“Fang? Are you—like Max?” asked Dr. Martinez.
“Nope,” he said, sounding bored. “I’m the smart one.”
I resisted the urge to kick his shin.
“Well, come in, both of you,” said Dr. Martinez, sounding excited and bemused and awestruck. “I was going to run to the grocery store before Ella got home from school. But that can wait.”
Inside, the house seemed more familiar to me than Anne Walker’s, though I’d only been here maybe forty-eight hours, months ago. Maybe because it had felt like home, the first real home I’d ever been in.
Behind me, Fang stood close to the door, taking in every detail, cataloguing exits, planning courses of action in case violence broke out. As it tended to do around us.
“Are you guys hungry?” asked Dr. Martinez, taking off her jacket and putting down her purse. “I could make you sandwiches.”
“That would be great,” I said, my stomach growling at the thought.
Fang sniffed the air. “What’s that...scent, that...”
Dr. Martinez and I smiled at each other.
“Chocolate-chip cookies,” we said at the same time.
26
“So, you have your price,” I said to Fang, speaking around a mouthful of crumbs. “Your soul for a cookie.”
Making sure Dr. Martinez wasn’t looking, Fang shot me the bird and took another bite, clearly savoring the warm chewiness, the notes of vanilla, the semimelted chocolate chunks. I grinned at him, then stuck out my tongue.
Dr. Martinez sat down at the table with us and dipped a cookie into her mug of coffee. She patted my arm. “I’m really glad to see you again, Max,” she said, with so much sincerity that I blushed. “You know, there have been reports about mutant flying children in the news lately.”
I nodded. “Yeah. We keep forgetting the ‘lie low and hide’ part of our plan.”
“Do you have a plan?” she asked, concern on her face. “What are you doing now? Are there more of you?”
Just like that, my natural instincts for secrecy and self-protection kicked in, and I felt my face shut down. Next to me, Fang stiffened in midchew.
Dr. Martinez had no problem reading my expression.
“Never mind,” she said quickly. “Forget I asked. I just...wish I could help in some way.”
Dr. Martinez was a veterinarian, and she’d treated me for a gunshot wound at her clinic. She was the one who’d discovered, when she did an X-ray, the microchip in my arm.
“Maybe you can,” I said. “Remember my chip?”
“The one in your arm?” Dr. Martinez frowned. “Do you still have it?”
“Yeah. And I still want it out.”
She finished her cookie and drank some coffee, thinking it through. “Since you left, I’ve examined your X-ray a hundred times.” She smiled. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, but it drove me crazy—I had to figure it out. I’ve looked and looked at it, trying to see if there’s any way to take out the chip without damaging your nerves so badly that you’d lose the use of your hand.”
“Did you come up with something?” I was practically quivering with anticipation.
Her shoulders sagged slightly. “I’m not positive. It seems like I could possibly do it with microsurgery, but...”
“Do it,” I said quickly. “Do it now.”
I felt Fang looking at me, but I stayed focused on Dr. Martinez.
“I want this chip out,” I said, hating the pleading sound in my voice. “I don’t care what it does.”