“Fang? Are you—like Max?” asked Dr. Martinez.
“Nope,” he said, sounding bored. “I’m the smart one.”
I resisted the urge to kick his shin.
“Well, come in, both of you,” said Dr. Martinez, sounding excited and bemused and awestruck. “I was going to run to the grocery store before Ella got home from school. But that can wait.”
Inside, the house seemed more familiar to me than Anne Walker’s, though I’d only been here maybe forty-eight hours, months ago. Maybe because it had felt like home, the first real home I’d ever been in.
Behind me, Fang stood close to the door, taking in every detail, cataloguing exits, planning courses of action in case violence broke out. As it tended to do around us.
“Are you guys hungry?” asked Dr. Martinez, taking off her jacket and putting down her purse. “I could make you sandwiches.”
“That would be great,” I said, my stomach growling at the thought.
Fang sniffed the air. “What’s that...scent, that...”
Dr. Martinez and I smiled at each other.
“Chocolate-chip cookies,” we said at the same time.
26
“So, you have your price,” I said to Fang, speaking around a mouthful of crumbs. “Your soul for a cookie.”
Making sure Dr. Martinez wasn’t looking, Fang shot me the bird and took another bite, clearly savoring the warm chewiness, the notes of vanilla, the semimelted chocolate chunks. I grinned at him, then stuck out my tongue.
Dr. Martinez sat down at the table with us and dipped a cookie into her mug of coffee. She patted my arm. “I’m really glad to see you again, Max,” she said, with so much sincerity that I blushed. “You know, there have been reports about mutant flying children in the news lately.”
I nodded. “Yeah. We keep forgetting the ‘lie low and hide’ part of our plan.”
“Do you have a plan?” she asked, concern on her face. “What are you doing now? Are there more of you?”
Just like that, my natural instincts for secrecy and self-protection kicked in, and I felt my face shut down. Next to me, Fang stiffened in midchew.
Dr. Martinez had no problem reading my expression.
“Never mind,” she said quickly. “Forget I asked. I just...wish I could help in some way.”
Dr. Martinez was a veterinarian, and she’d treated me for a gunshot wound at her clinic. She was the one who’d discovered, when she did an X-ray, the microchip in my arm.
“Maybe you can,” I said. “Remember my chip?”
“The one in your arm?” Dr. Martinez frowned. “Do you still have it?”
“Yeah. And I still want it out.”
She finished her cookie and drank some coffee, thinking it through. “Since you left, I’ve examined your X-ray a hundred times.” She smiled. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, but it drove me crazy—I had to figure it out. I’ve looked and looked at it, trying to see if there’s any way to take out the chip without damaging your nerves so badly that you’d lose the use of your hand.”
“Did you come up with something?” I was practically quivering with anticipation.
Her shoulders sagged slightly. “I’m not positive. It seems like I could possibly do it with microsurgery, but...”
“Do it,” I said quickly. “Do it now.”
I felt Fang looking at me, but I stayed focused on Dr. Martinez.
“I want this chip out,” I said, hating the pleading sound in my voice. “I don’t care what it does.”
You can’t risk losing the use of your hand, said the Voice.
For some reason I was finding it particularly annoying today. Why? I thought, sarcasm dripping. You think I can’t save the world with one hand tied behind my back?
Dr. Martinez looked hesitant, too cautious to take risks.
Suddenly Fang grabbed my left hand and turned it over, baring my forearm on the table. The angry red scars from when I had sawed at my arm with a broken seashell flamed up at us, puckered and ugly. Heat flushed my face, and I tried to pull my arm away.
“Oh, that,” I muttered, aware of Dr. Martinez’s wide, horrified eyes.
“She tried to cut it out herself,” Fang said tersely. “Almost bled out, on a beach. Take it out, so she won’t be such a moron again. Or at least not in that same way. Maybe in a different way,” he acknowledged realistically.
I frowned fiercely at him, hating the look of consternation on Dr. Martinez’s face. Then I glared at her, daring her to express pity. I swear, I would knock their two heads together if—
“I can try,” she said.
27
“Where’s Angel?” Gazzy’s whisper was barely a breath in Nudge’s ear.
“Don’t know,” she breathed back.
The truck stopped, and the back doors opened. It was daylight. The Flyboys riding in the back with them climbed out, then slammed the heavy metal doors, making Nudge’s ears ring.
