by Cheree Alsop
He had just led us through another turn in the dark maze when the cry of a bird echoed up the tunnel. Marek stopped and waited. The kids crowded fearfully behind us. Raven flew low in his bird form, wind from his black wings ruffling the children’s hair as he glided to land on Marek’s shoulder. I watched Marek speak to the bird, the amazement I felt at his shifting kept in check by the fear of what was following us. Raven opened and closed his beak with a click twice to Marek’s questions. Our leader nodded.
“Phoenix, keep them going. We’ll meet up with you.”
At Phoenix’s nod of agreement, the bird took flight again. Marek shifted quickly into wolf form before my eyes. It was much faster than his shift in the tree house. I could only stare at the large black wolf that stood on a pile of Marek’s clothes. His eyes glowed golden in the low light of the flashlights. He glanced at me once, then loped past the children at a mile-eating pace, the raven flying low over his head.
I looked at the kids. They also seemed too amazed to be afraid. “Should I bring the clothes?” one asked.
Shadow answered from behind, “I’ll get them. It’s okay.”
Phoenix motioned for us to go on. I had to will my feet to move, my ears straining to pick up any sounds of battle behind us. Too much had gone on tonight to take it all in. My thoughts were a blur.
Phoenix led us down one long tunnel, took a passage to the left, then another left. He began to seem agitated, peering down each tunnel in uncertainty. Finally, he held up his hand and we stopped short behind him. The children were exhausted. They didn’t complain about stopping; they only huddled together and stared at their feet.
“What’s wrong?” Shadow asked from behind.
“There’s so many turns I’m not sure we’re on the right path,” Phoenix said honestly. He lowered his tone and said to me, “I wish Marek were here. He never gets lost.” At my searching look, he gave a laugh. “I know; I’m supposed to be the tough military one.”
At that moment, the rush of wings followed by an almost inaudible cadence of paws hitting the pavement came toward us in the dark. Marek, still in wolf form with Raven close overhead, loped past the group. He paused long enough for us to follow, then led the way down one tunnel and up the next. They all looked the same to me, but Marek obviously knew where he was going.
I was exhausted by the day’s events and had to concentrate to keep from stumbling in the darkness lit only by our flashlights. When Marek stopped at what appeared to be a dead end, several of the children sat down immediately on the dusty ground. I couldn’t find the heart to make them get back up so we could go back the way we had come. Luckily, that wasn’t necessary.
Marek’s low growl caught me off guard. I was about to usher the children back when a door slid open in front of the wolf in much the same fashion as the trapdoor from the warehouse’s floor.
Marek led the way up a steep ramp and out an opening into the Den’s kitchen. The wolf Shifter stood to the side and watched the children climb out of the hole, blink their eyes in the sudden light, and then smile tiredly when they realized they were in the safe place he had promised them.
Whisper ran up noiselessly from out of nowhere and threw her arms around Marek’s shaggy neck. He closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds, grateful that we had made it back. Only at that moment did I truly appreciate how dangerous the mission had been.
Marek glanced at me just as the thought hit me. I couldn’t read anything in his wolf eyes, but knew my face was an open book. He had saved my life, all of our lives, and brought us back to safety. How could one person do all of that by himself? He blinked his golden eyes, then turned and padded silently down the hall.
“Okay, kiddoes,” Phoenix was saying to the children who now munched on cold pizza and milk Shadow had brought from the fridge. “Everyone choose a room. Each bed has a teddy bear on it that’s your very own to sleep with and to take home with you. Go with Shadow and Flint. They’ll get you settled in.”
With obedience brought on by sheer exhaustion and full bellies, the kids filed out of the room behind the two young Shifters.
Phoenix counted them as they went by. “Fifteen,” he said quietly when the last one left through the door.
“Is that good or bad?” I asked. I grabbed one of the remaining slices of pizza, suddenly aware of how hungry I was.
