BOOM!!!
My eardrums practically ruptured from the force of the blast. Instantly my mouth was covered with dust, carpet fibers, and something wet I didn’t want to identify. I got knocked about four feet, still curled in a ball, and then something collapsed on me, knocking my breath out. Aftershocks and a much smaller boom made me curl tighter, but as soon as the explosions seemed to be over I straightened my back, grunting with the effort of pushing away debris.
“Report!” I yelled, inhaling dust and coughing hysterically. Big chunks of desk or ceiling fell off me. If I didn’t have some broken bones, it would be a miracle. I felt like I’d been hit by a tractor trailer, maybe a couple of them.
Clumsily, still coughing, I scrambled to my feet. “Report!” I yelled again frantically.
141
The room was full of billowing dust and fibers wafting everywhere. Red emergency lights were on, casting the whole scene in a horrible, bloody glare.
No one had answered me yet. I yelled even louder: “Report!”
I began to pick my way through the rubble. A sweeping glance told me that several whitecoats had been standing in the wrong place at the wrong time—they were lying crumpled and unconscious on the floor. I couldn’t see Ari anywhere, but I did see a couple pairs of feet sticking out from beneath piles of debris. No feet I recognized.
Across the room Jeb was slowly getting up—gray with dust, blood running down his chin.
“Here!” said Angel, and I felt the first spark of relief.
“Here,” croaked Nudge, and started coughing. I saw her crawl out from beneath a shattered desk.
“Here.” Total’s voice came from behind an overturned chair. I kicked it out of the way and saw that Total had turned completely gray, except for his eyes. “And I’m not happy about it, let me tell you,” he added grumpily.
“Here,” came Fang’s quiet, calm voice, as he picked himself out of a Fang-shaped hole in the opposite wall. Ooh, I bet that hurt.
“That was so awesome!” Gazzy yelled, leaping to his feet. Bits of broken countertop and wall fell off him.
“I give it a solid ten,” said Iggy, rolling out from under what used to be a desk. “Just for sonic blast alone.”
It had been eerily quiet for a minute after the blast, but now voices started up in the hallway outside. Again we began hearing shouted orders, the clanking of weapons, running feet. Though the feet sounded less steady. I heard groaning from beneath rubble.
A quick survey showed me my flock was whole and ready to move. It also showed . . .
. . . a huge hole in the basement wall, big enough to drive a truck through, leading right outside into the night.
“Oh, excellent,” Nudge said.
I grinned, feeling close to tears. Once again, the flock had come through. Our lives were one gnarly sitch after another. Again and again they tried to defeat us, and again and again we showed them what we were made of. I was so proud, and so mad, and now that I thought about it, really sore all over.
“You got that right,” I said, already hurrying toward the hole. When I was next to Gazzy, I held up my hand. “Way to be,” I said, slapping him a high five.
“Max?” Angel said. She looked like she’d been dipped in gray flour.
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“Are we leaving now?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “We’re gonna—”
“Blow this joint!” the flock yelled with me.
“Total!” I clapped and held out my arms. The small dog ran and leaped into them. He stuck out his tongue to lick me happily, saw my face, and thought better of it.
Then the six—seven—of us raced for the hole
and did an up-and-away that looked like poetry.
EPILOGUE