“What kind of weird thoughts?” Dylan asked.
“It’s more like pictures, like dreams, sort of,” Angel tried to explain. “But as soon as I try to follow one thing, it slips away.”
“Kill the humans!” Iggy yelled.
“Those kind of weird thoughts, apparently,” I said. “He’s just too way out right now. In the movies, they always throw people in cold showers to make them calm down. Think that’d work?”
Angel gave me a look. “Max, when has Iggy ever been docile about taking a shower?” She had a point, but it was worth a shot anyway. We didn’t exactly have a backup plan.
It wasn’t pretty. It took all three of us to get Iggy into the tub and turn on the cold water. Then Iggy went haywire. He bolted like a wild horse and tried to leap out. Dylan and I grabbed him, using all our strength to wrestle him back under the shower.
“What are you doing?” Iggy wailed in a voice I’d never heard before, as if the water were acid. “What are you doing?”
He seemed terrified, but the three of us fought to hold him under the shower while he thrashed around.
“Stop! Stop!” Iggy yelled, tears running down his cheeks. He was drenched, like the rest of us, his reddish-blond hair flopping to one side. Tiny water droplets clung to his eyelashes, and his cheeks were flushed. “What’s happening?!”
“I don’t know!” I shouted.
“You’re killing me!” Iggy shrieked, hardly sounding human. He writhed and moaned, wrenching his body back and forth.
“I’m dying!” Iggy wailed, his hands clawing at the side of the tub. “I’m dying!!”
I was seriously freaked. I mean, all the kids hated taking showers, but I’d never seen anything like this.
Then Iggy suddenly slumped down in the tub, his eyes closed.
“Oh, my God!” I panicked. “Turn it to warm water, Dylan—now!”
“I’m getting in,” Angel whispered as the water temperature rose. “Lines of communication are opening up, and if I work at these crazy knots of death thoughts, I can break through to him. He’s still freaking out, but there doesn’t seem to be the same level of resistance.”
Then he twitched.
“Iggy…” I held my breath.
He blinked slowly and shook the water out of his eyes.
“What… what are you doing?” he asked, sounding kind of groggy. Groggy… a lot like the old Iggy.
My eyes brightened, and Dylan and Angel and I all exchanged hopeful glances.
“Iggy?” I asked again.
“Yeah?” He blinked, wiping his face with one hand. “What are you guys doing? If you wanted me to take a shower, all you had to do was pay me ten bucks, like you usually do.” He ran one hand through his hair, making it stand up in wet peaks.
I let out a deep breath and looked at Angeclass="underline" her face was beaming. She looked at me and nodded—his thoughts were back to normal.
“So what’s going on?” he demanded, sitting up a bit.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Like a wet dog,” he answered irritably. “What’s wrong with you guys?”
39
“I WON’T DO IT,” Star said.
“Then I guess this whole trust exercise has failed,” Fang said mildly. The gang had fun together earlier—he’d forgotten how simultaneously repulsive and delicious Cheez Whiz could be—but within minutes they were all at each other’s throats again.
Max used to threaten and bully people into working together. But that approach quit having the desired effect long before Fang had left. He needed to do something different, something better.
So, he Googled “team building.” Which, he discovered, really meant a rousing little game of Never Have I Ever.
“I don’t even know how to play,” Holden Squibb complained.
Ratchet cackled. “That’s ’cause you’re a baby, Starfish, even if you can regenerate limbs and stuff. What are you, like, twelve?” Holden glared at Ratchet.
“Cut it out, guys,” Fang said. “Look, we’re six really different people. But we need to work together as a team, or we’ll all end up dead.” The surprise on their faces made Fang think that maybe the word dead was a bit too strong. But he knew what he had said could possibly be true.
“All you have to do is say ‘Never have I ever…’ and fill in the blank. Then anyone in the group who’s done it has to raise their hand, including you, if you’ve actually done it. If you want to reveal something about yourself, say something you’ve done. If you don’t want to reveal anything personal, say something that you think someone else in the group might’ve done. Cool?” Fang sighed. He felt like a camp counselor or something. It was exhausting.
But to his surprise, everyone formed a circle, even if they did roll their eyes.
“Great. I’ll start,” Fang said. He sure hated being the leader all the time. Why did Angel always want this job so much? he wondered. “Never have I ever… played a team-building game as stupid as this before.” Maya smiled, but everyone else’s eyes shot daggers at him as he raised his hand.
“Never have I ever… gotten mistaken for a ten-year-old when I was almost fifteen,” Ratchet said, and no one budged.
Star shoved Holden into the center of the circle. “I think that’s you, squirt.”
“Never have I ever… owned a designer bag,” Holden quipped in response, and Star glared, raising her hand.
Fang made himself count backward from twenty by threes.
“Never have I ever… had Cheez Whiz up my nose, in my hair, and between my toes at the same time,” Maya said. Everyone laughed, and they all shot up their hands.
“Never have I ever… played down my strength so no one would look at me funny,” Kate said, holding up her hand.
“Never have I ever… been seriously hungry all day every day because I can’t get enough calories to sustain energy,” Star said, raising her hand along with Fang and Maya.
“Never have I ever… accidentally chopped off my finger and watched it grow back,” Holden said, and mimed hacking his finger off, resulting in a few chuckles and a cry of “Yeah, Starfish!” from Ratchet.
Maya spoke up, her eyes shining at Fang from across the circle. “Never have I ever… felt the wind whip through my hair as I soared twenty thousand feet up with only my wings to carry me.” They both raised their hands.
“Never have I ever… been thrown out of my house for being a freak,” Ratchet said quietly and raised his hand. Across the room, Star raised her hand too, and they stood like that for a few seconds, just looking at each other.
“Never have I ever… been injected with hypodermic needles and locked in a cage,” Fang said. Every single hand went up, and as they looked around the room, everyone seemed to really get each other for the first time. They had all been abused, and they all needed the same help.
“Never have I ever… received a message telling me that I had to help save the world,” Maya said, staring deeply into Fang’s eyes. He looked back at her, and she nodded almost imperceptibly. His hand slowly went up.
No one, not even Max, knows about that…. He felt a faint shiver run down his spine.
“So… you want to do something about the Doomsday Group, or what?” Holden asked.
Fang nodded. “I read that they’re holding a big rally in San Diego, starting tomorrow,” Fang said. “It’ll be at Comic-Con, that huge convention. I don’t know how the DG will fit in with that, but I think it’s the first thing we should check out.”
“If it means we can get to the butchers who experimented on us, who cut us up, I’m all for it,” Kate said.