipation, his fingers itching to close around a skinny bird-kid neck. Then he started to morph, watching his hands.

The frail human skin was soon covered with tough fur; ragged claws erupted from his fingertips. Morphing had hurt at first - his lupine DNA wasn’t seamlessly grafted into his stem cells, like the other Erasers’. So there were some kinks to be worked out, a rough, painful transition period he’d had to go through.

But he wasn’t complaining. It would all be worth it the moment he got his claws on Max and choked the life right out of her. He imagined the look of surprise on her face, how she would struggle. Then he’d watch the light slowly fade out of her beautiful brown eyes. She wouldn’t think she was so hot then. Wouldn’t look down on him or, worse, ignore him. Just because he wasn’t a mutant freak like them, he’d been nothing to her. All she cared about was the flock this and the flock that. That was all his father, Jeb, cared about too.

Once Max was dead, that would all change.

And he, Ari, would be the number-one son. He ‘d come back from the dead for it.

By dusk we’d crossed over a chunk of Pennsylvania, and a thin spit of ocean twined below us, between New Jersey and Delaware. “Look at this, kids, we’re learning geography!” Fang called out with mock excitement. Since we’d never been to school, most of what we’d learned was from television or the Internet. And, these days, from the little know-it-all Voice in my head.

Soon we’d be over Washington DC. Which was pretty much where my plan stopped. For tonight, all I was worried about was food and a place to sleep. Tomorrow I would have time to study the info we’d gotten from the Institute. I’d been so thrilled when we’d hacked into the Institute’s computers. Pages of information about our actual parents had scrolled across the screen. I’d managed to print out a bunch of it before we’d been interrupted.

Who knew - by this time tomorrow we might be on someone’s doorstep, about to come face-to-face with the parents who had lost us so long ago. It sent shivers down my spine.

I was tired. We were all tired. So when I did an automatic 360 and saw a weird dark cloud heading toward us, my groan was deep and sincere.

“Fang! What’s that? Behind us, at ten o’clock.”

He frowned, checking it out. “Too fast for a storm cloud. Too small, too quiet for choppers. Not birds - too lumpy.” He looked at me. “I give up. What is it?”

“Trouble,” I said grimly. “Angel! Get out of the way. Guys, heads up! We’ve got company!”

We swung around to face whatever was coming. Fast!

“Flying monkeys?” The Gasman called out a guess. “Like The Wizard of Oz?”

It dawned on me then. “No,” I said tersely. “Worse. Flying Erasers.” Yep. Flying Erasers. These Erasers had wings, which was a new and revolting development on the Eraser front. Half-wolf, half-human, and now half-avian? That couldn’t be a happy mix. And they were headed our way at about eighty miles an hour.

“Erasers, version 6.5,” Fang said.

Split up, Max. Think 3-D, said my Voice.

“Split up!” I ordered. “Nudge! Gazzy! Nine o’clock! Angel, up top. Move it! Iggy and Fang, flank me from below! Fang, ditch the dog!”

“Nooo, Fang!” screeched Angel.

The Erasers slowed as we fanned out, their huge, heavy-looking wings backbeating the air. It was almost pitch-black now, with no moon and no city lights below. I was still able to see their teeth, their pointed fangs, their smiles of excitement. They were on a hunt - it was party time!

Here we go, I thought, feeling adrenaline speeding up my heart. I launched myself at the biggest one, swinging my feet under me to smash against his chest. He rolled back but righted himself and came at me again, claws slashing the air.

I bobbed, feeling his paws whip right past my face. I turned sharply just in time to have a hard, hairy fist crash into my head.

I dropped ten feet quickly, then surged back up on the offensive.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Fang clap both hands hard against an Eraser’s furry ears. The Eraser screamed, holding his head, and started to lose altitude. Fang had Total in his backpack. He rolled out of harm’s way, and I took his place, catching another Eraser in the mouth with a hard side kick.

I grabbed one of his arms, twisting it violently in back of him. It was harder in the air, but then I heard a loud pop.

The Eraser screamed and dropped, careening downward until he caught himself and flew clumsily away, one arm dangling.

Above me an Eraser lashed out at Nudge, but she dodged out of the way.

Max? Size isn’t everything, said the Voice.

I got it! The Erasers were bigger and heavier, their wings almost twice as long as ours. But in the air, those were liabilities.

Panting, I ducked as an Eraser swung a black-booted foot at my side, catching me in the ribs but not too hard.

I zipped in and dealt out some powerful punches of my own, knocking his head sideways, then I flitted out of reach.

Compared to the Erasers, we were nimble little stinging wasps, and they were clunky, slow, awkward flying cows.

Two Erasers ganged up on me, but I shot straight up like an arrow, just in time for them to smash into each other.

I laughed as I saw Gazzy roll completely over like a fighter plane, smacking an Eraser in the jaw on the turn. The Eraser swung a hard punch, landing it on Gazzy’s thigh, and Gazzy winced, then launched a side kick at the Eraser’s hand, which snapped back.

How many of them were there? I couldn’t tell - everything was happening at once. Ten?

Nudge, my Voice said, and then I heard Nudge cry out.

An Eraser had her tight in his arms, his fangs moving toward her neck. His teeth were just starting to scrape her skin when I dropped on him from above. I wrapped one arm around his neck and yanked hard, hearing him gag and choke. Grabbing my wrist with my other hand, I yanked harder until he let Nudge drop away from him.

“Scat!” I told her, and, coughing, she swooped away from the fight. My Eraser was still struggling but starting to weaken. “You better get your guys out of here,” I snarled into his ear. “We’re kicking your hairy butts.”

“You’re gonna fall now,” I heard Angel say in a normal voice. I swung my head to see her gravely watching an Eraser who looked confused, paralyzed. Angel shifted her gaze to the dark water below. Fear entered the Eraser’s eyes, and his wings folded. He dropped like a rock.

“You’re getting scary, you know that?” I said to Angel, not really kidding. I mean, making an Eraser drop right out of the sky just by telling him to -jeez.

And Iggy, said the Voice. I veered off to help Iggy, who was in tight hand-to-hand with an Eraser.

“Ig!” I called, as he grabbed the Eraser’s shirt.

“Max, get out of here!” Iggy yelled, and released the shirt, letting himself fall quickly out of reach.

I had time to think Uh-oh, and then the small explosive Iggy had stuck down the Eraser’s shirt detonated, leaving an ugly gaping hole in his chest. Shrieking, the Eraser plummeted heavily downward.

And how did Iggy manage to stash his seemingly endless supply of explosives on his person without my even having a clue? Got me.

