“You’re fine,” said Dr. G-H confidently. “By the way, do you realize that when Max was here earlier, Fang, she refused my offer to save your life?”
No. He tried to suck in a breath, but the pain in his chest was terrible, and he couldn’t move his muscles. His head fell back, and dimly he heard a beeping sound turn into a steady drone. From very far away, Fang heard Angel cry, “Oh, my God! Fang! Doctor Hans!”
77
ANGEL STARED at the heart monitor in horror. A minute ago, its fast, even spikes had showed Fang’s normal heart rate of a 140 beats per minute. Now it was a flat line.
Fang lay still on the bed, his good eye slightly open. Angel grabbed his hand.
“Fang! Fang! Wake up!”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen!” said Dr. Hans, looking upset. “This drug has been tested on many subjects!”
“But were they normal, to begin with?”
“Yes, mostly… .” Dr. Hans trailed off.
The drone of Fang’s monitor filled Angel’s head. She smacked her hand down on Fang’s bed, hard. “Do something!” she yelled at Dr. Hans. “You promised me he wouldn’t get hurt! You promised! Do something!”
“It’s too late!” said Dr. Hans. “What can I do?”
Whirling, Angel scanned the lab for a phone but spotted nothing. She sped out of the room and leaped up the steps. Still nothing. She raced outside onto the terrace, and once there, closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and pressed her fingers to her temples. Max, come, she thought as hard as she could. Come here now. Fang needs your help. Come now!
Her eyes popped open and she started scanning the sky, though she knew there was no way Max could be there yet. She didn’t even know if Max had heard her — she’d never tried to send a message that far before. There wasn’t time for her to fly to the safe house to get Max. All she could do was send thought messages.
Even though it was already too late.
78
MAX, COME. COME HERE NOW. Fang needs your help. Come now!
I froze, balanced on the balcony. I turned to Nudge.
“Did you hear that?”
Nudge shook her head.
“Got a message from Angel,” I said. “She said Fang needed my help and to come there now.”
“Fang is there?” Nudge asked, unfolding her wings, getting ready to jump off after me. “What happened?”
I paused for just a minute, thinking. I didn’t trust Angel, and I sure as heck didn’t trust Dr. Nightmare. But if Fang was there … if he really did need my help …
I jumped off the balcony, swearing, and rose into the air. “I can’t take the chance,” I told Nudge. “Angel alone — I might not go. But I can’t take the chance with Fang. I’m going.”
I decided to go into warp drive, leaving Nudge and the others, now clustered on the balcony, behind. Pressing my hands flat against the legs of my jeans, I aimed myself in the direction of Malibu. Then I just … shifted into overdrive. Within fifteen seconds, I was streaking through the sky at upward of 250 miles an hour. I’d be there in minutes.
One thing was certain: If something had happened to Fang, and it was Angel’s fault, we’d never be in the same flock again. I promised myself that much.
79
DOWN IN THE LAB, Dr. Hans was a blur of activity. He grabbed a hypodermic needle of something and shot it into Fang’s IV line. Angel held Fang’s hand, watching the machine tensely. Nothing happened.
“Blast!” Dr. Hans shouted. He dashed into the adjacent supply room.
Angel was in a deep state of shock. When her Voice had given her the premonition about Fang, she had just reported it. She hadn’t known why, when, or how it would happen. Somehow, she’d thought that telling Max and the others would help it not come true.
Then Dylan had shown up, seeming like the perfect answer: The Voice had said that the best way for everyone to survive was to split the flock up, have two flocks. Max could have Dylan, and Fang could join forces with Angel. Angel would be the leader of her flock, and Fang would be second in command. Having Max and Fang in the same flock was overkill.
Dr. Hans had promised that if Fang came here, everything would be perfect. Then his goons had beaten Fang up, and Dr. Hans had started the IV drip into Fang’s arm, telling Angel that Fang was on his way to becoming the most ultimate Fang possible. Lies.
