Fang

“You think Dr. G-H knows where we are?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He warned me – he said no wasn’t my final answer. I keep feeling like he’s coming after us, that he’ll keep asking me to join forces with him until he forces me to say yes.”

“Over my dead body,” Fang said, and I flinched.

“Not fu

“He could definitely do some damage,” Fang agreed.

“And that’s just for starters. People there are desperate, Fang – they’d agree to anything as long as there was a decent meal at the end of it. Lots of those kids are orphans. Who would miss them if something went wrong?”

“You think we should go back?” Fang asked.

“No!” I answered, a little too quickly. “I know; it’s pathetic. One day I’m Mother Teresa, and the next I’m all about me-me-me again. us, I mean.” Fang nodded. “The problem is, I don’t have the slightest idea how to help those people.” I sighed. “This guy is an evil genius. Most of the people we’ve dealt with are evil non-geniuses. I’m not sure how to handle him. He’s the kind of person who’s so brilliant, he probably could destroy the entire world.”

“So do we tell the CSM? The president? The New York Times?”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I’ve been going back and forth on that all week. I can’t think about it anymore right now,” I said, suddenly feeling tired. “Hey, why’d you come in here, anyway?”

Fang’s too-long black hair fell over one eye. “Just checking on you. You’ve been getting wound tighter every day.”

“I guess I have. I just… don’t know what to do, and I feel like I don’t know enough about anything to figure out what to do.”

“It’ll come to you,” Fang said confidently. “For now, why don’t you try to get some sleep? I’ll stay till you’re out, if that’ll help.”

“That would help a lot,” I admitted.

I collapsed sideways on my bed and pulled the blanket over me. Fang sat at my side, holding my hand and rubbing my back between my wings.

20

FANG WAS RIGHT. It came to me. The next day I presented my plan to the flock.

“You want us to what?” Gazzy stared at me with horror.

“I want us to learn more,” I said. Plus, I needed a big project to focus on. “I’ve been thinking about this since Africa. We know some stuff – how to hack computers, break locks, et cetera. But I’ve realized there’s a lot we don’t know. And here we are, living peacefully in our new house, tons of time to spare, hours to fill up – so we should be putting that time to good use!”

“What do we need to learn?” asked Iggy.

“Oh, I don’t know… Like, why was Chad in such a mess? Why were the locals suspicious of Americans?” I paced up and down our living room. “And where did the Romans go, and how did they get replaced by Italians? I mean, the Greeks are still around!” I went on enthusiastically. “There’s so much to learn. It’s never bothered me till now – we always knew enough to get along. But now I’m thinking, How can we fight evil scientists without understanding science? How can we save the world if we hardly know anything about it?”

“We don’t have to know about something to save it,” Iggy argued. He had one foot on a window ledge, ready to jump out. “I mean, we know evil scientists really well, but we don’t want to save them.”

“Okay, that example doesn’t even make sense,” I said. “But, like, these CSM missions we’ve been on – we’ve relied on other people to tell us what we need to know. Mostly, we’ve been able to trust them. But what if they weren’t trustworthy? What if we knew enough to judge for ourselves? We could stay totally independent!”

Fang stroked his chin the way he did when he was thinking. Nudge was staring at me, and now she threw a couch pillow at my head. Only my lightning reflexes kept me from getting a face full of corduroy-covered foam.

“We’ve had so many chances to go to school!” she wailed. “But noooooo! You always hated school! You didn’t want us to learn stupid boring school stuff!”

“I still don’t like school,” I said. “But we can learn by ourselves. We can do field trips. Experiments. There are online courses. We have the computer.” I pointed to our super-duper contraband computer, lifted from the government some while back.

“I say no.” Iggy folded his arms and looked defiantly at a spot by my left ear.

“I say no too.” Gazzy folded his arms, imitating Iggy. Angel looked thoughtful but didn’t say anything.

“We need to do this, guys,” I said. “We’ll get bored if we just sit around all the time.”

“I’m happy to sit around all the time,” said Gazzy. “I don’t mind being bored.”

“Anyone who does not feel the need to deepen his or her font of knowledge is welcome to be on bathroom and kitchen duty for a month,” I said. “Are there any questions?” Eyes met mine with various expressions of anger, resentment, uncertainty, yada yada yada.

There were no questions.

21

DYLAN WAS STARING into my eyes. Hard. He was leaning toward me.

“Dylan, no – stop.”

His hands were on my shoulders, pulling me closer. “Max, stay,” he said. “I know it’s hard for you to understand. Or accept. But we were made to be together. You need me.”

I edged away but couldn’t disco

“No,” Dylan murmured, almost sadly, as if he wanted to break the news to me gently. “You do need me, Max. I can help you more than anyone.”

“Yeah?” I asked, my voice a squeak. It felt impossible not to drown in the deep blue of his eyes. His strong hands slipped from my shoulders and curled around my back. I’d never felt anyone close to me like this except Fang. It was uncomfortable – but there were also shivers going down my spine.

“You need me because I… I can see things no one else can,” he confessed. “I can see people from across the world, across an ocean. I can see what’s going to happen. I can protect you.”

“You don’t know me, Dylan,” I said, steeling my voice but still totally under the control of his gaze. “I’ve never needed to be protected.”

It was as though he didn’t even hear me. He stroked his hands along the tops of my wings, smoothing the feathers softly. “I can see that you and I will be together,” he said, no hint of a smile on his unearthly good-looking face. “Forever.”

22

“NO,” I SAID, APPALLED. “No – that can’t be true. I’m not ready!”

“I don’t care if you’re ready or not.” Gazzy’s voice, irritated, crept into my consciousness. “Don’t forget this was your idea.”

My eyes blinked open fast, and I almost leaped into a sitting position. I stared at Gazzy, confused, afraid to look around and see Dylan lounging somewhere, a knowing smile on his face,

Oh, jeez. I’d fallen asleep on the couch. Good lord, my subconscious was doing another number on me. I frowned. At least I hoped it was my subconscious.

“Coming,” I groaned, getting up off the couch. We were on day three of our homeschooling program, and so far it felt like I was stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits of higher education. So today we were going to try to get out and “spread our wings,” so to speak. On a field trip.

Forty-five minutes later we were reducing altitude, getting ready to land in a park in the closest big city to our house. (I can’t reveal more about the locale for privacy reasons, you understand.)