“But they can walk?” Iggy kept up with us easily, never running into anyone, knowing when to land and all.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “They’re all doped up. Plus, there’s Clete. He’s okay, in hiding, not locked up or doped or anything.” I hoped this was still true. He’d been clean for a long time, but we’d been through some shit lately.
“So we each take one,” Nudge said, speaking to the Flock. She counted off on her fingers: “Moke, Clete, Rain, and Calypso. Fly them to safety.”
That was another thing I had to figure out—where was “safety”? Then I thought of something else. “Clete weighs about… maybe a hundred and ten kilos? And Moke is probably eighty, eighty-one kilos.”
For reference, I’m one point eight meters tall, and weigh less than fifty kilos. Iggy was the tallest of the Flock, almost a head taller than me, and weighed, I guessed, less than sixty-five kilos.
“A hundred and ten kilos?” Fang repeated, his voice still raspy.
“Shit,” I said miserably. “I didn’t think about any of this. I just want to get them out of the Labs.”
“And then?” Iggy asked, sounding a bit ticked off.
“And then I’ll figure it out!” I said loudly, working my wings extra hard to shoot ahead of them. We were close enough to the Labs that I had to trust them enough to take the gun off them. I’d need my hands free when we got there. “I always do!”
There it was, right ahead of me: the Complex. Which we’d just left an hour before. Inside, I was furious and embarrassed about my lack of planning. Had I thought we’d just go back to the Children’s Home to wait for the next time they needed lab rats? The truth was, the only places that were at all safe were the tops of tall, empty buildings. And what would my gang do up there? Plus, more and more I’d heard about the families of the Six starting to move into the empty buildings, make new headquarters there.
“The Children’s Home is down there,” I said, pointing. “I’m gonna go down, see if my friend Clete is there.”
“Okay,” Fang said.
“Okay,” I said awkwardly, then angled my wings back and flat to dive. What did Fang think of me? Was he disappointed in me? Had he hoped for someone else for a daughter? Did it upset him that the first thing I did when we broke him out of jail was point a gun at him?
If so, he should have goddamn been here for my childhood, goddamnit! Because the truth was I might have pointed a gun at him anyway!
I landed quietly behind the trash dumpster in the courtyard. I’d scanned the area for guards but couldn’t see any. Over at Incarceration, the place was lit up like Crismins, floodlights everywhere, choppers circling overhead.
Well, a lot of prisoners had escaped. And there was a huge hole in their roof.
The double glass doors to our main room were unlocked and I went inside. It was dark. No sign of Clete anywhere. I tiptoed over to our sleeping closet and opened the door. It was empty, too.
Please, just be here and be okay, I thought.
CHAPTER 47
Kneeling down, I pounded my fist on the floor three times, then three times again, then once.
“What is that, some kind of code?” Fang asked quietly from behind me, and I almost jumped a foot in the air.
A trapdoor opened in the floor right next to Fang’s foot, and Clete’s relieved face popped out. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. Then he saw Fang’s foot, followed it up to Fang’s swollen, black-and-blue face. “Oh, you got out.”
“Yes,” Fang said, holding out his hand for Clete. After looking at it for a moment, Clete took it and came out of our go-to hiding place, then closed the trapdoor and kicked the blankets over it.
“You must be Clete,” Nudge said, coming through the door. Iggy and Gazzy were behind her.
“I thought you were gonna wait till I came back or called you,” I said irritably.
“We’re not big on waiting,” Iggy said. “Is this Clete?” He homed in on Clete and immediately began touching him lightly all over. I knew it was to get an idea of Clete’s height and weight, but Clete took a big step back. “Hi, I’m Iggy,” Iggy said much too late.
“Gazzy,” said Gazzy.
“I’m Nudge,” Nudge said, smiling. Clete seemed to relax a bit.
“Are we gonna go rescue everyone now?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Put your shoes on. Any guard action while I was gone?”