Angel’s back straightened — she felt Max coming. Quietly she left Fang’s side and went to unlock the lab door. She glanced around but didn’t see Dr. Hans’s security team. Then she sat again at Fang’s side and picked up his hand.
Was she imagining it, or was Fang’s hand already becoming cold?
80
I DROPPED DOWN onto the terrace like a bird of prey. As soon as my sneakers thunked onto solid ground, I raced along the terrace until I saw an open door. I rushed through it and immediately down some steps. Somehow, I had seen these steps in the message Angel had sent me — I knew just where to go.
“Fang! Angel?” I yelled, not even trying for stealth. I was storming the castle, not stealing the jewels.
Then through a vast maze of lab tables, metal and glass shelving, gurneys, and all kinds of medical equipment, I saw Fang in a hospital bed, looking beat up, bruised. Way too still and way too pale. Then Angel, rising slowly from beside him like a zombie from the grave and drifting slowly toward me.
“Max, I …”
“Angel! What the —” I sprinted across the lab to Fang’s side.
I grabbed his hand. It was cold. unbelievably cold. One eye was open slightly, unseeing.
Fang will be the first to —
I couldn’t let myself think it. I couldn’t. But he really looked … He felt …
Just then Dr. Gunther-Hagen appeared from a side room holding some medical supplies. “I see you now regret your decision, Max.”
I snarled at the doctor, “What in the name of God happened, you butcher? He looks like he went through a wood chipper!”
“He had a bad reaction to a sedative,” said the doctor stiffly. “He was injured.”
The solid drone of an alarm sank into my brain, and my gaze snapped to the machinery next to the bed. There was no heartbeat registering.
“He’s flatlining!” I shrieked, and grabbed Dr. Hans by the front of his jacket. “Fix him!”
“Why are you so surprised, Max? Your insistence upon being with Fang above all else — well, I warned you quite clearly that no good would come of it. You had the chance to protect all of the ones you love.”
Had he killed Fang? Could he have possibly …?
“There’s nothing anyone can do. It’s too late. I’m sorry.”
He had killed Fang. That sentence made absolutely zero sense to me. It simply did not compute. I shoved the doctor away and turned to Fang.
I wanted to shake Fang’s shoulders, splash cold water on his face, tug on his hair. I stared at him. The parts of his face that weren’t purple and bruised were not … life colored.
It just didn’t make sense.
A remote part of my consciousness registered that the rest of the flock had arrived, were slamming through the lab door. I couldn’t even look up. Fang’s hand was limp and cold in mine. My brain hadn’t kicked into gear yet, had frozen at the entry of the unthinkable thought.
Fang — after everything we’d been through — was …
Gone?
81
THAT SMALL PART of my mind that was still functioning finally made me look up and catch sight of the flock rushing in just as the lab security team flooded the room from another doorway.
The unfriendly familiar face of our old nemesis, Mr. Chu, shocked me out of my daze for a moment.
“Take ’em out!” I screeched. “Show no mercy!”
“On it!” Iggy shouted. Even though they knew I couldn’t leave Fang’s side, I’d never seen the flock look so confident and determined. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we were in a lab, and we knew our way around labs.
Bu
t then again, so did these guys.
Iggy immediately flew across the room, swiping glass jars and tubes off shelves and tables and then knocking over as many freestanding shelves as he could.
The instant hurricane of thunderous chaos gave the flock an advantage. By the time the men had chosen their targets, the kids had spread to all corners of the room. Grown-ups just think too much.
“Skateboard!” Iggy called to Gazzy. The Gasman used his wings to propel himself toward the high ceiling and grabbed the pipes running across the length of the room. Swinging off like a trapeze artist, he landed on a gurney and went zooming across the lab, knocking over two guards as he went.
Then, an encore performance: Gazzy gurney-boarded back the other way, over the two dazed guards. But this time, the gurney flipped as it caught one of the guards’ heads.
Gazzy went flying as though he’d been launched from a cannon, but it was a good shot. He knocked another guard down before he hit the floor.