“You . . . are … a . . . fridge . . . with wings,” Fang ground out, punching an Eraser hard with every word. “We’re … freaking … ballet… dancers.”

Take a deep breath, Max, said my Voice, and I obeyed without question.

At that moment, I felt a blow to my back, between my wings, that knocked the wind out of me. I rolled, belly-up, using the oxygen I’d just gotten, trying to suck in more air.

Whirling, I snapped both feet out in a hard kick into the Eraser’s face, then froze in shock. Ari!

He wheeled backward and I floundered away, wheezing and hoping I wouldn’t pass out. Ari! But he was dead - I’d killed him. Hadn’t I?

Ari lunged at Fang, just as I yelled “Fang!” Ari managed to take a swipe at Fang’s side, shredding his jacket.

Drawing back, gasping, I took stock of the situation. The few remaining Erasers were falling back, retreating. Below, I saw a white splash as an Eraser hit the ocean. That had to hurt.

Now it was just Ari against us. He looked around, then fell back as well, closer to his squad.

The six of us slowly regrouped as Ari began to fly clumsily away, his enormous wings working hard to keep his heavy body aloft. His squad surrounded him, a bunch of huge, hairy crows gone wrong.

“We’ll be back!” he snarled.

It was really Ari’s voice.

“Boy, you just can’t kill people like you used to,” said Fang. We hovered in place for several minutes, waiting to see if there would be a second attack. For the moment, we seemed in the clear, and I took the time to catalogue our injuries. Fang was flying awkwardly, his arm pressed against his side.

“I’m fine,” he said curtly, noticing me watching him.

“Angel? Gazzy? Nudge? Report,” I said.

“Leg hurts, but I’m okay,” said the Gasman.

“I’m fine,” said Angel. “And so are Total and Celeste.” Celeste was the small angel-dressed stuffed bear Angel had - well, let’s say - been given at a toy store in New York.

“I’m okay,” said Nudge, but she sounded whipped.

“My nose,” said Iggy, pressing it hard to stop the bleeding. “But no biggie.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “We’re almost to DC, and it should be easy to get lost in another big city. We good to go?”

Everyone nodded, and we swung in a tight, graceful arc to return to our flight path.

“So .. . what was with the flying Erasers?” Iggy said a few minutes later.

“I’m guessing a new prototype,” I said. “But, man, they’re failures. They were having a hard time flying and fighting at the same time.”

“Like they’d just learned to fly, you know?” said Nudge. “I mean, compared to hawks, we look clumsy. But compared to those Erasers, we’re, like, poetry in motion.”

I smiled at Nudge’s description, silently checking out my own aches and pains.

“They were bad fliers,” Angel chimed in. “And in their minds, they weren’t all Kill the mutants, like they usually are. They were like, Remember to flap!”

I laughed at her imitation of a deep, growly Eraser voice. “Did you pick up on anything else, Angel?” asked.

“You mean besides dead Ari showing up?” Gazzy said, sounding bummed.

“Yeah,” I said. Just then I caught a warm updraft and coasted for a minute, enjoying a feeling of pure bliss.

“Well, none of them really felt familiar,” said Angel, thinking.

Having a six-year-old mind reader came in handy. Sometimes I wished Angel’s mind reads were a little more specific, or that they’d come when we wanted. Then maybe she’d be able to warn us that an Eraser was about to drop in and say hi. But sometimes she just gave me the willies. Angel was starting to control people with her mind - not just Erasers - and I wasn’t sure when she was crossing the line into, say, witchcraft, for instance.

A while later, I realized that Fang wasn’t beside me and I looked around to see him below, maybe twenty feet back. He’d been silent, not unusual for him, but now I could see that his flying was ragged and off-balance. His face seemed paler, and his lips were pressed tightly together.

I dropped back and swooped down next to him.

“What’s going on?” I said in my no-nonsense tone. It had never worked on him before, but a girl had to keep trying.

“Nothing,” he said, but that one word was tight and strained. Which meant he was lying through his teeth.

“Fang -,” I began, and then saw that the arm pressed against his side was dark and wet. Blood. “Your arm!”

” ‘S not my arm,” he muttered. Then his eyes fluttered shut and he started to lose altitude fast.

Really fast.

“Iggy!” I yelled, as cold panic ripped right through me. Not Fang. Please let Fang be okay. “Over here!”

Then Iggy and I flew beneath Fang, supporting him. I felt Fang’s dead weight on me, saw his closed eyes, and suddenly I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.

“Let’s land, see what’s wrong!” I told Iggy, and he nodded.

We flew hard toward the narrow, rocky shore edging the black ocean. Iggy and I landed awkwardly, Fang limp between us. The younger kids scurried over to help us carry him to a flattish, sandier place.

Stop the bleeding, said the Voice.

“What’s the matter with him?” Nudge asked, dropping to her knees next to Fang.

Checking him out, I saw that Fang’s shirt and jacket were soaked with blood, the dark fabric gleaming wetly. I tried to keep my face calm.

“Let’s just see what we’re dealing with here,” I said steadily, and quickly unbuttoned Fang’s shirt.

Now I saw that the shirt was shredded, and beneath it, so was Fang. Ari had managed to do this .. . obscenity.

Nudge drew in a quick gasp when she saw the damage, and I looked up. “Nudge, you and Gazzy and Angel rip up a shirt or something. Make strips for bandages.”

Nudge just stared at Fang.

“Nudge!” I said more firmly, and she snapped out of it.

“Uh, yeah. Come on, guys. I have an extra shirt here … an’ I got a knife….”

The three younger kids moved away while Iggy’s sensitive hands brushed Fang’s skin like butterflies.

“This feels real bad. Real bad,” Iggy said in low voice. “How much blood has he lost?”

“A lot,” I said grimly. Even his jeans were soaked with it.

“Jus’ a scratch,” Fang said fuzzily, his eyelids fluttering.

“Shhh!” I hissed at him. “You should have told us you were hurt!”

Stop the bleeding, the Voice said again.

“How?” I cried in frustration.

“How what?” Iggy asked, and I shook my head impatiently.

Put pressure on it, said the Voice. Press the cloth over it and lean on the wounds with both hands. Elevate his feet, Max.

“Iggy,” I said, “lift Fang’s feet. Guys, you got those strips ready?”

The Gasman handed me a bunch, and I quickly folded them into a pad. Placing it over the gaping slices in Fang’s stomach was like putting my finger in a dike to stop a flood, but it was all I had, so I did it. I pressed both my hands over the pad, trying to keep a steady pressure on it.

Under Fang’s side, the sand was turning dark with his blood.

“Someone’s coming,” said Angel.

Erasers? I looked up to see a man jogging along the shore. It was almost dawn, and seagulls were starting to wheel and cry above the water.