“Yeah,” Clete said, putting on his sneakers. “Lots of searching and yelling—but it’s all over at the actual prison, probably because you got Fang out. Been quiet over here since then. We gonna do tunnels, this time?”
“Yep,” I said, feeling grim. “We’re gonna do tunnels.”
“Are these kids locked up?” Gazzy asked.
I nodded. “They were yesterday. Locked with a chain and a metal cuff around one wrist.”
“I can do those,” Iggy said.
“Right,” said Fang. “Then we’ll walk out of there?”
“Back into the tunnels,” I said, pulling the door open and making sure the courtyard was clear.
We all crept out and I led them behind the dumpster. Very quietly I braced my back against the concrete-block wall and put my feet against the dumpster. I moved it slowly and almost silently, an inch at a time. The Flock immediately put their hands on it, moving it much more easily than I had always done by myself.
“Here,” I said, pointing at the ground. “Sewer. I usually don’t use this one ’cause it’s under the dumpster, but it’s the closest one.”
Nudge knelt and carefully moved the round cover, revealing the black tunnel below. She looked up and smiled. “This is just like old times.”
I had no idea what she meant by that, but lowered myself down, knowing that rusty metal rungs were set into the tunnel wall, starting about two feet down. In a minute all six of us were down the ladder and standing on either side of the filthy sewage flowing down the middle. Fang was last, and he had somehow managed to pull the dumpster most of the way over the manhole cover before replacing it. They were all so much better at this than I was.
“We’re not far from the Labs. This way,” I said. Three small lights clicked on and I stared at Nudge, Gazzy, and Iggy—all of whom had tiny flashlights shining from their wrists.
“Oh, not those fancy watches again,” Fang groaned.
“You just wish,” Nudge said, waving her hand around.
“Um, I was going to lead the way by memory,” I said, “but light is always good.”
I still led, but the way was lit dimly by their little watch lights. Was it better to not see what was around you, down here? Maybe. I hadn’t known there were quite so many rats and bugs and slimy things—and those were the things that were alive. The rest of it… better not to think about. We were on our way to rescue my family, at last. It felt like a year since Clete and I had seen them, doped up and hallucinating.
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound casual or professional or something. “Um, one last thing. Two last things. One, I’m not totally, totally certain that the kids will be able to walk; and two, they might, just maybe, you know, try to resist being rescued.”
Behind me, footsteps slowed.
“What?” Gazzy said.
Clete said, “They’re tripping; they’re on Rainbow. They probably won’t know who we are or what we want. So they might fight us.”
Footsteps stopped. I swallowed hard. This might be the last straw for the Flock. They might leave me.
CHAPTER 48
“We needed to know this earlier,” Fang said.
I turned quickly. “Why?” I said, chin in the air and hands in fists at my sides. “Would it have made a difference? Would you not have come? Yeah, when we saw them, they were hallucinating. It doesn’t matter! We came and got you even though you might have been dead, you know that, right? Whatever state they’re in, we have to get to them! Before the experiments start!”
“Before there’s nothing left to rescue,” Clete agreed, not picki
ng up on the tension in the air.
There were several moments of silence, and some looks passed between the four members of the Flock. Then Fang started walking again and the others followed.
I turned around, my back stiff, and almost stomped along until I realized my stomps were probably spattering gunk over Clete’s legs. After a silent minute, I stopped beneath the tunnel that led up to the manhole cover closest to the Labs.
“This is it,” I said.
“Okay,” Nudge said, then came closer, edging around Clete until she stood next to me. “A team has to share every bit of information they have, so that they can work together,” she said. “If one or two know something the others don’t, it makes it more dangerous for everyone. See?” Her voice was kind, and she put her arm around my rigid shoulders.
I nodded, feeling my cheeks heat. The staples holding my cheek closed had been pulled and stretched so often in the last couple hours that I’d gotten used to the constant stinging, burning, aching pain.
