Fang

79

DOWN IN THE LAB, Dr. Hans was a blur of activity. He grabbed a hypodermic needle of something and shot it into Fang’s IV line. Angel held Fang’s hand, watching the machine tensely. Nothing happened.

“Blast!” Dr. Hans shouted. He dashed into the adjacent supply room.

Angel was in a deep state of shock. When her Voice had given her the premonition about Fang, she had just reported it. She hadn’t known why, when, or how it would happen. Somehow, she’d thought that telling Max and the others would help it not come true.

Then Dylan had shown up, seeming like the perfect answer: The Voice had said that the best way for everyone to survive was to split the flock up, have two flocks. Max could have Dylan, and Fang could join forces with Angel. Angel would be the leader of her flock, and Fang would be second in command. Having Max and Fang in the same flock was overkill.

Dr. Hans had promised that if Fang came here, everything would be perfect. Then his goons had beaten Fang up, and Dr. Hans had started the IV drip into Fang’s arm, telling Angel that Fang was on his way to becoming the most ultimate Fang possible. Lies.

Angel’s back straightened – she felt Max coming. Quietly she left Fang’s side and went to unlock the lab door. She glanced around but didn’t see Dr. Hans’s security team. Then she sat again at Fang’s side and picked up his hand.

Was she imagining it, or was Fang’s hand already becoming cold?

80

I DROPPED DOWN onto the terrace like a bird of prey. As soon as my sneakers thunked onto solid ground, I raced along the terrace until I saw an open door. I rushed through it and immediately down some steps. Somehow, I had seen these steps in the message Angel had sent me – I knew just where to go.

“Fang! Angel?” I yelled, not even trying for stealth. I was storming the castle, not stealing the jewels.

Then through a vast maze of lab tables, metal and glass shelving, gurneys, and all kinds of medical equipment, I saw Fang in a hospital bed, looking beat up, bruised. Way too still and way too pale. Then Angel, rising slowly from beside him like a zombie from the grave and drifting slowly toward me.

“Max, I…”

“Angel! What the -” I sprinted across the lab to Fang’s side.

I grabbed his hand. It was cold. unbelievably cold. One eye was open slightly, unseeing.

Fang will be the first to -

I couldn’t let myself think it. I couldn’t. But he really looked… He felt…

Just then Dr. Gunther-Hagen appeared from a side room holding some medical supplies. “I see you now regret your decision, Max.”

I snarled at the doctor, “What in the name of God happened, you butcher? He looks like he went through a wood chipper!”

“He had a bad reaction to a sedative,” said the doctor stiffly. “He was injured.”

The solid drone of an alarm sank into my brain, and my gaze snapped to the machinery next to the bed. There was no heartbeat registering.

“He’s flatlining!” I shrieked, and grabbed Dr. Hans by the front of his jacket. “Fix him!”

“Why are you so surprised, Max? Your insistence upon being with Fang above all else – well, I warned you quite clearly that no good would come of it. You had the chance to protect all of the ones you love.”

Had he killed Fang? Could he have possibly…?

“There’s nothing anyone can do. It’s too late. I’m sorry.”

He had killed Fang. That sentence made absolutely zero sense to me. It simply did not compute. I shoved the doctor away and turned to Fang.

I wanted to shake Fang’s shoulders, splash cold water on his face, tug on his hair. I stared at him. The parts of his face that weren’t purple and bruised were not… life colored.

It just didn’t make sense.

A remote part of my consciousness registered that the rest of the flock had arrived, were slamming through the lab door. I couldn’t even look up. Fang’s hand was limp and cold in mine. My brain hadn’t kicked into gear yet, had frozen at the entry of the unthinkable thought.

Fang – after everything we’d been through – was…

Gone?

81

THAT SMALL PART of my mind that was still functioning finally made me look up and catch sight of the flock rushing in just as the lab security team flooded the room from another doorway.

The unfriendly familiar face of our old nemesis, Mr. Chu, shocked me out of my daze for a moment.

“Take ’em out!” I screeched. “Show no mercy!”

“On it!” Iggy shouted. Even though they knew I couldn’t leave Fang’s side, I’d never seen the flock look so confident and determined. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we were in a lab, and we knew our way around labs.

But then again, so did these guys.

Iggy immediately flew across the room, swiping glass jars and tubes off shelves and tables and then knocking over as many freestanding shelves as he could.

The instant hurricane of thunderous chaos gave the flock an advantage. By the time the men had chosen their targets, the kids had spread to all corners of the room. Grown-ups just think too much.

“Skateboard!” Iggy called to Gazzy. The Gasman used his wings to propel himself toward the high ceiling and grabbed the pipes ru

Then, an encore performance: Gazzy gurney-boarded back the other way, over the two dazed guards. But this time, the gurney flipped as it caught one of the guards’ heads.

Gazzy went flying as though he’d been launched from a ca

Nudge had grabbed a metal IV stand and was spi

The flock’s never been shy about using crotch blows, and with a roar, Nudge nailed her assailant, who dropped like a sack of dog food.

“Sorry,” Nudge said, kicking him in the head to knock him out. Then she and Iggy wasted no time rolling him and the other man into nearby empty extralarge lab animal crates.

“Justice!” Nudge cried, slamming a door shut.

There were five guards down, but several to go. Mr. Chu and Dr. Hans were still on the loose as well. It could have easily been a lost battle without the secret weapon. Dylan.

The youngest but most powerful bird kid held nothing back as he took out one attacker after another. He was coldly furious and determined – almost scary. Everything about his quiet, easygoing demeanor had disappeared. Now his fists slammed into faces, he spun into kicks that had taken us years to master. His blows knocked grown men off their feet; his roundhouse kick shot a guard eight feet back, into a wall.

Total had been right: He was a fighting machine.

Meanwhile, Dr. Hans was watching everything from a safe corner, a scientist unemotionally observing his lab animals. But no one had noticed that Angel was missing from the fray. She now dashed out of the supply room clutching six or seven different-sized containers.

“Gazzy! What’s good here?” It was flock shorthand for: Is there anything you can make blow up here?

Gazzy had just recovered from his ca

“Not so fast, children.” The impeccably dressed Mr. Chu – who’d been cowering under a lab table to avoid the fight, or to avoid ruining his suit – now appeared at their side.