The man slowed to a walk when he saw us. He seemed ordinary, but looks could be deceiving, and usually were.

“Kids, you okay?” he called. “What are you doing out here so early?” He frowned when he saw Fang, then looked scared when he figured out what all the dark wet stuff was.

Before I could say anything, he’d whipped out his cell phone and called 911.

I looked down at Fang, then glanced over at Iggy’s tight face. In a second I realized we had to suck it up - Fang was hurt bad. We needed outside help. Everything in me wanted to grab Fang, get the flock, and tear out of here, away from strangers and doctors and hospitals. But if I did that, Fang would die.

“Max?” The Gasman sounded scared. In the distance, the obnoxious wail of an ambulance siren was drawing closer.

“Nudge?” I said, speaking fast. ‘Take Gazzy and Angel and find a place to hide. We’ll go to the hospital. You stay around here, and I’ll come back when I can. Quick, before the EMT guys get here.”

“No,” said the Gasman, his eyes on Fang.

I stared at him. “What did you say?”

“No,” he repeated, a mulish look coming over his face. “We’re not leaving you and Fang and Iggy.”

“Excuse me?” I said, steel in my voice. Fang’s blood had soaked the cloth and was seeping between my fingers. “I’m telling you to get out of here.” I made myself sound cold as ice.

“No,” Gazzy said again. “I don’t care what happens - you’re not leaving us again.”

‘That’s right,” said Nudge, crossing her arms over her skinny chest.

Angel nodded next to her. Even Total, sitting on the sand by Angel’s feet, seemed to bob his head in agreement.

My mouth opened, but nothing came out. I was stunned - they’d never disobeyed a direct order.

I wanted to start shrieking at them, but it was already too late: Two paramedics were running across the sand, holding a body board. The flashing lights of the ambulance made intermittent rosy stripes across all our faces.

“Goveryou,” I said tightly, using a secret-language that went back to when we were kept in a lab. It was used in cases of extreme emergency when we didn’t want anyone to understand us. “Allay. Todo ustedes. Egway.”

“No,” said the Gasman, his lower lip starting to tremble. “Neckerchu.”

“What’s happened here?” One of the paramedics dropped down next to Fang, already taking out his stethoscope.

“Accident,” I said, still glaring at Gazzy, Nudge, and Angel.

Reluctantly I removed my hands from the soaked pad. Fang’s face was white and still.

“Accident?” repeated the paramedic, staring at the injury. “With what, a rabid bear?”

“Kind of,” I said tensely. The other paramedic shone a small flashlight into Fang’s eyes, and I realized Fang was truly unconscious. My sense of fear and danger escalated: Not only were we about to enter a hospital, which would freak us all out, but it might end up being for nothing. Because Fang could die anyway.

The ambulance felt like a jail cell on wheels.

The antiseptic smell inside made my stomach knot with nightmare memories of the School. In the back of the ambulance, I held Fang’s cold hand, which now had a saline drip taped into it. I couldn’t say anything to the flock, not in front of the EMT, and I was too upset, scared, and mad to come up with anything coherent anyway.

Is Fang okay? I silently asked my Voice. Not that the Voice had ever once answered a direct freaking question. It didn’t break the pattern now.

“Uh-oh - he’s fibrillating,” one paramedic said urgently.

He pointed to the portable EKG machine, which was going thump-thump-thump very fast. “Get the paddles.”

“No!” I said loudly, startling everyone. The paramedic held the shock paddles, looking surprised. “That’s always how his heart is. It always beats really fast. That’s normal for him.”

I don’t know if the paramedic would have used the paddles anyway, but just then we roared into the hospital emergency bay and all was chaos.

Orderlies ran out with a gurney, the EMT guys started rattling off Fang’s stats to a nurse. And then Fang was wheeled out of sight, down a hall and through some doors.

I started to follow, but a nurse stopped me.

“Let the doctors see him first,” she said, flipping a page on her clipboard. “You can give me some information. Now, what’s his name? Is he your boyfriend?”

“His name is … Nick,” I lied nervously. “Nick, um, Ride. He’s my brother.”

The nurse looked at me, my blond hair and fair skin, and I could tell she was mentally comparing me with Fang - who had black hair, dark eyes, olive skin.

“He’s all of our brother’s,” said Nudge ungrammatically.

The nurse looked at Nudge, who was black, and at the rest of us, none of whom really matched, except Angel and Gazzy, the only true siblings among us.

“We were adopted,” I said. “Our parents are … missionaries.” Excellent! I mentally patted myself on the back. Brilliant! Missionaries! “They’re away on a… short mission. I’m in charge.”

A doctor in green jammies hurried up to us. “Miss?” he said, looking at me, glancing at all of us. “Could you come with me, right now?”

“Think he noticed the wings yet?” I heard Iggy barely murmur.

I tapped Iggy twice on the back of his hand. It meant, You ‘re in charge till I get back. He nodded, and I followed the doctor down the hall, feeling like I was on death row.

Walking quickly, the doctor looked at me in that zoo-exhibit way I’ve become familiar with. My heart sank.

All of my worst fears were coming true. I could already see the mesh of a big dog crate closing in around me. Those freaking Erasers! I hated them! They always showed up, and when they did, they destroyed everything.

You have to respect your enemy, Max, said the Voice. Never, ever underestimate them. The second you do, they’ll squash you. Be smart about them. Respect their abilities, even if they don’t respect yours.

I swallowed hard. Whatever.

We pushed through heavy double doors and were in a small, tiled, very scary room. Fang was on a gurney.

He had a tube going down his throat and more tubes attached to his arms. I pressed my hand to my mouth. I’m not squeamish, but cracked, painful memories of the experiments done on us at the School were seeping into my brain, and I wished that my Voice would keep talking, say something really annoying to distract me.

Another doctor and a nurse were standing by Fang. They had cut his shirt and jacket off. The horrible jagged claw wounds in his side were still bleeding.

Now that he had me here, the doctor didn’t seem to know what to say.

“Will - will he be okay?” I asked, feeling as if I were choking. Life without Fang was unimaginable.

“We don’t know,” said one of the doctors, looking very concerned.

The woman doctor gestured to Fang. “How well do you know him?”

“He’s my brother.”

“Are you - like him?” she asked.

“Yes.” I set my jaw and kept my eyes on Fang. I felt my muscles tighten, a new, unwelcome flood of adrenaline icing its way through my veins. Okay, first I would slam this little trolley against the nurse’s legs. …

“So you can help us,” the first doctor said, sounding relieved. ” ‘Cause we’re not recognizing this stuff. What about his heartbeat?”

