Let's just say I was stunned, and it takes a fair amount to stun me, I promise you.
My jaw dropped open as I stared at Fang's grim face, and only the certainty that I would start eating bugs any second made me shut it again.
I'm not the leader for nothing. I mean, I'm the oldest, but I'm the leader because I'm smart, strong, fast, and determined. I'm willing to be the leader. I'm the decision maker. And now, with typical leaderly incisiveness, I put two and six together and came up with one single question that would get right to the crucial heart of the matter.
"Whaaat?"
"I found the picture in Dr. Martinez's home office," Fang began again, but I waved at him to be quiet.
"You searched her office?" I had never thought to do that. Not the first time, not this time.
His face was impassive. "I needed a paper clip."
"She had books on combining DNA?"
"And birds."
"She's a vet."
"Fine, she's a vet. But avian anatomy, plus recombinant-DNA theory, plus the picture of the Gasman..."
"Oh, God, I can't think," I muttered, putting my hand to my head.
Everything's part of the big picture, Max, the Voice helpfully supplied. All you have to do is put the pieces together.
Fortune cookie crap like that didn't do a thing for me. I mean, I could have gotten that anywhere, without having a freaking Voice in my head.
"Oh, really?" I snarled. "I just have to put the pieces together? Excellent! Thanks for the great tip! Wish you'd told me earlier, you-"
I realized I was talking out loud and shut up.
I didn't know what to think. And Fang was the only one I could admit that to. Any of the other kids, and I would've made something up to cover the truth.
I shook my head. "I don't know what the deal is. I know she's helped me, not once but twice."
Fang didn't say anything, in that annoying way of his.
We were practically to the canyon where we'd left the flock. I searched the area but didn't see any telltale sign of smoke from their fire. Which meant they were being smart for once, lying low, they were...
Fang and I dropped down into the canyon, but we already knew. We knew from two hundred feet up. I didn't need to touch the burned-out ashes or look around for clues, though I did, of course.
It was all horribly, sickeningly clear: The flock hadn't been here in a couple of days. The scraped canyon floor showed they'd been taken by force.
While I'd been happily stuffing my face with homemade chocolate-chip cookies, my friends had been getting captured, with all that that implied.
I dropped my head into my hand, holding up my left arm uselessly.
"Crap."
Massive understatement.
35
When Nudge finally opened her eyes, the truck was moving. She couldn't remember the last several hours, so she figured she'd been asleep.
Squirming around, she saw Gazzy and Iggy lying with their eyes closed, maybe sleeping. Even Total seemed worn out, lying on his side, not even panting.
Angel was gone. Max and Fang had no idea where they were or what had happened. Iggy seemed to have given up.
The Gasman hadn't said it, but Nudge knew he was more scared than he'd admit. Dried tear tracks streaked his dirty cheeks, making him look younger and more helpless than she'd ever seen him.
By moving slightly, Nudge could see five Flyboys sitting near the front of the truck, their backs against the truck walls. From here they looked almost like regular Erasers, but there was something slightly different about them. Basically, they were metallic robots with a thin Eraser skin over their frames. Their fur wasn't as thick. And they never morphed into looking semihuman-they stayed in wolf form all the time.
Nudge closed her eyes again, weary and aching all over, too tired to think. They needed a plan. Everything just seemed so overwhelming and scary.
The truck shuddered to a halt, the screech of the brakes hurting Nudge's ears. Then the ride grew very choppy, as if they had veered off the road and were rolling on dirt now. Ow, ow, ow, Nudge thought, biting her lip to keep from crying out. Gazzy and Iggy groggily opened their eyes, and Total stirred.
"I hope this is a potty break," he muttered.
There was shouting outside. The three bird kids struggled to sit up, their hands still duct-taped behind them.
The two back doors of the truck were thrown open with heavy, brain-rattling bangs. Sunlight flooding in made them blink and turn their heads away. The Flyboys in the truck with them strode to the opening.
There was more shouting, raised voices from the front of the truck. Nudge saw nothing outside except a long, empty dirt road with low brush lining it. No buildings, no electricity wires. No one around to help them. Nowhere to run to. Their wings had been bound flat against their backs.
"What's happening?" Iggy's whisper was barely audible, but a Flyboy kicked him.
"Shut up!" it growled, sounding like a recorded phone message.
Nudge heard many feet walking quickly toward the back of the truck. She braced for whatever was going to happen next.
Which no one ever could have predicted in a million years.
An overwhelming clump of Flyboys surrounded the back of the truck, furry faces frozen into identical sneers. Nudge swallowed, pretending to be braver than she was.
The crowd shifted restlessly, and Nudge saw that it was parting to let someone through. Max? Her heart jumped at the possibility. Even Max trussed up, in bad shape, thrown into the truck with them, would be fabulous, such a welcome-
It was Jeb!
Nudge felt a twinge around her heart as she looked at the face that had formed so much of her childhood. Jeb had rescued them. Then he'd died-or they'd thought he was dead. Then he had shown up again, clearly one of Them. Nudge knew that Max hated him now. So Nudge hated him too.
Her eyes narrowed.
From behind Jeb an Eraser, a real Eraser, stepped out to stand next to him. It was Ari! Ari, who had also been dead and then not really. Ari was the only real Eraser they'd seen in days and days.
Nudge put a bored expression on her face like she'd seen Max and Fang do a thousand times. Yeah, yeah, Jeb and Ari, she thought. Show me something new.
Someone else stepped out from behind Ari.
Nudge's eyes widened, and her breath seized in her throat. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Instead her lips silently formed one word: Angel.
Nudge searched Angel's blue eyes, but they seemed like a total stranger's. Nudge had never seen her like this.
"Angel!" Gazzy's face looked happy but at the same time concerned.
"Angel?" Nudge finally spoke, fear trickling like ice water down her neck.
"Time to die," Angel said in her sweet little-girl voice.
36
"This is too easy," Fang muttered, frowning at the ground two thousand feet below us.
"I was thinking the same thing. They did everything except leave gigundo yellow arrows saying This way, folks!"
We'd flown in a mammoth circle and had picked up tire tracks within an hour. It looked like a big truck, lots of wheels, and it had left desert sand on the highway for almost half a mile. We couldn't think of any other reason a truck would have been hidden off-road and then driven out. Unless it belonged to, like, cactus poachers. Sand collectors. A movie crew.
This being the middle of Freaking Nowhere, USA, there was only the one road for miles and miles. So, one road with clear tire marks headed in one direction. Gee, obvious much?
"And we're falling for this because of our sudden, unexpected regression into unbelievable stupidity?" I said.
Fang nodded grimly. "We're falling for it because we've got no other choice."
"Oh, yeah. That."
Three hours of fast flight later, we saw them: an eighteen-wheeled semi parked off the road in perhaps the most desolate, unpopulated spot in all of Arizona. You could not call 911 from here. You could not run for help. You could send off a flare every half hour for days and not be seen by anyone.