“Average,” Phoenix replied with a shrug. “Any more than that, and we’re busy for over a month finding their homes. As it is, we’ll sleep a few hours, then start the search.”
Intrigued, I asked, “Where do you look?”
“Well, the Lost posters at government buildings, stores, and everywhere else come from huge databases. Those posters barely scratch the surface. Flint’s got three computers set up to systematically search the databases by the names and characteristics of each child we find. It takes a long time to get through each search, but once it narrows down, we find where each child came from.” Phoenix smiled, “Then we hit the returning phase of our operation, which is my favorite.”
I thought about Flint. He was so quiet and unassuming, yet he was also a genius. “How does Flint make all of this stuff, and does he ever talk?” Exhaustion definitely brought out my forwardness.
Phoenix’s countenance darkened, a frightening thing on a man who looked able to smash a table in two with his fist. He walked to the kitchen door with his effortless, dangerous grace. After glancing out, he leaned against the door jamb with his arms crossed.
He was quiet for so long that I thought our conversation was over, then he sighed. “It’s not that he can’t speak; it’s that he chooses not to. We all went through a lot of horrible things at the labs,” he said matter-of-factly with his eyes on the trapdoor from which we had just exited. “But for Flint, it was personal. You see, Galbran, the scientist who did all of this to us, is his dad.”
My eyes widened. Who could do such a thing to their own son? No wonder he didn’t speak. Who could trust anyone after something like that?
Phoenix continued, “He was one of the first Shifters, along with Marek and Raven. Flint was only six when his dad started to experiment on him.” He glanced at me. “I don’t know about you, but I think after something like that, I’d find things weren’t worth talking about.”
Chapter 18- Marek
I waited until the Den grew quiet with the soft snores and gentle sighs of sleeping children. Gratitude that we had been able to free so many filled my chest, but it was combated by how bold the Falconans were becoming. I worried how heavily guarded the next group of Lost would be. So far no one had gotten hurt, but this time the Falconan on the roof had almost shot Kyla, I had been lucky to escape the wing blades of the one that jumped me from the truck, and the motorcycles were a new tactic. We would need to post Raven on watch from the skies next time.
I walked quietly through the Den. Phoenix and Shadow showed Kyla the computer systems while Flint scrolled quickly through lists with the practiced eye of one who knew exactly what he was looking for. Whisper had fallen to sleep amid the stuffed animals piled high on her bed. She avoided the main rooms of the Den as much as possible when it was full of Lost children. I checked to make sure her nightlight was on before I went back to the kitchen and left through the ramp to the unused sewers.
I walked slowly along the pipes to make sure no Falconans got it in their minds to follow us. A few minutes later, the familiar sound of wings riding the stale air touched my ears and Raven’s midnight form drifted past my head. He flew through the darkness, then turned and came back my way, alighting on my shoulder. We walked on in amiable silence, the dark a bit lighter for the companionship.
We reached the ladder and Raven waited for me to open the grate, then flew out to make sure the way was clear. He called quietly above and I climbed out into the city night, then pushed the grate shut behind me. A brush of gray touched the horizon where the sun would soon rise.
The moving van was gone and all signs of our fight had been erased by the Falconans.
I picked up a bullet casing and glanced at it, then tossed it down the grate. A quick check showed that our motorcycles were safe. My plan had been to ride mine home, but I decided to send Phoenix and Shadow for them later. The cool night breeze called to my other side.
I shifted and stepped out of my discarded clothes, then pushed them under my motorcycle with my nose. A wing brushed my ear and I snapped good-naturedly at Raven. He gave a swift push of his wings and flew low over the street. I accepted the challenge and loped after him.
My paws ate up the dark pavement and I relished the scents of the night, the familiar smells of empty buildings, poorly paved roads, the cool, crisp scent of rain caught in abandoned gutters above, the green brush of ivy entwined along a brick wall, the sour scent of garbage-lined alleyways, and the unwashed bodies of the few individuals who walked the streets and knew enough not to challenge our path.