I looked at the EKG. The blips were fast and erratic.

“It should be smoother,” I said. “And faster.” I snapped my fingers a bunch of times to demonstrate.

“Can I… ?” the doctor asked, motioning his stethoscope toward me. I nodded warily.

He listened to my heart, a look of total amazement on his face.

Then he moved his stethoscope over my stomach, in several places. “Why can I hear air moving down here?” he asked.

“We have air sacs,” I explained quietly, feeling as if my throat were closing. My hands tightened into fists by my sides. “We have lungs, but we also have smaller air sacs. And - our stomachs are different. Our bones. Our blood.” Gee, pretty much everything.

“And you have … wings?” the second doctor asked in a low voice. I nodded.

“You’re a human-avian hybrid,” the first doctor said.

“That’s one name for it,” I said tightly. As opposed to, say, mutant freak. “I prefer Avian American.”

I glanced at the nurse, who looked scared and like she’d rather be anywhere but here. I so related.

The female doctor became all business. “We’re giving him saline, to counter the shock, but he needs blood.”

“You can’t give him hu- regular blood,” I said. All the scientific knowledge I’d gleaned over the years from reports and experiments started coming to the surface. “Our red blood cells have nuclei.” Like birds’.

The doctor nodded. “Get ready to give him a donation,” she instructed me briskly.

Twenty minutes later, I was two pints lighter and dizzy as a dodo bird from it. I shouldn’t have given that much blood, but Fang needed even more, and it was the best I could do. Now he was in surgery.

I made my way down the hall to the waiting room, which was crowded - but not with bird kids.

Quickly I walked the perimeter, in case they were under chairs or something. No flock.

My head swiveled as I checked one hall and then another. I was already weak and kind of nauseated, and the fear of losing my flock made me feel like hurling was seconds away.

“They’re down here.” A short, dark-haired nurse was speaking to me. I locked my gaze on her.

She handed me a small plastic bottle of apple juice and a muffin. “Eat this,” she told me. “It’ll help with the dizziness. Your… siblings are in room seven.” She pointed down the hall.

“Thanks,” I muttered, not knowing yet if I meant it.

Room 7 had a solid door, and I opened it without knocking. Four pairs of worried bird-kid eyes looked up at me. Relief-however temporary - made my knees weak.

“You must be Max,” said a voice.

My stomach seized up. Oh, no, I thought, taking in the guy’s dark gray suit, the short, regulation hair, the almost invisible earpiece of his comm system. Eraser? It was getting harder to tell with each new batch. This guy lacked a feral gleam in his eyes - but I wasn’t going to let down my guard.

“Please, sit down,” said another voice.

There were three of them, two men and a woman, looking very governmenty, sitting around a fake-wood conference table.

Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel were also sitting there, with plastic cafeteria trays of food in front of them. I realized that none of them had touched their food, despite the fact that they must be starving, and I was so proud of their caution that tears almost started in my eyes.

“Who are you?” I asked. Amazingly, my voice was calm and even. Points to me.

“We’re from the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” one man said, reaching out to hand me his business card. It had a little federal seal and everything. Not that that meant squat. “And we’re on your side. We just became aware that you were having some trouble here, and we came to see if we could help.”

He sounded so sincere.

“How nice of you!” I said, sinking into a chair before I fainted. “But aren’t most people in a hospital, uh, having some trouble? I doubt the FBI comes calling on them. So what do you want with us?”

I saw one agent stifle a grin, and their eyes all met for a second.

The first man, Dean Mickelson according to his card, smiled ruefully. “We know you’ve been through a lot, Max. And we’re sorry that. . . Nick got hurt. You’re in a bad spot here, and we can help.”

I was really tired and needed to think. My flock was watching me, and I could smell their hot breakfasts from where I sat. “Angel,” I said, “give Total some of your food and see if he keels over. If he doesn’t, you all can go ahead and eat.”

As if he knew his name, Total leaped up onto a chair next to Angel and wagged his tail. Angel hesitated - she didn’t want to take a chance.

“Look,” said the female agent. She stood up and took a bite of Angel’s scrambled eggs.

The other two agents followed her lead, sampling the three other trays. Just then there was a tap on the door, and a younger agent handed in a fifth tray, for me. An agent took a bite off my plate, then set the tray on the table. “Okay?” he asked.

We watched the agents with interest, waiting to see if they would suddenly clutch their throats and fall gasping to the floor.

They didn’t.

“Okay, dig in, guys,” I said, and the flock fell on their food like, um, Erasers.

Gazzy was done first - he’d practically inhaled his. “Can I have maybe two more trays?” he asked.

Startled, Dean nodded and went to give the order.

“So, how are you here to help us?” I said between bites. “How did you know we were here?”

“We’ll answer all your questions,” said the other guy. “But we need you to answer some questions too. We thought it might be easier if we went one-on-one - less distracting. If you’re done eating, we can move into here.”

He opened a door behind him leading into a larger conference room. Several more agents were milling around, and they stopped talking to look at us.

“You’re not separating us,” I said.

“No, just separate tables,” said the woman. “All in the same room, see?”

I groaned inwardly. When was the last time we had slept? Was it only two days ago we were escaping through the sewer tunnels in New York? Now Fang was under the knife, we were surrounded by God knows who these people really were, and I didn’t see a way out of it. Not without leaving Fang behind. Which I wouldn’t do.

Sighing, I pushed away my empty tray and nodded to the others.

Let the questioning begin.

“And what’s your name, sweetie?”

“Ariel,” said Angel.

“Okay, Ariel. Have you ever heard of anyone named Jeb Batchelder?”

The agent held up a photograph, and Angel looked at it. Jeb’s familiar face looked back at her, and it hurt her heart.

“No,” she said.

“Um, okay … can you tell me what your relationship is to Max?”

“She’s my sister. You know, because of the missionaries. Our parents.”

“Okay, I see. And where did you get your dog?”

“I found him in the park.” Angel fidgeted and looked over at Max. She thought, Okay, enough questions. You can go.

The agent sitting across from her paused and looked blankly at the notes she was writing.

“Uh - I guess that’s enough questions,” the agent said, looking confused. “You can go.”

“Thanks,” said Angel, slipping out of her chair. She snapped her fingers for Total, and he trotted after her.

“And how do you spell that?” the agent asked.

“Captain, like the captain of a ship,” the Gasman explained. “And then Terror, you know, T-E-R-O-R.”

“Your name is Captain Terror.”

“That’s right,” the Gasman said, shifting in his chair-He glanced at Max, who was speaking very quietly to her agent. “Are you really FBI?”

The agent smiled briefly. “Yes. How old are you?”

“Eight. How old are you?”

