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.