Ages later, the doors opened again, and a Flyboy threw in some pieces of bread and some fruit that was half rotten. The doors slammed shut again. There was creepy laughter outside.
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.”
“I don’t want my chip anymore,” I explained groggily, then frowned. “Actually, I never wanted that chip.”
“Okay,” said Fang. “We’re taking it out.”
“I just want you to hold my hand.”
“I am holding your hand.”
“Oh. I knew that.” I drifted off for a few minutes, barely aware of anything, but feeling Fang’s hand still in mine.
“Do you have a La-Z-Boy somewhere?” I roused myself to ask, every word an effort.
“Um, no,” said Ella’s voice, somewhere behind my head.
“I think I would like a La-Z-Boy,” I mused, letting my eyes drift shut again. “Fang, don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t. I’m here.”
“Okay. I need you here. Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t.”
“Fang, Fang, Fang,” I murmured, overwhelmed with emotion. “I love you. I love you sooo much.” I tried to hold out my arms to show how much, but I couldn’t move them.
“Oh, jeez,” Fang said, sounding strangled.
“Okay, we’re done,” said Dr. Martinez finally. “The chip is out. I’m going to unfasten your arm, Max, and then I want you to wiggle your fingers.”
“Okay.” I wiggled the fingers that Fang was still holding.
“The other ones,” he said.
“Okay.” I wiggled those fingers.
“Go ahead and move them, Max,” said Dr. Martinez.
“I am moving them,” I said, moving them more.
“Oh,” said Dr. Martinez. “Oh, no.”
31
So there you have it, folks. The most humiliating admission I could possibly even conceive of, plus the loss of my left hand, all in one day. I mean, the hand was still there, but it was dangling limply. More decorative than anything else at this point.
Just like my pride.
Every time the hazy memory of my saying goofily, “I love you sooo much” popped into my head, I shuddered all over again. That one experience guaranteed that I will never, ever get hooked on Valium or anything like it.
Dr. Martinez was incredibly upset about my hand. She was in tears afterward and kept apologizing.
“Hey, I made you do it,” I told her.
“You didn’t make me. I shouldn’t have tried it.” She looked crushed.
“No matter what, I’m glad it’s gone,” I said. “I’m really glad it’s gone.”
The next day I was Voice-free and starting to learn to do everything with only my right hand. It was a total pain in the butt, but I was getting better. Again and again I tried to move the fingers on my left hand, and again and again I got not a twitch or a tingle. My arm ached, though.
Again and again I felt Fang’s night sky eyes on me, to the point where I was about to cl
imb the wall. When Dr. Martinez and Ella were outside for a moment, I cornered him.
“What I said yesterday didn’t mean anything!” I hissed. “I love everyone in the flock! Plus, it was the Valium talking!”
An unbearable smug look came over his usually impassive face. “Uh-huh. You just keep telling yourself that. You looove me.”
I took a swing at him, but he jumped back nimbly, and all I did was jar my left arm, making it hurt.
He laughed at me, then pointed at the woods outside the window. “Pick a tree. I’ll go carve our initials in it.”
Barely suppressing a shriek of rage, I flung myself down the hall and into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door behind me.
My superacute raptor hearing couldn’t help registering his chuckles outside. Holding my head in my right hand, I muttered, “God help me.”
Too late for that, Max, said the Voice. Only you can help yourself now.
Oh, no.
The Voice was not connected to the chip. It was still inside my head.
Which made today’s total:
1) Useless left hand
2) Fang believing some mushy emotion I didn’t even mean
3) Voice still with us
Given these revolting developments, there was only one thing to do. Leaving my bandaged left arm outside the shower curtain, I sat in the tub with the water pouring down on my head and cried.
32
“I don’t think you should leave until your arm heals,” said Dr. Martinez, looking worried. “I’m saying that as a doctor, Max.”
“We’ve been gone too long as it is,” I said. “Besides, with our zippy recombinant healing powers, I should be fine, in, oh, about twenty minutes.”
She knew I was exaggerating, but she also knew me well enough to know that little things like healing up and common sense don’t usually affect my decisions.
“I don’t want you to go,” said Ella miserably. “Either of you.”
“I know,” I said. “But we have to. We’ve got to get back to our, uh, situation.”