Nudge had grabbed a metal IV stand and was spinning around with it like a wild whirling dervish. It smashed into a guard’s face and he went down, but not a second later, Nudge took a hard punch to the side of her face from another man, her skin splitting under the impact.
The flock’s never been shy about using crotch blows, and with a roar, Nudge nailed her assailant, who dropped like a sack of dog food.
“Sorry,” Nudge said, kicking him in the head to knock him out. Then she and Iggy wasted no time rolling him and the other man into nearby empty extralarge lab animal crates.
“Justice!” Nudge cried, slamming a door shut.
There were five guards down, but several to go. Mr. Chu and Dr. Hans were still on the loose as well. It could have easily been a lost battle without the secret weapon. Dylan.
The youngest but most powerful bird kid held nothing back as he took out one attacker after another. He was coldly furious and determined — almost scary. Everything about his quiet, easygoing demeanor had disappeared. Now his fists slammed into faces, he spun into kicks that had taken us years to master. His blows knocked grown men off their feet; his roundhouse kick shot a guard eight feet back, into a wall.
Total had been right: He was a fighting machine.
Meanwhile, Dr. Hans was watching everything from a safe corner, a scientist unemotionally observing his lab animals. But no one had noticed that Angel was missing from the fray. She now dashed out of the supply room clutching six or seven different-sized containers.
“Gazzy! What’s good here?” It was flock shorthand for: Is there anything you can make blow up here?
Gazzy had just recovered from his cannon-fire episode. He ran over and scanned faster than a computer. “No explosives, but there’s some pretty acidic stuff,” he determined, pulling three canisters aside. “Some of this is gonna hurt super bad.”
“Not so fast, children.” The impeccably dressed Mr. Chu — who’d been cowering under a lab table to avoid the fight, or to avoid ruining his suit — now appeared at their side.
“Chu!” Gazzy gasped.
“You know a lot about toxic chemicals, if I remember, sir,” Angel said, stalling. “Maybe you can help us.”
At that moment, with a perfect swan dive from the suspended pipes, Iggy crashed into Mr. Chu, knocking him onto the floor. The breath left Mr. Chu’s body in a sharp oof! Iggy got his hands around Mr. Chu’s neck and started twisting.
“Oh, my God!” Gazzy shouted a few seconds later. Angel’s mouth was open in horror.
Mr. Chu’s face had come off in Iggy’s hands, and Iggy was now holding it like a huge, disgusting face glove.
“What happened?” Iggy cried.
Nudge hurried to his side. There, on the ground, with Mr. Chu’s body, was the head of a … freak? His boyish, round face was flat, green, and scaly, and he had a kid’s wide eyes.
“Jeezum pete,” Nudge breathed.
“Don’t kill me,” pleaded the freak.
“Let Robert up,” ordered Dr. Death from the corner.
“Robert?” Iggy almost shrieked. “He’s green!”
“Watch it, guys!” Dylan warned. Some of the men who’d been down earlier were back up and staggering toward them. They moved just slowly enough to allow Angel, Nudge, and Gazzy to pry open the containers and start dousing the men with chemical agents that kids should never have access to.
“Incapacitate them,” Dylan ordered, catching his breath. “I’ve got to get the doctor.”
82
THE FIGHT UNFOLDED like background noise. White noise. In the foreground, even with his ghastly pale face looking dead in my hands, my fingers clenching his ragged hair, all I could see was random images of Fang, not dead.
Fang telling me stupid fart jokes from the dog crate next to mine at the School, trying to make me laugh.
Fang asleep at Jeb’s old house, and me jumping wildly on his bed to wake him up. Him pretending to be asleep. Me laughing when I “accidentally” kicked him where it counts. Him dumping me off the bed.
Fang gagging on my first attempt at cooking dinner after Jeb disappeared. Him spitting out the mac and cheese. Me dumping the rest of the bowl on him in response.
Fang on the beach, that first time he was badly injured. Me realizing how I felt about him.
Fang kissing me. So close I couldn’t even see his dark eyes anymore. The first time. The second time. The third.