The agent looked startled. “Uh … um, you’re kind of tall for an eight-year-old, aren’t you?”

“Uh-huh. We’re all tall. And skinny. And we eat a lot. When we can get it.”

“Yes, I see. Tell me … Captain, have you ever seen anything like this?” The agent held up a blurry black-and-white photo of an Eraser, half-morphed.

“Gosh, no,” said the Gasman, opening his blue eyes wide. “What is that?”

The agent seemed at a loss for words.

“And you’re blind?”

“Uh-huh,” Iggy said, trying to sound bored.

“Were you born that way?”

“No.”

“How did you become blind, uh, Jeff, is it?”

“Yeah, Jeff. Well, I looked directly at the sun, you know, the way they always tell you not to. If only I had

listened.”

* * *

“And then I had, like, three cheeseburgers, and they were awesome, you know? And those fried pie things? Those apple pies? They’re really great. Have you ever tried them?” Nudge looked hopefully at the woman sitting across from her.

“Uh, I don’t think so. Can you spell your name for me, sweetie?”

“Uh-huh. It’s K-R-Y-S-T-A-L. I like my name. It’s pretty. What’s your name?”

“Sarah. Sarah McCauley.”

“Well, that’s an okay name too. Do you wish it was something different? Like, sometimes I wish my name was kind of fancier, you know? Like - Cleopatra. Or Marie-Sophie-Therese. Did you know that the queen of England has, like, six names? Her name is Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. Her last name is Windsor. But she’s so famous she just signs her name ‘Elizabeth R,’ and everyone knows who it is. I’d like to be that famous someday. I would just sign ‘Krystal.’”

The agent was silent for a moment, then she seemed to recover herself. “Have you ever heard of a place called the School?” she asked. “We think it’s in California. Have you ever been to California?”

Nudge looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. “California? Like, surfers and movie stars and earthquakes? No. I’d like to go. Is it pretty?” Her large brown eyes looked innocently at the agent.

“You can call me Agent Mickelson,” he told me with a smile. “What about you? Is Max short for something? Maxine?”

“No, Dean. It’s just Max.”

He blinked once, then referred back to his notes. “I see. Now, Max, I think we both know your parents aren’t missionaries.”

I opened my eyes wide. “No? Well, for God’s sake, don’t tell them. They’d be crushed. Thinking they’re doing the Lord’s work and all.”

Dean looked at me, I dunno, as if a hamster had just snarled at him. He tried another tack. “Max, we’re looking for a man named Jeb Batchelder. Do you have any knowledge of his whereabouts?” The agent held up a picture of Jeb, and my heart constricted. For a second I was torn: give that lying, betraying jerk up to the FBI, which would be fun, or keep my mouth shut about anything important, which would be smart.

I shook my head regretfully. “Never seen him.”

“Have you ever been to Colorado?”

I frowned. “Is that one of those square ones, in the middle?”

I saw Dean take a deep breath.

Quickly I glanced around. Angel was on the floor by the door, eating my muffin, sharing it with Total. Iggy’s and Nudge’s agents were conferring, whispering behind some papers, and Iggy and Nudge lounged in their chairs. Nudge was looking around curiously. I hoped she was memorizing escape routes. The Gasman got up, cheerfully said “Bye” to his agent, and went over to Angel.

“Max, we want to help you,” Dean said quietly. “But you’ve got to help us too. Fair is fair.”

I stared at him. That was the funniest thing I’d heard in days.

“You’re kidding, right? Please tell me you have a stronger motive for me than ‘fair is fair.’ Life isn’t fair, Dean.” My voice strengthened, and I leaned forward, closer to the agent’s impassive face. “Nothing is fair, ever. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I need to help you because fair is fair? Try, ‘I need you to help me so I won’t rip out your spine and beat you with it.’ I might respond to that. Maybe.”

Dean’s jaw clenched, and two pink splotches appeared on his cheeks. I got the feeling that he was more mad at himself than at me.

“Max,” he began, his voice tense, but was interrupted.

“Thank you, Dean,” said a woman’s voice. “I’ll take over from here.”

Dean straightened up and smoothed his expression. The new woman gave him a friendly smile and waited.

She was blond - I couldn’t tell how old. She had the sort of professional polish and attitude of a major-network news anchor. She was pretty, actually.

Dean gathered up his files, nodded at me, then went to confer with another agent. The new woman sat down across from me.

“They’re all kind of full of hot air,” she whispered behind her hand.

I was startled into a grin.

She reached her hand across the table for me to shake. “My name is Anne Walker,” she said. “And yes, I’m one of Them. I’m the one they call in when everything goes kablooey.”

“Have things gone kablooey?” I asked politely.

She gave a short laugh. “Uh, yeah,” she said in a “duh” tone of voice. “When we get a call from a hospital saying they’ve got at least two and possibly six previously unknown recombinant DNA life-forms and one of them is gravely injured, then, yes, I think we can safely say that things have gone kablooey with a capital ‘kuh.’”

“Oh,” I said. “Gee, we sound so important.”

One side of her mouth twitched. “Uh-huh. Why the surprise? Hasn’t anyone ever told you you were important?”

Jeb. The one word shocked my senses, and I went into total shutdown so I wouldn’t start bawling like the goofy recombinant life-form that I am. Jeb had made me feel important, once upon a time. He’d made me feel smart, strong, capable, special, important.. . you name it. Lately, though, he mostly made me feel blinding rage and a stomach-clenching sense of betrayal.

“Look,” I said coolly, “we’re in a tough spot here. I know it and you know it. One of my fl- brothers is hurt, and we need help. Just tell me what I have to do so we can get that help, and then we’ll be on our merry way.”

I shot a quick glance at the flock. They were sitting together, eating bagels and watching me. Gazzy cheerfully held up a bagel to show he was saving one for me.

Anne’s sympathetic look set my teeth on edge. She leaned over the table so she wouldn’t be overheard. “Max, I’m not gonna tell you a bunch of crap,” she said, surprising me again. “Like the crap you’re giving us about your parents being missionaries. We both know that isn’t true. And we both know that the FBI isn’t in the business of just helping people out because they’re so wonderful and special. This is the deal: We’ve heard about you. Rumors have been filtering into the intelligence community for years about a hidden lab producing viable recombinant life-forms.

“But it’s never been verified, and people have always dismissed it as urban-legend stuff. Needless to say, the very possibility that it could be true - well, we’ve got people assigned to finding out and cataloguing info, hearsay, or suspicion about you. You and your family.”

Wait till she found out about the Erasers.

Anne took a breath and sat back, keeping her eyes on me. “So you see, we consider you important. We’d like to know everything about you. But more important, if the stories are true, then our entire country’s safety could be at stake - if your so-called family were to get into the wrong hands. You don’t know your own power.”