The scents were not all pleasant, but they were as memorable to me as the pad of my paws against the cool sidewalk. I belonged to the city night as much as it belonged to me. In my wolf form, I didn’t worry about the shadow of wings against the scattered bits of sky that showed through the abandoned sky scrapers. I didn’t think about the future or my place in the world.
I existed, and it was enough that an angry cat yowled in the distance, giving rise to the brief urge to track it down. It was enough to see a black feather float down from the friend who flew above and know that for now, at least, we were safe.
Chapter 19- Kyla
Marek walked me to my car. By my watch, it was four in the morning. Our footsteps echoed through the strangely empty streets. Luckily, I knew my parents wouldn’t be up wondering where I was. They trusted me. They probably thought I was asleep in my bed, home hours ago. I reminded myself that we were in the Downs and fought the urge not to walk closer to Marek.
“Phoenix said he told you about Flint,” Marek broke the silence as he studied the street ahead, ever ready for danger but not tense or afraid, just accepting it as though he could deal with anything that came our way.
I nodded. After a moment, I asked, “Does everyone have a story like that? Yours and Flint’s, I mean?” I clenched my teeth, embarrassed by my directness.
Marek shrugged. “Everyone has their own story, their own tragedies and triumphs. It’s only a matter of the perception they are viewed in and how we let them affect us.” At my surprised stare, he gave me a small nod. “Take you, for instance. You just went through what you could probably call the strangest, scariest, most unexpected night of your life. Am I right?”
I nodded, suddenly self-conscious at how sheltered my life seemed compared to his.
Marek continued, “Okay. You can let tonight affect you in a thousand different ways. You can shrug it off and act like nothing happened. You can jump at every shadow you see and vow never to leave the safety of your room until you’re eighty. You can go on a killing spree after every Falconan and Shifter you see; which, by the way, I’ve felt like doing more than once, and for which members of the government would probably praise you and then silence you in a back alley somewhere.” A short, humorless laugh followed and the echo of it from the buildings around us made it sound defiant. “But, however you choose to let this evening affect you, it’s the choosing that’s the most important part.”
I thought about it for a moment in silence. Somehow, it seemed to me like the way I acted after something like that was the most important part, the way I came across to those around me, and if I could hide what I had been through from my family. How I chose to let it affect me didn’t fit into my reasoning. I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
The garage was just around the corner. Marek stopped and glanced up at the lightening night sky as though studying the stars. I didn’t look up; I knew we couldn’t see the stars in the middle of the old sky scrapers and pollution. I waited in silence and gave him space. He never said anything without thinking it through first.
“You are who you choose to be,” he said finally, his eyes suddenly meeting mine with surprising directness. “No matter what happens to us, we choose how we want to feel because of it. That is what makes us who we are. They can do anything to us, but as long as we keep what’s in here safe,” he swept the hair back from his forehead with a casual gesture, “And as long as we stay true to our own selves, we have power over everything, the world even.”
“The power to change the world?” I tried not to sound skeptical.
Marek nodded. “If we choose to believe it.”
I studied his eyes. In the light of the street lamps overhead they were blue, the clear dark blue of the water I had seen from pictures of pre-World War III beaches. I could tell he wasn’t used to opening up to people, and that this really meant something to him. He carried so much on his shoulders. Maybe he had to choose to believe he could handle it all so that he didn’t collapse. I nodded. “I think I understand what you mean,” I said quietly.
He studied my face. “Really?”
At my nod, he gave me a quick smile. “Good; then you’ll be okay.” He walked me to the car, held open the door, and then watched me drive safely from the garage and down the street. Glancing in my rearview mirror, I watched the lone figure fade into the darkness. He seemed so alone, one person against so much. I choose to help him, I told myself silently, no matter what it takes.
Church a few hours later went by in a blur; then I found myself heading back out the door to go to the Downs under the pretense of another study group at school. I was ashamed of the fact that my parents accepted my word as the truth and gave me the car without an argument.
