74
“Please.”
“It isn’t time yet, Ari.” Jeb didn’t look at him, just kept reading printouts of reports from the field.
“It’ll never be time!” Ari exploded, pacing angrily around the room. “You keep telling me it’s almost time, but you never let me take them out! What are we waiting for?”
His wings ached and burned where they were attached, and Ari reached into his pocket for his pills. He downed four, dry, and turned back to his father.
“Be patient,” said Jeb. “You know we need to stick to the plan.” He looked up at Ari. “You’re letting your emotions color your decisions. That isn’t good, Ari. We’ve talked about this.”
“Me!” Ari burst out. “What about you? You know the reason you can’t off her? ’Cause you’re all wrapped up in her! You love Max! You love Max best! That’s why you won’t let me kill her.”
Jeb didn’t say anything, just looked at him. Ari could tell Jeb was mad and trying not to show it. Just once, Ari wanted to see Jeb show the same love and admiration for him as he did for Max. When Jeb looked at Max, even pictures of Max, his face softened, his eyes grew more intent. When he looked at Ari, it was as if he were looking at anyone.
And Jeb hated the new Max, for some reason. He couldn’t stand to be around her—everyone had noticed it. So Ari was making a big point of hanging out with her as much as possible. Anything to get under Jeb’s skin, make him take notice.
Jeb finally spoke. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know the big picture. You have a part to play in this, but you have to do what I tell you. If you don’t think you can do that, I’ll find someone who can.”
Rage ignited inside Ari. His hands gripped at his sides so he wouldn’t reach out and grab Jeb’s throat. He wanted to throttle the life out of him—almost. Just until Jeb realized he loved Ari and should respect him more.
But right now he had to get out of here. Ari spun and crashed out the door, letting it slam behind him. Outside, he took a running jump off the roof of the trailer—he still wasn’t great at taking off right from the ground. Awkwardly and painfully, he flew high and headed for one of his favorite alone places—the top of a huge tree.
He landed clumsily on a branch and grabbed the trunk to hang on. Furious tears sprang to his eyes. Closing them, he leaned back against the smooth, mottled bark of his tree. It all hurt so much. His wings, how much Jeb loved Max, how Max looked right through Ari . . .
He remembered how she’d smiled at that pale twig last night when they were eating ice cream. Who was that guy? A nobody. A fragile little human. Ari could rip him in half without even trying.
A low growl rose in his throat as he remembered how Max had kissed that loser on the front porch. Max had kissed him! Like she was some normal girl! If that guy only knew—he wouldn’t go near Max in a million years.
But maybe he would. Maybe he would love Max even if he knew she was a mutant freak. Max was special that way. People cared about her. Boys loved her. She was so strong—so strong and beautiful and fierce.
A choked sob burst out of Ari’s chest. Tears streaming down his cheeks, he brought his arm up to his face, pressing his tears into his jacket.
Ari made another muffled sound against his sleeve, and then it all became too much. He felt himself morph full out into an Eraser, and his powerful jaws opened. Feeling his tears streaking through his fur, Ari stifled a sob and clamped his teeth down into his arm. He closed his eyes and hung on tight, making sure no sound escaped. He felt his teeth pierce his jacket, felt them scissor into his skin and muscle. He tasted blood, but he hung on.
Because actually, this felt better.
75
“I think that’s it. I am freaking amazing. We found it.” I peeped out from behind the yew shrub and looked across the street again. “No wonder you worship me.”
Clearly I had snapped out of my malaise of the previous night. Let’s keep those fourteen-year-old mutant-bird-kid hormone swings coming, eh?
Fang gave me a long-suffering and not very worshipful glance, then looked past me at the modest suburban brick house. It was dinky, old-fashioned, but, given how close it was to DC, probably worth almost half a million dollars. Note to self: Invest in DC real estate. Save up your allowance.
“Really? And that’s the church in the background?”
I nodded. “Yep. So what now?”
He looked at me. “You’re the leader.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, then grabbed his shoulder and marched him across the street with me. I rang the bell before my annoying common sense could kick in.
We waited, and I heard footsteps coming to the door. Then it opened, and Fang and I were staring at the woman who may or may not but really looked like she could have been Iggy’s mother.
“Yes?” she said, and she was—get this—drying her hands on a kitchen towel just like a mom. She was tall and slender, with very pale strawberry-blond hair, fair skin, and freckles. Her eyes were a light sky blue, like Iggy’s, except of course hers actually worked because they hadn’t been experimented on by mad scientists. Mad as in crazy, not as in anger-management classes.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Ma’am, we’re selling subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal,” Fang said with a straight face.
Her expression cleared. “Oh, no thanks. We already get the Post.”
“Okay then,” said Fang, and we turned and skedaddled right out of there.
She absolutely, positively, definitely might have been Iggy’s mom. So what now?
76
“Still smells kind of like explosives,” Iggy muttered to the Gasman.
The Gasman sniffed. “Yeah. I like that smell. Smells like excitement.”
“God knows we could use more of that,” Iggy said.