She let that sink in for a moment, then smiled ruefully. “How about we make a trade? You give us a chance to learn about you - in nonpainful, noninvasive ways - and we’ll give Nick the best medical care available and the rest of you a safe place to stay. You can rest up, eat, Nick can get better, and then you can decide what to do from there.”

I felt like a starving mouse staring at a huge hunk of cheese.

Set right in the middle of an enormous, Max-sized trap.

I put a look of polite disinterest on my face. “And I believe that this is all straight up because …”

“It would be great if I could offer you guarantees, Max,” said Anne. “But I can’t - not anything that you would believe. I mean, come on.” She shrugged. “A written contract? My word of honor? A really sincere promise from the head of the FBI?”

We both laughed. Those wacky agents.

“It’s just - you don’t have a lot of choices here, Max. Not right now. I’m sorry.”

I stared at the tabletop and thought. The horrible thing was, she was right. With Fang in such bad shape, she had us over a barrel. The best thing I could do was accept her offer of shelter and care for Fang, bide my time, and work out an escape later. Silently I swore a whole lot. Then I looked up.

“Well, say I accepted. Where’s this safe place you’re dangling in front of me?”

She looked at me. If she was surprised that I was going along with it, she didn’t show it.

“My house,” she said.

Fang came out of surgery almost two hours later. I was waiting outside the OR, wound tighter than a rubber ball.

The doctor I’d talked to came out, still in his green scrubs. I wanted to grab the front of his shirt, throw him against a wall, get some answers. But I’m trying to outgrow that kind of thing.

“Ah, yes, Max, is it?”

“Yeah. Max it is.” I waited tensely. If the unthinkable had happened, I’d snag the kids and make a run for it.

“Your brother Nick - it was a little dicey for a while. We gave him several units of blood substitute, and it brought his blood pressure up to a safe range.”

My hands were clenching and unclenching. It was all I could do to stand there and focus on the words.

“He didn’t go into cardiac arrest,” the doctor said. “We were able to patch up his side, stop all the hemorrhaging. A main artery had been hit, and one of his … air sacs.”

“So what’s he like now?” I forced my breathing to calm, tried to shut down my fight-or-flight response. Which in my case is, you know, literal.

“He’s holding steady,” the doctor said, looking tired and amazed. “If nothing goes wrong, he should be okay. He needs to take it easy for maybe three weeks.”

Which meant probably about six days, given our incredibly fast healing and regenerative strengths.

But jeez. Six days was a long time.

“Can I see him?”

“Not till he comes out of recovery,” the doctor said. “Maybe another forty minutes. Now, I’m hoping you can fill me in on some physiological stuff. I noticed -“

“Thank you, Doctor,” said Anne Walker, coming up behind me.

“I mean, I wanted to know -,” the doctor began, looking at me.

“I’m sorry,” said Anne. “These kids are tired and need to rest. One of my colleagues can answer any questions you might have.”

“Excuse me, but your colleagues don’t know jack about us,” I reminded Anne through clenched teeth.

The doctor looked irritated, but he nodded and went back down the hall.

Anne smiled at me. “We’re trying to keep your existence somewhat quiet,” she said. “Until we’re certain you’re safe. But that’s great news about Nick.”

We walked to the waiting area. The flock jumped up when they saw me. I smiled and gave them a thumbs-up. Nudge whooped and slapped high fives with Gazzy, and Angel ran over to hug me hard. I swung her up and held her tight.

“He’s gonna be fine,” I confirmed.

“Can we see him?” Iggy asked.

“Ig, I hate to break this to you, but you’re blind,” I said, my relief making me tease him. “However, in a little while you can go listen to him breathe and maybe talk to him.”

Iggy gave me a combination smile-scowl, which he’s extraordinarily good at.

“Hi, everyone,” said Anne. I’d forgotten she was right behind me. “Max may have told you about me - I’m Anne Walker, from the FBI. Has Max filled you in on the agreement we made?”

She was smart: If I hadn’t already told them about it, she’d just confirmed that it was a done deal.

“Yes,” said Angel, looking at her. “We’re going to stay at your house for a teensy little while.”

“That’s right,” said Anne, smiling back.

“Us and Total,” Angel said to make sure.

“Total?”

“My dog.” Angel pointed under her chair, where Total was curled up, head poised neatly on his paws.

“How did you get a dog in here?” Anne asked, amazed.

I didn’t want to delve into that too much. “Yes! So, well, as soon as F- Nick is somewhat mobile, we’ll go to Anne’s house, rest up, get Nick up to a hundred percent. Cool?”

The others nodded with varying levels of enthusiasm.

“Fnick?” Iggy muttered, smirking.

I ignored him.

“Actually, Nick won’t be mobile for at least a week,” Anne said. “So we can all head to my place today, and he can come out when he’s ready.”

I saw Gazzy blink and Nudge frown.

“No,” I said to Anne. “That wasn’t what I agreed to. We’re not leaving Nick here alone.”

“He’ll have doctors and nurses and two agents at his door. Round the clock,” Anne promised.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “No. Two of your agents would be a snack for an Eraser.”

Anne ignored my joke. Not surprisingly, since she probably didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.

“It will be more comfortable for you at my house,” Anne said. “Much better for you.”

“But not much better for Nick,” I said.

“But - Nick can’t be moved,”, Anne said. “Were you planning to just hang out in his room?”

“The girls can have the bed,” Gazzy said. “Iggy and I can sleep on the floor.”

“Excuse me, sexist piglet?” I said, raising my eye-brows. “How about the two smallest people share the bed ’cause they’ll fit. That would be you and Angel.”

“Yeah,” said Nudge, with narrowed eyes. “Like, I’m too much of a cream puff to sleep on the floor?”

Gazzy got his stubborn face on, so I walked across the room before he could start arguing. Fang’s hospital room was a double, but the other bed was empty. The two smaller kids would sleep in it, and the rest of us would make do.

“Of course, the prince gets his own bed all to himself,” I said to Fang.

“That’s right,” Fang said hazily. “The prince has a gaping side wound.”

He still looked like death, extremely pale and groggy. He couldn’t eat, so he had an IV drip. Iggy had given him another pint of bird-kid blood, and that had helped.

“Well, they sewed you up,” I said. “You’re pretty gape-free at this point.”

“When do I get out of here?”

“They say a week.”

“So, like, tomorrow?” he said.

‘That’s what I’m thinking.”

“So, Fnick, can I change the channel?” Iggy asked. “There’s a game on.”

“Make yourself at home, Figgy,” Fang said.

