Nodding, Fang said slowly, "You know what it reminds me of? Like when there's a storm coming, and all the animals somehow know to disappear. All of a sudden there's no birds, no noises. And you look up, and there's a twister headed right for you."
I frowned. "You think the Erasers aren't here because they're fleeing before an impending disaster?"
"Um, yeah," he said.
I leaned back against my tree, searching the sky again. Even ten miles outside of Dallas, the city lights dimmed the stars. I didn't know the answers. Suddenly I felt like I didn't know anything at all. The only certainty in my life was these five kids around me. They were the only things I was sure of, the only things I could trust.
"Go to sleep," said Fang. "I'll take the watch. I want to check on my blog anyway."
My eyes drifted shut as he pulled the laptop out of his bag.
4
"Fans still hanging on your every word?" Max asked sleepily some time later.
Fang looked up from his blog. He didn't know how much time had passed. The slightest tint of pink on the horizon made the rest of the world seem blacker somehow. But he could clearly see every freckle on Max's tired face.
"Yep," he said. Max shook her head, then relaxed into the crook of a large branch. Her eyes drifted shut again, but he knew she wasn't yet asleep-her muscles were still tight, her body still stiff.
It was hard for her to relax her guard. Hard for her to relax period. She had a lot to carry on those genetically enhanced shoulders, and all in all, she did a dang good job.
But no one was perfect.
Fang looked down at the screen he'd flipped off when Max had leaned closer. He thumbed the trackball, and the screen glowed to life again.
His blog was attracting more and more attention-word was spreading. In just the past three days, he'd gone from twenty hits to more than a thousand. A thousand people were reading what he wrote, and probably even more would tomorrow.
Thank God for spell-check.
But the message on the screen now was particularly odd. He couldn't reply to it, couldn't trace it, couldn't even delete it without its mysteriously reappearing moments later.
He'd gotten one just like it yesterday. Now he reread the new one, trying to decipher where it came from, what it meant. Looking up, Fang glanced at the flock, now all sleeping in various nearby trees. It was growing lighter with every second, and Fang was pretty whipped himself.
Iggy was slung across two branches, wings half unfolded, mouth open, one leg twitching slightly.
Nudge and Angel had curled up close to each other in the crooks of wide live oak limbs.
Total was nestled on Angel's lap, one of her hands holding him protectively in place. Fang bet it was incredibly warm with that furry heat source snoozing on her.
The Gasman was tucked almost invisibly into a large hole made by long-ago lightning. He looked younger than eight, dirty, pale with exhaustion.
And then Max. She was sleeping lightly, characteristically frowning as she dreamed. As he watched, one of her hands coiled into a fist, and she shifted on her branch.
Again Fang looked down at the screen, at the message just like the one he'd received yesterday.
One of you is a traitor, it read. One of the flock has gone bad.
5
We'd never been to Dallas before, and the next day, we decided to visit the John F. Kennedy memorial, as part of our "Highlights of Texas" tour. Or at least the other kids had decided, and they had outvoted me and my wacky "lie low" suggestion.
Now we wandered around the outdoor site, and I have to tell you, I could have used a couple of explanatory plaques.
"This thing is going to fall on our heads any second," Total said, examining the four walls towering over us and looking around suspiciously.
"It doesn't say anything about President Kennedy," the Gasman complained.
"I guess you're supposed to know already when you come here," Iggy said.
"He was a president," Nudge said, trailing one tan hand along the smooth cement. "And he got killed. I think he was supposed to be a good president."
"I still think there was a second shooter." Total sniffed and flopped on the grass.
"Can we go now?" I asked. "Before a busload of schoolkids comes on a field trip?"
"Yeah," said Iggy. "But what now? Let's do something fun."
I guess being on the run from bloodthirsty Erasers and insane scientists wasn't enough fun for him. Kids today are so spoiled.
"There's a cowgirl museum," said Nudge. How did she know this? No clue.
Fang opened his laptop to a Dallas tourist site.
"There's a big art museum," he said, with no convincing enthusiasm. "And an aquarium."
Angel sat patiently on the ground, smoothing her teddy bear Celeste's increasingly bedraggled fur. "Let's go to the cowgirl museum," she said.
I bit my lip. Why couldn't we just get out of here, go hide someplace, take the time to figure everything out? Why was I the only one who seemed to feel a pressing need to know what the heck was going on?
"Football game," said Fang.
"What?" Iggy asked, his face brightening.
"Football game tonight, Texas Stadium." Fang snapped the laptop shut and stood. "I think we should go."
I stared at him. "Are you nuts? We can't go to a football game!" I said with my usual delicacy and tact. "Being surrounded, crowded, by tens of thousands of people, trapped inside, cameras everywhere-God, it's a freaking nightmare just thinking about it!"
"Texas Stadium is open to the sky," Fang said firmly. "The Cowboys are playing the Chicago Bears."
"And we'll be there!" Iggy cheered, punching the air.
"Fang, can I talk to you privately for a second?" I asked tersely, motioning him out of the memorial.
We stepped through an opening in the cement wall and moved a couple yards away. I put my hands on my hips. "Since when are you calling the shots?" I demanded. "We can't go to a football game! There's going to be cameras everywhere. What are you thinking?"
Fang looked at me seriously, his eyes unreadable. "One, it's going to be an awesome game. Two, we're seizing life by the tail. Three, yeah, there's going to be cameras everywhere. We'll be spotted. The School and the Institute and Jeb and the rest of the whitecoats probably have feeds tapping every public camera. So they'll know where we are."
I was furious and didn't know what to think. "Funny, you didn't look insane when you got up this morning."
"They'll know where we are and they'll come after us," Fang said grimly. "Then we'll know where the tornado is."
Comprehension finally dawned. "You want to draw them out."
"I can't take not knowing," he said quietly.
I weighed Fang's sanity against my determination to remain the leader. Finally I sighed and nodded. "Okay, I get it. One major firefight, coming right up. But you so owe me. I mean, my God, football!"
6
This may surprise you, but people in Texas are very into their contact sports. I saw more than one infant wearing a Cowboys onesie.
I was wound tighter than a choke chain on a rottweiler, hating everything about being here. The Texas Stadium was, shock, Texas size, and we were surrounded by more than sixty thousand popcorn-munching opportunities to go postal.
Nudge was eating blue cotton candy, her eyes like Frisbees, looking at everything. "I want big hair!" she said excitedly, tugging on my shirt.
"I blame you," I told Fang, and he almost smiled.