Drawing back, gasping, I took stock of the situation. The few remaining Erasers were falling back, retreating. Below, I saw a white splash as an Eraser hit the ocean. That had to hurt.
Now it was just Ari against us. He looked around, then fell back as well, closer to his squad.
The six of us slowly regrouped as Ari began to fly clumsily away, his enormous wings working hard to keep his heavy body aloft. His squad surrounded him, a bunch of huge, hairy crows gone wrong.
"We'll be back!" he snarled.
It was really Ari's voice.
"Boy, you just can't kill people like you used to," said Fang.
7
We hovered in place for several minutes, waiting to see if there would be a second attack. For the moment, we seemed in the clear, and I took the time to catalogue our injuries. Fang was flying awkwardly, his arm pressed against his side.
"I'm fine," he said curtly, noticing me watching him.
"Angel? Gazzy? Nudge? Report," I said.
"Leg hurts, but I'm okay," said the Gasman.
"I'm fine," said Angel. "And so are Total and Celeste." Celeste was the small angel-dressed stuffed bear Angel had-well, let's say-been given at a toy store in New York.
"I'm okay," said Nudge, but she sounded whipped.
"My nose," said Iggy, pressing it hard to stop the bleeding. "But no biggie."
"Okay, then," I said. "We're almost to DC, and it should be easy to get lost in another big city. We good to go?"
Everyone nodded, and we swung in a tight, graceful arc to return to our flight path.
"So... what was with the flying Erasers?" Iggy said a few minutes later.
"I'm guessing a new prototype," I said. "But, man, they're failures. They were having a hard time flying and fighting at the same time."
"Like they'd just learned to fly, you know?" said Nudge. "I mean, compared to hawks, we look clumsy. But compared to those Erasers, we're, like, poetry in motion."
I smiled at Nudge's description, silently checking out my own aches and pains.
"They were bad fliers," Angel chimed in. "And in their minds, they weren't all Kill the mutants, like they usually are. They were like, Remember to flap!"
I laughed at her imitation of a deep, growly Eraser voice. "Did you pick up on anything else, Angel?" I asked.
"You mean besides dead Ari showing up?" Gazzy said, sounding bummed.
"Yeah," I said. Just then I caught a warm updraft and coasted for a minute, enjoying a feeling of pure bliss.
"Well, none of them really felt familiar," said Angel, thinking.
Having a six-year-old mind reader came in handy. Sometimes I wished Angel's mind reads were a little more specific, or that they'd come when we wanted. Then maybe she'd be able to warn us that an Eraser was about to drop in and say hi. But sometimes she just gave me the willies. Angel was starting to control people with her mind-not just Erasers-and I wasn't sure when she was crossing the line into, say, witchcraft, for instance.
A while later, I realized that Fang wasn't beside me and I looked around to see him below, maybe twenty feet back. He'd been silent, not unusual for him, but now I could see that his flying was ragged and off-balance. His face seemed paler, and his lips were pressed tightly together.
I dropped back and swooped down next to him.
"What's going on?" I said in my no-nonsense tone. It had never worked on him before, but a girl had to keep trying.
"Nothing," he said, but that one word was tight and strained. Which meant he was lying through his teeth.
"Fang-," I began, and then saw that the arm pressed against his side was dark and wet. Blood. "Your arm!"
"'S not my arm," he muttered. Then his eyes fluttered shut and he started to lose altitude fast.
Really fast.
8
"Iggy!" I yelled, as cold panic ripped right through me. Not Fang. Please let Fang be okay. "Over here!"
Then Iggy and I flew beneath Fang, supporting him. I felt Fang's dead weight on me, saw his closed eyes, and suddenly I felt as if I couldn't breathe.
"Let's land, see what's wrong!" I told Iggy, and he nodded.
We flew hard toward the narrow, rocky shore edging the black ocean. Iggy and I landed awkwardly, Fang limp between us. The younger kids scurried over to help us carry him to a flattish, sandier place.
Stop the bleeding, said the Voice.
"What's the matter with him?" Nudge asked, dropping to her knees next to Fang.
Checking him out, I saw that Fang's shirt and jacket were soaked with blood, the dark fabric gleaming wetly. I tried to keep my face calm.
"Let's just see what we're dealing with here," I said steadily, and quickly unbuttoned Fang's shirt.
Now I saw that the shirt was shredded, and beneath it, so was Fang. Ari had managed to do this... obscenity.
Nudge drew in a quick gasp when she saw the damage, and I looked up. "Nudge, you and Gazzy and Angel rip up a shirt or something. Make strips for bandages."
Nudge just stared at Fang.
"Nudge!" I said more firmly, and she snapped out of it.
"Uh, yeah. Come on, guys. I have an extra shirt here... an' I got a knife..."
The three younger kids moved away while Iggy's sensitive hands brushed Fang's skin like butterflies.
"This feels real bad. Real bad," Iggy said in low voice. "How much blood has he lost?"
"A lot," I said grimly. Even his jeans were soaked with it.
"Jus' a scratch," Fang said fuzzily, his eyelids fluttering.
"Shhh!" I hissed at him. "You should have told us you were hurt!"
Stop the bleeding, the Voice said again.
"How?" I cried in frustration.
"How what?" Iggy asked, and I shook my head impatiently.
Put pressure on it, said the Voice. Press the cloth over it and lean on the wounds with both hands. Elevate his feet, Max.
"Iggy," I said, "lift Fang's feet. Guys, you got those strips ready?"
The Gasman handed me a bunch, and I quickly folded them into a pad. Placing it over the gaping slices in Fang's stomach was like putting my finger in a dike to stop a flood, but it was all I had, so I did it. I pressed both my hands over the pad, trying to keep a steady pressure on it.
Under Fang's side, the sand was turning dark with his blood.
"Someone's coming," said Angel.
Erasers? I looked up to see a man jogging along the shore. It was almost dawn, and seagulls were starting to wheel and cry above the water.
The man slowed to a walk when he saw us. He seemed ordinary, but looks could be deceiving, and usually were.
"Kids, you okay?" he called. "What are you doing out here so early?" He frowned when he saw Fang, then looked scared when he figured out what all the dark wet stuff was.
Before I could say anything, he'd whipped out his cell phone and called 911.
9
I looked down at Fang, then glanced over at Iggy's tight face. In a second I realized we had to suck it up-Fang was hurt bad. We needed outside help. Everything in me wanted to grab Fang, get the flock, and tear out of here, away from strangers and doctors and hospitals. But if I did that, Fang would die.
"Max?" The Gasman sounded scared. In the distance, the obnoxious wail of an ambulance siren was drawing closer.
"Nudge?" I said, speaking fast. "Take Gazzy and Angel and find a place to hide. We'll go to the hospital. You stay around here, and I'll come back when I can. Quick, before the EMT guys get here."
"No," said the Gasman, his eyes on Fang.
I stared at him. "What did you say?"
"No," he repeated, a mulish look coming over his face. "We're not leaving you and Fang and Iggy."
"Excuse me?" I said, steel in my voice. Fang's blood had soaked the cloth and was seeping between my fingers. "I'm telling you to get out of here." I made myself sound cold as ice.
"No," Gazzy said again. "I don't care what happens-you're not leaving us again."
"That's right," said Nudge, crossing her arms over her skinny chest.