“If you see Marek, tell him we’re playing hockey at the old school,” Kip shouted before I closed the door. I could hear Mom argue with Kip that he should be studying like his sister. I fought back a laugh at the irony.
I had just pulled in at the empty parking garage when Raven appeared from around the corner. I couldn’t help but smile at his infectious grin. “How’d you know I was here?” I asked, locking the car door while at the same time realizing what a futile effort it was. I was in the Downs. If my car was to be stolen, locking the door wouldn’t slow anyone down. I hoped my proximity to the Den would keep the car safe; it seemed like the nightlife and street activity I had seen on the way in avoided the blocks around the warehouse. After seeing Marek in wolf form, I thought I knew why.
Raven pointed up. I glanced at the low ceiling of the garage, then realized what he meant. “Oh, you were flying. Right,” I concluded a bit uncomfortably.
Raven nodded. “Flying surveillance. It’s my usual job when we have Lost with us; at least, when I’m not on the computers.”
I paused when we stepped from the garage. The sun was setting and the remaining unbroken windows on the skyscrapers around us reflected orange and a faint blush of red. “What’s it like, flying?” I asked as we walked toward the warehouse.
Without a moment’s hesitation, the bird Shifter replied, “Like the first ray of sunlight after a storm.” He looked up at the sky, too. “At that moment, you’re all there is, no worries, no fear, just the endless sky and the breeze at your wingtips asking where you’d like to go. You’re infinitely small, yet immensely huge at the same time, because you are in complete control of yourself and your freedom. With the earth so far below your feet, and in the face of a coming storm, you realize that the rules of nature are ancient, and that they must always be obeyed.”
I walked along in silence, processing his words. “What?” Raven finally asked; his cheeks touched with red at the smile that had formed on my face.
I caught his look and shook my head quickly. “I mean no offense. I was just thinking of how much you remind me of Marek. You both have such a drive for life and what there is to learn because of our experiences.”
Raven beamed. “Being compared to Marek is an honor.” His eyebrows lifted as he thought out loud. “I guess it’s because our experiences did make us, quite literally. We’ve been through some things kids s
houldn’t survive.” Raven stopped walking and glanced at me as if embarrassed and cautious at the same time. We were about a block from the warehouse.
“What?” I asked self-consciously.
Raven grinned. “Sorry. After what we’ve been through, it’s hard to trust anyone.” At my silent nod of understanding, he continued, “It’s just that, without Marek, I don’t know where I’d be, or if I’d even be alive right now.” He glanced at the Den and took a deep breath. “When we escaped the labs, we were in pretty bad shape. We didn’t know where we were, where to go, or how to survive. The thing is, Marek kept telling me that we would make it, that we had to because so many others depended on us to go back and free them.
“Even after his family tried to turn him in, Marek just brushed it off as though it didn’t matter. He made this place our home. He kept us going back to the labs until he was sure we had freed every Shifter we could.” Raven shook his head. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, thanks for helping Marek. People like us don’t get helped too often. He’s not one to embellish when he’s hurt, so he must have really needed it.”
Surprised at the genuine gratitude from the bird Shifter, I said, “He would have done it for me.”
Raven nodded. “Yes, he would have.” He started forward, then glanced back at me over his shoulder. “And he would have enjoyed it,” he said with a teasing wink.
I pushed his shoulder, then felt bad when he stumbled forward. He was so light. “Sorry,” I said immediately. “I didn’t mean to. I forgot. . . .”
“That my bones are hollow?” Raven finished with a grin and a shrug. “It’s one of the side effects I’m willing to pay to be able to fly. Besides,” he said with another wink, “I never have to lose weight!” He gave a thoughtful frown. “I do have problems trying to gain weight, though. I guess I burn all the calories when I fly.”
“Sounds like a horrible problem,” I replied with a laugh as he opened the door to the warehouse.