“So!” Nudge said. “Is there anything else we should know before we go blow this joint?” She made it sound almost funny, almost fun, and I thought for a minute.
“This cover opens up right next to the main ventilation intake for the Labs,” I said. “It’ll be hard for all of us to sneak in—so some stay in the ducts and help the gang get up there?”
Nudge nodded. “Then what?”
“Then we get back out the ventilation tunnel, probably back into these underground tunnels, until we’re far enough away?”
“The Six,” Clete said, reminding me, as he rocked back and forth on his feet anxiously.
“Oh, yeah, the Six,” I agreed miserably, glancing right and left down the dark tunnel.
“We know about the Six,” Gazzy said quickly. “What about them?”
“A lot of their, like, money laundering and illegal dope making happens in these tunnels. Not necessarily this particular tunnel,” I added. “But if we run into them, it’ll be… messy.”
“We’re running out of time,” Fang said tensely.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Let’s just do this.” I started up the rickety rungs leading up to the Labs courtyard. “You guys sure do talk a lot,” I muttered.
CHAPTER 49
Holding my breath, I went up the rusty ladder rungs first. One of them came off in my hand, and I shouted down to the others that there would be a gap, and where to expect it. At the top I listened through the cover’s holes and heard nothing except far away klaxons. Everybody was at the prison. Probably. I hoped.
This cover was between the back wall and the Labs building so we were pretty well concealed. I was proud of myself for bringing my knife with its screwdrivers so I could take off the ventilation cover.
“One at a time, shimmy upward,” Nudge said. “Heating and cooling ducts aren’t super strong.”
“I know that,” I muttered. I hadn’t known that. Carefully, trying to make no noise, I shimmied up the duct as directed, and soon the six of us were spread out across where three ducts intersected.
“Do you know where your friends are?” Nudge whispered almost soundlessly.
I nodded. “Me and Clete will go get them.”
“Gazzy and I will follow you,” Nudge told me. “To help get them up into the ducts.”
Clete and I set off toward the inner labs. Almost as soon as I turned my back, I heard Fang say, “Max is out of time, Ig!”
“I know,” Iggy said quietly. “But we promised. This should go quick.”
I wondered where Max was and what they were saving her from. They’d said Max was my mom, but I wasn’t even on board with Fang being my dad, and I knew him. So Max wasn’t in my picture, except as a person on a billboard sometimes.
Glancing back, I saw that Clete was so big that he almost took up the whole duct. “Do you know where you’re going?” he asked softly.
“Yeah,” I whispered back. “How you doin’?”
“I need to get out of this duct,” he answered. I could hear the tension in his voice. He’d always been a little hair-trigger with his emotions—most of the time he was fine, but when things got to be too much, he melted down. And his emotions were big. We had to get to the kids before that happened.
Because I needed more pressure on myself. Holy mother.
I’d always been able to know where I was, known how to get back to a place, known if I was pointed toward the sun or whatever. Maybe that made up for my not being so good at this rescuing stuff.
Anyway, I crawled along, turning here, hanging a left there, trying to move fast in case Clete’s steam was building up. From the vibrations of the duct I knew that Nudge and Gazzy were following us. Too bad Nudge wasn’t my mom. She seemed kind of momlike, as far as I could tell. I didn’t have much to compare her to.
Behind me, Clete gave my pants’ leg a tug. I’d almost passed the vent that led to the small room where the kids were shackled.
“I know!” I hissed. “I was just checking things out!” Except that was completely untrue, and I’m guessing Clete knew it.
“K,” Clete said, and I felt bad for snapping at him. He was stuck here right along with me, and probably freaking out more than I was. I needed to remember that.
I moved so I could look through the vent. I was dreading what I might see—three bodies shackled to a wall? My family, starved or doped to death? I braced myself: this could be truly grim and heartbreaking. Leaning close to the vent, careful not to breathe any dust out into the room, I peered through the narrow metal slats.