We crashed early and hard, given what we’d been through in the last twenty-four hours. By nine o’clock I was listening to the flock sleeping all around me. The agent guys had come up with some, like, yoga mats for us, and they weren’t bad. Especially if you’ve logged time on rocky cave floors and concrete ledges in subway tunnels.

Now it was quiet, and I was trying to shut my brain down. Voice? Any last-minute remarks you want to get off your chest before I crash?

You chose to stay with Fang.

No duh, I replied silently. What Gazzy had said, back on the beach… the little twerp was right. I shouldn’t split us up again, even when it seemed safer to do it. We did best when we were all together. The whole family together.

Family is extremely important, said the Voice. Didn’t you tell me that once?

Yep, I thought. That’s why we’re going to find our parents as soon as we get out of here.

I took a deep breath, trying to relax. I was completely exhausted, but my brain was racing. Every time I closed my eyes, all sorts of images flashed through my mind - like buildings exploding, a mushroom cloud, ducks caught in oil slicks, mountains of trash, nuclear power plants. Waking nightmares.

So I sat up, eyes open, but it wasn’t much better. I had started feeling bad earlier but hadn’t told anyone. I had a headache, not a grenade-type headache, where my brain felt like it was being splattered against the inside of my skull, but just a regular headache. Fortunately the grenade-type headaches were much fewer and farther between than they had been. My theory was that they were my brain getting used to sharing office space with my rude and uninvited guest: my Voice. At any rate, I was incredibly glad they were on leave of absence lately.

This wasn’t like that. I was hot; my skin was burning. I felt like adrenaline was pouring into my system, making me so jumpy I couldn’t stand it.

Were the Erasers tracking the chip in my arm that I’d seen in that X-ray at Dr. Martinez’s office so many days ago? How did they keep finding us? The eternal question.

I glanced at Total, sleeping on the bed with Angel and Gazzy. He was on his back, paws in the air. Was he chipped? Were they tracking him now?

Ugh. I felt so hot and twitchy and sick. I wanted to lie down in snow, eat snow, rub it over my skin. I fantasized about throwing open the window and taking off into the cool night air. I imagined flying back to Dr. Martinez and her daughter, Ella, the only human friends I’d known. Dr. Martinez would know what to do. My heart was pounding so fast it felt like a staccato drumroll in my chest.

I stood up and picked my way quietly over sleeping bodies to the small sink in one wall. I turned on the cold water and let it run over my hands. Leaning down, I splashed my face again and again. It felt good, and I wished I could stand under an icy shower. Please don’t let me get sick, I prayed. I can’t get sick. I can’t get Fang sick.

I don’t know how long I hung over the sink, letting water trickle over my neck. Finally I thought maybe I could try to sleep again, and I straightened up to dry my face.

And almost screamed.

I whirled around, but the room was quiet. I whipped back to stare in the mirror again, and it was still there: the Eraser.

I blinked rapidly. What the h was going on? The Eraser in the mirror blinked rapidly too.

The Eraser was me.

In an instant, cold sweat coated my forehead and the back of my neck.

I swallowed, and the Eraser Max in the mirror swallowed.

I opened my mouth and saw the long, sharp canines. But when I touched them with my finger, they felt small, smooth, normal. I touched my face and felt smooth skin, though the mirror showed me totally morphed.

I remembered how ill I had felt, hot and heart-poundy. Oh, God. What was this all about? Had I just discovered a new “skill,” like Angel reading minds, Gazzy able to imitate any voice, Iggy identifying people by feeling their fingerprints? Had I just developed the skill of turning into an Eraser, our worst enemy?

I felt sick with revulsion and dread. I glanced guiltily around to make sure no one could see me like this. I didn’t even know what they would see if they woke up. I felt normal. I looked like an Eraser. Kind of a cuter, blonder, Pekingesey Eraser.

Respect and honor your enemies, said my Voice. Always. Know your friends well; know your enemies even better.

Oh, please, I begged silently. Please let this be just a horrible lesson and not reality. I promise, promise, promise to know my enemies better. Just let me lose the muzzle.

Your greatest strength is your greatest weakness, Max.

I stared at the mirror. Huh?

Your hatred of Erasers gives you the power to fight to the death. But that hatred also blinds you to the big picture: the big picture of them, of you, of everything in your life.

Um. Let me think about that and get back to you. Okay?

Ow. I winced and pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to rub the pain away. I touched my face one last time to make sure it really was smooth, and then I went and looked at Fang.

He was still breathing, sleeping. He looked better. Not so embalmed. He was going to be all right. I sighed, trying to release my pain and fear, then I curled up on my mat next to Nudge. I closed my eyes but didn’t really have any hope of sleeping.

I lay quietly in the darkness. The only thing that made me feel better was listening to the even, regular, calm breathing of my sleeping flock.

“I don’t understand it,” said the doctor, gazing at Fang’s wound.

Yeah, well, I thought, that’s the whimsy of recombinant DNA.

The doc had come in to change the bandages this morning and found that Fang’s gashes were almost healed, just thin pink lines of scar tissue.

“Guess I’m good to go,” said Fang, trying to sit up. He was alert, himself, and happiness filled my heart. I’d been so scared - what would I do without Fang?

“Wait!” Anne Walker said, holding up her hand. “You’re nowhere near ready to move or leave. Please, Nick, just lie still and rest.”

Fang regarded her calmly, and I smirked to myself. If Anne thought I was uncooperative, wait till she dealt with a recovered Fang.

“Nick, now that you’re feeling a bit better, maybe you can convince your brothers and sisters to leave with me,” Anne said. “I’ve offered for all of you to come stay at my house, to rest and regroup.” She gave a slight smile. “Max refused to leave without you. But I’m sure you can see that it’s pointless for them to stay here and be uncomfortable. And you’d be joining us in a week or so,”

Fang just looked at her, waiting.

I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms.

“So, how do you feel about it, Nick?”

Actually, I’d already briefed him, early this morning. Since we were up at six. Since, at six, the nurse had been overcome with an overwhelming compulsion to take Fang’s temperature right then.

Fang met my eyes, and I let one side of my mouth droop.

“Whatever Max says,” he said evenly. “She’s in charge.”

I grinned. I’ll never get tired of hearing that.

Anne turned to look at me.

“I can’t leave Nick,” I said, sounding regretful.

“If you all stay, maybe I could examine -,” the doctor began, and Anne turned to him as if she’d forgotten he was there.

“Thank you, Doctor,” she said. “I appreciate all your help.”

It was a dismissal, and the doctor didn’t look happy. But he left.