Gazzy’s footsteps were almost silent on the hard concrete floor, but Iggy could follow him with no effort. Even without Gazzy, Iggy could have found his way to the file room by memory. He bet he could even find his way back to the Institute if you dropped him into a subway tunnel in New York. It almost made up for being completely without any kind of freaking sight at all.
Yeah, right.
“Here we go.” Gazzy soundlessly opened the file room door, and Iggy heard the flick of the light switch. Now he got to stand around like a coatrack while Gazzy did all the work.
“She put those files someplace toward the front of the room,” he reminded the Gasman. “On the right side. Is there a metal cabinet?”
“They’re all metal,” said Gazzy, moving over. He opened one, riffled some pages, then closed it. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for. All the files look alike.”
“None of ’em are marked Top Secret in big black letters?”
“No.”
Iggy waited while the Gasman opened and riffled through and closed several more file drawers.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Gazzy said. “Huh. This is something. It’s a bunch of files lumped together with a rubber band. They’re a different color, and they look older, beat-up.”
“So read them.”
The sound of the rubber band being pulled off. Pages rustling.
“Whoa.”
“What?” This was the kind of thing that made Iggy crazy: other people getting all the info much sooner because they could see. He always had to wait to be told stuff. He hated it.
“These are files on, like, patients,” said the Gasman. “Not students from this school. These are patients, and they’re from the . . . Standish Home for Incurables.”
“What is that? Sounds like a whole bunch of not-fun.”
Gazzy read, and Iggy forced himself to be patient.
“Wait—,” said Gazzy, and Iggy thought, Oh, like I have a lot of freaking choice.
“This is weird. I mean, as far as I can tell, this school used to be, like, an insane asylum, until maybe just two years ago. These files are on patients who used to live here. But why is the headhun
ter saving them?”
“Maybe he had something to do with them? Did he run the nuthouse? Maybe he was a patient and he killed all the others and opened this school—”
“Can’t tell. There’s a lot of stuff here. Too much to read right now. Let’s show these to Max. I can stuff them under my shirt.”
“Cool. We better be heading back.”
“Yep.”
Iggy followed Gazzy to the stairs. Let’s see, almost lunchtime. Wonder where Tess will sit today—Then Gazzy paused for a second, and Iggy almost ran into him.
“That’s funny,” Gazzy muttered. “There’s a door here I never noticed.”
Iggy heard him step forward and open it. Dank, cool air wafted out at them.
“What is it?”
“A tunnel,” said the Gasman, sounding taken aback. “A long, dark tunnel going farther than I can see. Right under the school.”
77
I was kind of dreading seeing Sam again at school. Would he blow me off? Had he told anyone about us kissing? Would I get teased and therefore have to kick serious butt?
It was fine. I saw him in class, and he gave me a discreet and yet special smile. No one seemed to be watching him or me to see us interact as gossip fodder. During free period, we sat at a table across from each other and talked and read and studied, and not even the headhunter came down on us.
It was cool. For almost that whole day, I felt like life didn’t totally suck. And that lasted all the way till I got back to Anne’s, so we might be talking new record here.
“A tunnel?” I looked at Gazzy and Iggy in confusion. “Why would there be a tunnel under the school?”
“Excellent question,” the Gasman said, nodding. “Plus the secret files.”
I flipped through the files again. “Nudge? Do a check on the school. Didn’t I see something that said it had been there for, like, twenty years?”
“All the brochures said that,” Fang confirmed. “Plus there’s a plaque in the front hall that says Founded in 1985.”
Nudge got onto the laptop we’d more or less appropriated from Anne. I kept flipping through the files, which were all about patients who had entered the sanitarium and never come out. The files were dated mostly from the last fifteen years or so, until just two years ago. In other people’s lives, ending up at a school that used to be a mental hospital and had a tunnel under it would be very interesting but coincidental.
In our lives, it was like a great big red warning light blinking on and off.
“Huh,” said Nudge. “The school’s Web site says it’s been in that building since 1985. But when I Google it, nothing shows up before two years ago.”
“Did they change the name?” Iggy asked.
Fang shook his head. “Don’t think so—it doesn’t say that anywhere.”
I double-checked the mystery files. “The Standish Home had the exact same address. And look at this office stationery—it has a little drawing of the building.” I showed it to the others. It was a drawing of our school, exactly.
I looked up at the flock. “This can’t be good,” I said, with my natural gift for understatement.
“Should we ask Anne about it?” Iggy asked.
Fang and I met eyes. He gave the tiniest shake of his head.
“What for?” I said. “Either she knows about it and is in on everything, so we don’t want to tip her off that we know, or she only knows what they told her and so can’t help us.”
We were quiet for a few moments, each of us thinking. I heard the TV click on in the kitchen. Anne took out pots and opened the fridge. The news was on, talking about an upcoming cold snap and who had won a recent college football game. Then a male newscaster said, “And in our nation’s capital today, the president made a surprising announcement that has many politicos scratching their heads. Only three days before this year’s budget was supposed to be presented, President Danning announced a stunning revision: He has taken back almost a billion dollars allotted to the military and is channeling it into public education, as well as nationwide shelters for homeless women and children.”
I froze.