Frowning, I leaned closer, until the slats made impressions on my forehead. I scanned the room from one corner to the next, seeing the shackles, seeing where the dusty floor had been disturbed.
What I didn’t see? Moke, Rain, or Calypso. They were gone.
CHAPTER 50
Max
I was tensed to leap off the operating table when the universe actually cut me a freaking break: a young guard came running in, telling the doctor to come quick because there was a huge fight happening outside and one of the other guards had been cut badly, was bleeding all over the place.
“I can’t come, I’m busy right now!” the doctor snapped at him, still holding up the picture of my back, trying to decide where to cut first.
“You’re… the only doctor,” the guard said hesitantly. “And it’s a guard, not another prisoner.”
The doctor put down the x-ray, and his hands hovered over my wings, his fingers absently stroking the skin between them. My flesh crawled, and it was a test of my superhuman self-control that I didn’t just throw up all over the table right then.
“Sir?” the guard said. “Please… she’s bleeding out pretty bad.”
There were a few long moments where the only sound was the beeping of the machine monitoring my heart rate. I tried to make sure every muscle was totally relaxed, and even let some drool come out of my mouth. As a survival tactic.
“She’s out?” the doctor barked at the nurse.
“Yes, doctor,” said the nurse. “She’s still on a drip. I’m about to add the paralyzing agent. Then I can put the breathing tube down her throat.”
“You have ten minutes!” the doctor told the guard. “And you make sure she’s still out and prepped for surgery by the time I get back!”
“Yes, doctor!” the nurse said.
Gosh, it was awfully quiet after they left. But clearly, I was going to have to say No Thank You to the paralyzing agent. I had just opened my eyes a slit to make sure I knew where the door was when the vidscreen jumped from some kids getting praised for ratting on their uncle to the man himself: McCallum.
“Where’s my wing?” he roared.
Behind me, metal instruments clattered on a metal table—the nurse was rattled.
“I—I’m sorry, sir!” the nurse said. “The doctor was called away for just a moment! As soon as he gets back he’ll begin the procedure—everything is prepped and ready!”
“He what?” This was said in an almost
normal tone, if by “almost normal” you mean only slightly menacing.
“He—he was urgently called away…” the nurse said, faltering. “A guard was injured and he’s the only doctor…”
The nurse was clearly hating her life just then. And that gave me an idea. Was it a good idea? Time would tell. Was it a smart idea? God, no. But if my ideas had to be smart for me to do them, I’d never get anything done.
Suddenly I sat up, hearing the nurse’s shocked indrawn breath. Grabbing the IV that I’d been pinching shut, I pulled it out of the back of my hand.
“Wait, no!” the nurse cried.
“Better call the doctor back. You’re going to need him!” I snarled, then grabbed the small rolling table where the scalpels and forceps were laid out.
“Guards!” McCallum bellowed, right before I smashed the table into the vidscreen. I had the pleasure of seeing his look of surprise right before it went to static.
“You want a wing!” I muttered as I picked up the biggest scalpel from the floor. “Find yourself a goddamn brain first!”
“No, please,” the nurse begged, and I just shook my head at her pathetic plea. I had no intention of hurting her, but she didn’t need to know that. There was one set of doors out to the inescapable courtyard and another set before that heading into this building. I rammed through the inside doors, knocking down four guards who were on their way in.
“Out, out…” I said, looking wildly for an exit sign or a window with sky—anything. There! A door to the outside, with only two guards. I ran up as they gaped at me and gave them a double flying kick, one to each head, before they had even aimed their rifles. Then I landed on one knee, with one palm down, like I’d seen a superhero do in one of Gazzy’s comic books.
I burst through that door, then stopped dead, my heart seizing inside my chest. I was back out in the goddamn freaking prison courtyard with a fenced-in cover. My daring escape had gotten me nowhere.
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