“We heal really quickly,” I told Anne. Last night Fang had still looked bad. And I had too, I thought, remembering the horrible Eraser reflection. But this morning I looked like me, and Fang looked much more like himself again.

Fang sat up. “What do I have to do to get some food in this joint?”

“You still have an IV,” Anne said. “The doctors don’t want you eating solid . ..” Her voice trailed off as Fang’s eyes narrowed.

“We saved a tray for you,” I said. An orderly had brought us breakfast, and we’d saved some of everything for Fang.

Anne looked as though she wanted to say something but held it back. A good move on her part, I must say.

I gave the tray to Fang, and he dug into the food with quick precision.

“I need to get out of here,” he said between bites. “The hospital smells alone are making me crawl the walls.”

I knew what he meant. We all had the same reaction: Anything antiseptic-smelling, hospitally, science labby, brought back years’ worth of bad memories.

I looked at Anne. “I think F- Nick is ready to come with us.”

She looked at me, clearly thinking things through.

“Okay,” she said finally, and I kept the surprise off my face. “Let me go clear up the paperwork. It’ll take about an hour and a half to drive to my home. I live in northern Virginia. Okay?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Anne left, and I looked around at the flock. “I don’t know what’s coming, guys, but keep your eyes open and heads up.” I glanced at Fang. “You sure you can move?”

He shrugged, looking tired again, and pushed away the food tray. “Sure.” He lay back down and shut his eyes.

“After all, Fnick is Superman,” said Iggy.

“Shut up, Jeff,” I said, but I was smiling. I lifted Iggy’s fingers to my face so that he knew.

“Gol, Virginia is shore purty,” I said to the Gasman, and he grinned.

But it really was. There were many hills of the “gently rolling” type, miles of trees that had been dipped in fiery, autumny paint, and swelling waves of green pastures, some even dotted with actual horses. It was gorgeous here.

Anne’s huge Suburban held us all, and Fang got to recline most of the way. I kept an eye on him, noting the way his jaw tightened when we hit bumps, but he didn’t complain.

Another fly in the ointment: I was having the same waves of heat and racing heart I’d had last night. My breath came in little pants, and I was so jumpy it felt as if bugs were crawling all over me.

Total had been sitting on my lap, looking out the window, and now he glanced at me with his shiny black eyes. Deliberately he got up and picked his way over Fang’s lap and onto Angel’s, as if to say, If you’re going to be that hot, forget it.

“Oh, gosh, look at that,” Nudge said, pointing out her window. “That horse is totally white. Like an angel horse. And what are those rolled-up straw things?”

“Bales of hay,” said Anne from the front seat. “They roll them like that instead of making haystacks.”

“It’s so pretty here,” Nudge went on, practically bouncing in her seat next to Anne. “I like these hills. What’s the kind of tree with pointy leaves and all the colors?”

“Maples,” Anne said. “They usually have the most color.”

“What’s your house like?” Nudge asked. “Is it all white with big columns? Like Tara? Did you see that movie?”

“Gone with the Wind,” Anne said. “No, I’m afraid my house isn’t anything like Tara. It’s an old farmhouse. But I do have fifty acres of land around it. Plenty of room for you guys to run around. We’re almost there.”

Twenty minutes later, Anne pulled into a driveway and clicked an electronic gadget. A pair of wrought-iron gates swung open, and she pulled through.

The gates closed behind us, which made my sensors go on precautionary alert.

It took almost a whole minute to get to her house. The driveway was made of crushed shells and wound through beautiful trees arching overhead. Red and yellow leaves fluttered gently down onto the car.

“Well, here we are,” she said, pulling around a corner. “I hope you like it.”

We stared out the car windows. Anne’s house looked like a painting. It had rounded river rocks on the bottom part, and clapboards above, and a big screened porch that covered almost the whole front. Large shrubs circled the yard, and some of them still had faded hydrangea blooms.

“There’s a pond out back,” Anne said, pulling into a parking space in front of the house. “It’s so shallow that it might still be warm enough to swim in, in the afternoons. Here, everyone pile out.”

We poured out of the car, glad to be in a wide-open space again.

‘The air smells different here,” said Nudge, wrinkling her nose. “It smells great.”

The house stood on the top of a low hill. Sloping away from us were wide lawns and an orchard. The trees were actually covered with apples. Birds twittered and sang. I couldn’t hear traffic, or smell road tar, or hear any other person.

Anne opened the front door. “Well, don’t just stand there,” she said with a laugh. “Come see your rooms.”

I nodded, and Angel and Nudge started toward the house, followed by Gazzy.

Iggy was standing next to me. “What does it look like?” he asked in a low voice.

“It looks like paradise, Jeff,” said Fang. The rough bark of the tree was cutting into his legs, but Ari paid no attention.

After the pain of having huge wings retrofitted onto his shoulders, this was child’s play. He grinned at that thought. Technically, anything he did was child’s play: He was only seven years old. Eight next April. Not that it mattered. He wouldn’t get presents or a cake. His dad probably wouldn’t even remember.

He put the binoculars to his eyes again, clenching his jaw. He saw the mutant bird freaks get out of the car. He’d already been over the grounds, looked in the windows of the house. Those kids were in a for a cushy stay. At least for a while.

It wasn’t fair. There wasn’t even a word for how’ unfair it was. Ari’s hand clutched a small branch so tightly that the branch snapped, sending a long, thin sliver under his skin.

He looked at it, waiting for the pain signals to make their sluggish way to his brain. Bright red blood welled around the splinter. Ari pinched the splinter out and threw it away before his brain even recognized that he’d been hurt.

Here he was, in a tree, his team camped nearby, stuck watching the mutant freaks through binoculars.

He should be on the ground, tapping Max on the shoulder, seeing her whirl, then smashing his fist right into her face.

But no. Instead, she was sashaying inside the fancy house, thinking she was perfect, better than anyone, better than him.

The one fun thing of the last forty-eight hours had been Max’s expression when she’d seen he was alive. She’d been shocked. Shocked and horrified, Ari remembered proudly. He wanted her to look like that every time she saw him.

So, fine. Get some R&R, Maximum, Ari thought acidly. Your time is coming. And I’ll be there waiting for you. I’ll always be there.

The hatred coiled in his gut, twisting his insides, and he felt himself morphing, his facial bones elongating, his shoulders hunching.

He watched as the coarse hair covered his arms, lightning fast, and ragged claws erupted from his fingertips.

He wanted to rake these claws down Max’s face, that perfect face

Anguish welled up and choked him, turning his world black, and without thinking, he sank his fangs into his own arm. Clenching his jaw hard, he waited for the physical pain. Finally, gasping, he sat back, his mouth red with blood, his arm coldly numb with pain. Ah. That was better.