“Hello, Max. Glad you could join us,” Dr. Williams said.
Frowning, I nodded and plopped down beside Dylan as jealous girls nearby prayed for my death. So I got sidetracked by the schmanciness of the bathrooms on the way here. Sue me.
The smelly chemicals were already getting to me (read: making me want to run away screaming), and I could tell they were also bothering Iggy, who was sitting a couple tables over. His face was drawn and even paler than usual.
Dr. Williams passed out packets of paper. “Today we’ll be doing our first hands-on lab assignment,” he said. “For some of you, this will be your first dissection. It’s a very simple one, but if anyone feels sick, the trash can is right here. Please try to make it.”
Dissection.
Oh, God.
I glanced down at my packet and my stomach dropped. Chicken Dissection Lab.
Of course. This was my life, after all—if something could conceivably get worse, then by golly, it would get worse. We couldn’t just dissect a frog, or an earthworm, or whatever. We had to dissect something with wings.
The other students chattered around me, their reactions ranging from excited to grossed out. Iggy, Dylan, and I were the only silent ones.
Dr. Williams began handing out plastic bags containing rubbery chicken carcasses. I fought back a wave of panic and nausea as I skimmed my info packet. Phrases like Count the number of primary feathers and Remove the heart and Examine the air sacs popped out at me.
Please, if there’s any justice at all in this screwed-up world, please don’t make me have a mental breakdown and start hyperventilating in front of my entire biology class.
Dr. Williams placed a plastic bag on our table, two feet from my nose. Dylan and I both stared at it, unwilling to touch it.
“Okay, folks,” Dr. Williams said merrily. “Get your goggles, your gloves, and your trays. The packet explains everything, but come to me if you have questions. Happy dissecting!”
20
I PUT ON my clear, dorktastic goggles automatically while Dylan fetched the dissecting tray. It was equipped with a scalpel, a small pair of scissors, three pokey, suspicious-looking tools, and a pair of tweezers.
“So,” I said, mentally smacking myself upside the head when my voice shook. “Ready to cut this thing open?”
“We can leave, if you want,” Dylan replied softly. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do.”
I clenched my teeth and pulled my shoulders back, shaking my head. “No. Normal people do dissection labs. And we’re normal people, remember?”
He nodded, his aquamarine eyes fixed on me.
I regretted my decision almost as soon as we set the chicken on the tray. It splayed out pathetically, headless and mostly featherless, with puckered pink skin. I felt the chill of goose bumps on my own flesh and shivered.
The chicken’s wings were small and had tiny tufts of down still stuck to them.
White down.
Like Angel’s.
“Step one,” Dylan read aloud. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Place chicken on its back. Grasp both legs and push down and away from the pelvis.”
In another time, I might have snickered immaturely at the word “pelvis.” But at that moment, all I could do was numbly follow the instructions, while trying to block smells and memories.
It was bred for this, I reminded myself, holding the scalpel. Inside a claustrophobic metal cage, it had been fed scraps. It had been genetically manipulated for a satisfactory amount of plumpness and complacency. It had been bred with a smaller brain, too; it was too stupid to see how trapped it was. To see that this is how it would end up, amid the glint of scalpels, the snick of blades sliding into flesh.
I was stuck in an in-between place, not sure whether I was in biology class or back at the School. Student voices and whitecoat voices bounced around in my mind.
Then Dr. Williams’s face materialized all up in my grill. “Max, Dylan, how’s it going so far?”
I nodded, trying to slow my breathing—I hadn’t realized I’d been hyperventilating. “I’m okay… really.” I looked up at his face, at the four wrinkles on his forehead, his almost calculating hazel eyes.
It was all somewhat… familiar.
Alarm bells went off in my head, wailing, Danger danger danger! My alarm bells were not to be taken lightly.
Was it possible that Dr. Williams was a whitecoat?
“Actually, I feel a bit sick,” I said brusquely. “Come on, Dylan. Iggy!”
Iggy twitched on his stool and turned in the direction of my voice.
“C’mon, Ig,” I repeated, ignoring Dylan’s curious glance. “Time to go.”
“Max, the boys seem fine,” Dr. Williams said. Concerned or threatening, concerned or threatening? It was a question I had to ask myself way too often.
“No, I feel sick, too,” Dylan said. Good boy.
Iggy wove through the maze of lab tables. “Gonna barf,” he informed Dr. Williams. “Gotta go.”
I strode toward the door, itching to hightail it out of there.
“Oh, no, you don’t, Maximum,” said Dr. Williams in a steely voice.
And here we go. I sighed.
I leaned forward onto the balls of my feet, ready to spring into action. Dylan moved ever so slightly, placing himself a bit in front of me and in a good fight position. I felt Iggy tense up. Tapping his forearm twice, I breathed, “Little over six feet. Bit of a belly. Dead center.” Nobody but Iggy—and maybe Dylan—would be able to hear me. Ig inclined his chin the tiniest bit. He understood.
Dr. Williams shuffled past the cardboard box of chicken bags to his desk, where he brought out some Post-its and started scribbling. I watched him the entire time. If he charged, I’d drag Iggy and Dylan to the left, roll over the empty lab table, and shoot out the door. If he yanked a gun out of his geeky teacher pants, we’d dive behind the table, chuck some scalpels for good luck, and then shoot out the door.
“So what’s the story, Doctor?” I asked Dr. Williams, crossing my arms. Everyone in the classroom was staring at us now. “Wait, I know—your plan is to make my life miserable? Or possibly destroy us?”
Dr. Williams smiled thinly. “What do you mean, Max? I just don’t want you to get in trouble for walking out of class.” He held out three hall passes.
Well, that was… unexpected. I narrowed my eyes at him, but he didn’t falter.
“Let’s go, boys.” I shrugged and took the passes, and we walked out of the classroom.
My alarm bells never stopped ringing.
21
“MAX’S LIFE IS in danger.”
Dylan’s breath quickened. Okay, now Dr. Williams had his attention.
“But you can keep her safe, Dylan. All you have to do is cooperate with us.”
After they’d fled the disastrous dissection lab, Dylan had realized that he’d left one of his textbooks behind, so he had gone back to get it.
Big mistake.
The other students were already gone, leaving only the biology teacher behind. Now Dylan was alone in the lab with him and the chicken carcasses, and it looked like he was, as Max would say, in deep, deep sneakers.
Dylan leaned against the table and frowned at the teacher. “What do you want?” he said in a hostile voice he hoped sounded as tough as Max’s. He fingered a scalpel that one of the other kids had left behind, but it didn’t make him feel any more secure.
Dr. Williams smiled, making wrinkles appear around his mouth. “I’m not your enemy, Dylan. I have vital information for you, straight from Dr. Gunther-Hagen himself.”