Fang and I exchanged looks of disbelief, then I looked at Angel. She was grinning. I heard Total laugh, and then Angel and Total slapped high fives. Well, Total slapped a high four.
I dropped my head and rubbed my temples, which had suddenly started pounding. We had to get out of this town. Next Angel would be making the president ban homework or something.
78
That night, at exactly 11:05, six windows on the second floor of Anne’s house opened. One by one we jumped out of our respective rooms, fell about eight feet, then snapped our wings open and got some uplift.
The six of us flew through the dark, chilly night. There were no clouds, and the moon shone so brightly that the trees below us cast long shadows.
The bat cave looked satisfyingly like something from a horror movie. Fang had discovered it weeks ago. It was set into an old limestone ridge a couple miles from the house. Overgrown vines, dead with approaching winter, obscured the entrance. We flew through them, trying not to get tangled, and braked to a fast stop inside. The cave was full of stalactites hanging down like teeth from the ceiling, and somewhere in the darkness there was an ominous drip of unseen water. About thirty feet in, the air became thick with the acidic smell of guano, so we stayed near the opening.
“I bet no people have ever been in here,” said Gazzy, sitting cross-legged in the entrance. “They’d have to rock climb just to get up here.”
“I wish we could see what’s farther back,” said Nudge.
“Yeah, me too,” said Iggy brightly.
“Okay, guys,” I said. “Listen, I’ve been thinking, and I really think it’s time for us to move on. This has been a great break, but we’re all rested, healed up, and we should disappear again.”
This announcement was not met with confetti and noisemakers.
“I mean,” I went on in the deafening silence, “Ari knows we’re close by. He attacked us on our way home from school—he probably has cameras trained on Anne’s house. The headhunter has it in for us. Now the weird files from the school, the mystery tunnel—it’s all adding up to an ugly picture.” Not to mention what Angel might be doing to the leader of the free world. I shot her a hard glance, in case she was listening in on my thoughts, and she grinned at me.
“We should clear out of here before all this stuff starts hitting the fan.”
I saw Nudge and Gazzy glance at each other. Angel leaned her head against Iggy’s shoulder. He patted her hair. More silence.
“I mean, maybe this is where we learn to think smart, stay one step ahead of the game instead of having the game bite us in the ass.”
Or maybe this is the time you learn how to stay and make it work.
I scowled. This isn’t a relationship, Voice. It’s a trap, or a test, or at best a surreal side trip on a journey that’s already been fairly mind-blowing.
“It’s just that . . . ,” Nudge began, looking at Gazzy. He gave her an encouraging nod. “Well, Thursday’s Thanksgiving. We only have half a day of school Wednesday, and then it’s Thanksgiving.”
“We’ve never had a real Thanksgiving dinner before,” said Angel. “Anne’s going to make turkey and pumpkin pie.”
Frustration made me snide, in that endearing way I had. “Yeah, and that’s worth staying in town for—Anne’s home cooking.”
The younger kids looked abashed, and I felt like a jerk, raining on their parade.
“I’m just—really antsy,” I explained carefully. “I’m twitchy and nervous and feel like I want to be screaming through the sky on the way out of town, you know?”
“We know,” Nudge said apologetically. “It’s just—she’s going to make sweet potatoes with raisins and little marshmallows on top.”
I bit my lip hard in order to keep from saying, “Well, God knows that’s worth sacrificing our freedom for! Why didn’t you mention it earlier?”
Instead
I tried a smile that turned into a grimace, and turned around for a minute, as if I were examining the night sky. Through the vines. When I’d gotten more of a grip, I turned back to them.
“Okay, so we’ll stay for Thanksgiving,” I said reluctantly. Their faces lit up, and I felt an anvil settling on my chest. “Those better be some good sweet potatoes.”
79
“Did the thing pop yet?” Anne peered anxiously over my shoulder into the oven.
“Uh, not yet,” I said. “But it looks like it’s doing okay.” I compared the turkey in the oven to the picture on the stuffing package. “See? It’s the right color.”
“Well, it’s supposed to be done when that thing pops up.”
“I know,” I said reassuringly. I’d heard her the first fifty times.
“What if it’s defective?” Anne looked stricken. “What if it never pops? What if it’s my first turkey and our first Thanksgiving together and it’s awful and dry and we all hate it?”
“Well, no doubt that would be symbolic of our whole lifetime together,” I said solemnly, then made a “kidding” face. “Uh, maybe you could supervise Zephyr with setting the table? He looked a little lost with all the extra silverware.”
Anne looked at me, nodded, glanced again at the oven window, then went into the dining room.
“How’s that stuffing coming?” I asked Nudge.
“Okeydokey,” she said, fluffing it in a pot with a large wooden salad fork. She read the package again. “I think it’s done.”
“Looks good,” I said. “Just set it aside. There’s no way to make sure all this stuff comes out ready at the same time.”
“Cranberry sauce is good to go,” Iggy said, jiggling the can so it slid out with a wet plop into a bowl. “I could have made some from scratch.”
“I know.” I lowered my voice. “You’re the only one here who can cook at all. But let’s just go with the program.”
“I want a drumstick,” said Total, from right under my feet.