I could remember each and every one of them. Would always remember them.
Fang.
Not.
Dead.
83
THEN A COUPLE of my nerves started firing again, and my muscles unfroze.
“Fang! Come back!” I started pulling his hair. Shaking his head and shoulders. Hard. “Wake up! Snap out of it! You stupid jerk! I am going to kill you if you die on me!”
I put my mouth up to his ear. “Did you hear me?” I was yelling right into it. “Dying is not on the agenda! Not part of my plan!”
That wasn’t working. I pounded on his chest. “Get up! After everything we’ve been through, are you going to give up now? Are you that much of a wuss? We need you, you butthead! I need you. I — I love you, Fang.”
I was choking on dry sobs now. “Did you hear that?
Why I didn’t I tell you before? You can’t die before I tell you that. You can’t!”
Gulping, I looked around wildly, as if I would see something marked “Second chances. use sparingly.” All I saw were a bunch of unconscious guards, bloody bird kids, and a lizard boy.
And a large hypodermic needle, on the stand holding medical equipment next to Fang’s bed. The tube was marked “Adrenaline. Dangerous.”
I reached for it. I had seen this movie once —
“I tried that!” said Dr. Disaster, who was tightly in Dylan’s grip. “Don’t you think I tried that? I shot it into his IV! It did nothing!”
In a split second I grabbed the hypo, whirled, and sank the needle deep into Fang’s chest, directly into his heart. I pressed the plunger home, emptying its entire contents. If he had any chance at all, this was it. And if it wouldn’t save his life, then it would surely end it once and for all, right now.
Being a leader means you have to make life-or-death decisions sometimes. And I made this one.
84
TIME BECAME ELASTIC, stretching out endlessly. Each second seemed to take hours. Everyone was moving in slow motion, all blurry, all dreamy. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I got an impression of Iggy and Gazzy holding Robert down, trying to pull off his new head, without success. I saw Nudge and Angel hugging. Angel was crying.
One by one they turned to look at me and Fang, concern and pain on their faces.
I looked down at Fang, at that smooth, tan place on his neck where his pulse should have been beating. I squeezed his cold hand hard, willing him to squeeze back. I dropped my head to his chest and closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see the machine flatlining in front of me.
Fang, come on, I thought. You promis
ed you would never leave me. You promised. I gulped again, hearing nothing, feeling nothing under my ear. This can’t be, can’t be, can’t be… . Oh, God, help me, help me… .
My mind was starting to completely shut down in order not to feel this pain, when I heard a beep.
Then another beep.
Then I felt Fang’s chest rise as he gasped in a breath, and I felt his heart beat, right under my cheek.
I bolted upright, staring at his face. His mouth opened. His good eye widened. I grabbed his hand in both of mine and clasped it hard against my chest. I couldn’t say anything, could only stare at that poor, battered face I loved so much.
Fang blinked hazily and breathed in again. His gaze fell on me, and I must have looked wild with panic and misery.
“Fang?” I gasped.
He blinked, tried to swallow. “ ‘Ssup?” he said groggily.
I’m pretty much of the stoical school of emotiveness, but everything I was feeling burst through me like a flood through a dam. I dropped my head back onto his chest, my arms around him, and sobbed.
85
“LET ME GO! I command you!” I heard Dr. Gunther-Hagen shout. “Have you lost your mind? Have you forgotten who I am?” I looked around and saw Dylan, flecked with blood and sporting a black eye, grasping the doctor from behind. He was staring at the doctor with fury, even hatred.
“I think you’ve forgotten who I am,” Dylan countered. “That is, not a robot. Someone with a mind of his own.”
“But you — you owe me your life!” Dr. G-H stammered.
“I’m not sure I want this life,” Dylan said sadly. And he looked at me and Fang.
The doctor’s eyes got even wider as he became fully aware of Fang’s regained consciousness. “This doesn’t make sense!”
“You don’t make sense!” I bit out through my tears. “We’re not just test subjects! We’re not just for experimenting! You people never learn!”