Fang turned around again and squinted. He could just barely make out a figure approaching from two or three blocks away.
He had to admit—he was impressed.
15
FIGHTING PANIC, STAYING ALOFT, Gazzy looked all around him. To his horror, he saw Jeb standing in the doorway of the spiraling, smoking plane.
Another quick look showed no Dylan, no Dr. Hans. Max had Dr. Martinez, and Angel was helping Nudge and Iggy as best she could. That left only Gazzy…
He tucked back his wings, angled his body, and shot down. Gazzy reached Jeb just as he leaped desperately into the air. Moving fast, Gazzy wedged his hands beneath Jeb’s flailing arms. Jeb twisted around and clutched Gazzy’s forearms, but he hung like dead weight.
“Spread your arms and legs out wide!” Gazzy yelled to Jeb. “It’ll help slow you down!”
“I’m too heavy!” Jeb cried into Gazzy’s ear. “You can’t support my weight by yourself!”
“Uhh,” Gazzy said nervously, but it was the truth.
“Gazzy! Listen to me! You all need to know”—he felt Jeb loosen his hold—“the human race will have to die to save the planet!”
Gazzy grimaced and his heart pounded with panic as he watched the ground rushing up at them horribly fast.
“Just like I have to die—to save you!”
And before Gazzy could say anything, Jeb had let go. Reflexively, Gazzy reached out to grab Jeb, even as he dropped ten, twenty, thirty feet away from him in seconds.
“I’m sorry, Jeb!” Gazzy yelled. “I’m sorry!” All he saw was Jeb’s face, white and scared, as it got smaller and smaller below him.
Then Gazzy realized that was the last time he would see Jeb alive, ever again.
And it was his fault.
16
STAR LOOKED DISGUSTED by the sushi. And by everything else. Her cold blue eyes were dancing between Fang and Ratchet, and Fang wondered if she was about to bolt, to blow this whole thing off. She’d almost wrecked the joint when she learned they didn’t serve burgers and shakes.
Ratchet eyed Star’s school uniform, her designer bag, and her immaculately painted nails, and scowled. “We don’t have very much in common, Twinkle,” he huffed. “But sushi’s a barfathon, I’ll give you that.”
“How can you not like sushi?” Fang said, spearing another California roll and trying to be sociable to ease the tension. “Wasabi. It’s like a party in my mouth.”
Star regarded the two of them coolly, her light blond hair swinging softly around her shoulders. “You guys don’t get it. It’s not that I don’t like it. It just isn’t enough. I need more. Bigger. Better.”
“Ooh, daddy’s little girl is used to bigger,” Ratchet said in a high, mocking voice. Then returning to a coarse rumble, he said, “I guess size matters to you, huh?”
Star’s glare was so icy that Fang almost felt a chill in the air. If it was possible for a Catholic schoolgirl to look lethal, at that moment Star certainly did.
She turned to Fang and said, “I can’t work with him.”
Then she picked up her chops
ticks and began shoveling pieces of sushi into her mouth like a bulldozer. Fang gaped, letting some sushi fall from his chopsticks. This girl was rail thin, and she was putting away more than he and Max could eat—combined. And that was really saying something.
“Will there be anyone else?” Star said, slapping down her chopsticks. She’d managed to eat half the menu in thirty seconds without getting a single drop of sauce on her crisp white blouse.
“Yes,” Fang said. “At the hotel. And you also mentioned you had a friend?”
Star nodded. “Kate. She goes to my school. She won’t be here for a while yet. She’s strong, but I’m fast.”
“Guess so,” Fang said. “You got here way sooner than I expected. Weren’t you coming down here from almost twenty miles north?”