Suddenly I knew I was going to implode. Without a word, I pushed off from the ground, wings out, taking off as fast as I could.
I flew out of sight, out of the others’ hearing. Ahead was a huge Douglas fir, and I landed ungracefully on one of its upper branches, maybe 175 feet in the air, scrabbling to catch hold because I’d overshot. Gasping, I clung to the limb.
Okay, Max, think. Think! Fix this! Figure something out.
My brain was flooded with too much thought, emotion, confusion, rage, pain. I needed to get a grip.
But I couldn’t get a grip.
It was like I had just lost my little sister.
And like I had lost my little girl.
“Oh, God, Angel, Angel, Angel!”
Yelling as loud as I could, I made fists and punched the chunky bark of the fir tree hard, over and over, until finally actual pain seeped into my seared consciousness. I stared at my knuckles, saw the blood, the missing skin, the splinters.
The physical pain hurt much less than the mental kind.
My Angel, my baby, had been snatched away. She was with bloodthirsty man-wolf mutants eager for her blood who would turn her over to despicable lab geeks who wanted to take her apart. Literally.
Then I was crying, clinging to the tree as if it were a lifeboat from the Titanic, and I sobbed and sobbed until I thought I’d make myself sick. Gradually, the sobs slowed to shudders, and I wiped my face on my shirt, leaving streaks of blood.
I sat in the tree until my breathing calmed and my brain seemed to be hitting on most cylinders again. My hands were killing me, though. Note to self: Stop punching inanimate objects.
Okay. It was time to go down and be strong, to get everyone together, to come up with Plan B.
And one other thing—Ari’s last words were still screaming in my brain: We’re the good guys.
9
I don’t even remember flying home. I felt heartbroken and numb, and when we walked into the kitchen, the first thing I saw was Angel’s breakfast plate on the table.
Iggy howled and swept his hand across the kitchen counter, catapulting a mug through the air. It hit Fang in the side of the head.
“Watch it, idiot!” he yelled at Iggy furiously. Then he realized what he’d said, clenched his teeth, and rolled his eyes at me in frustration.
Tears were streaming down my cheeks, their salt stinging where the Eraser had raked me with his claws. Moving automatically, I got the first aid kit and started cleaning the Gasman’s scrapes and cuts. I looked around. Nudge’s cheek was bleeding; some shrapnel had burned her as it flew past. For once she wasn’t talking—she was curled on the couch, crying.
The Gasman glanced up at me.
How’d you let this happen, Max?
I was asking myself the same question.
True, I’m the leader, I’m Max the Invincible—but I’m also just a fourteen-year-old kid. And every once in a while, like when I realize all over again that Jeb is gone forever, that we’re on our own, that the others depend on me and I can’t let them down, well, that’s when it all gets to me. Suddenly, I’m a little kid again, wishing Jeb were back—or even, hey, wishing I was normal! Or had parents!
Yeah, right.
“You watch it!” Iggy shouted at Fang. “What happened? I mean, you guys can see, can’t you? Why couldn’t you get Angel?”
“They had a chopper!” the Gasman yelled, squirming out of my reach. “And guns! We’re not bulletproof!”
“Guys! Guys!” I yelled. “We’re all upset. But we’re not the enemy! They’re the enemy.”
I stuck the last Band-Aid on the Gasman and started pacing. “Just—be quiet for a minute so I can think,” I added more calmly. It wasn’t their fault our rescue mission had been such a total ditcher. It wasn’t their fault Angel was gone.
It was their fault that the kitchen looked like it belonged to a family of hygiene-challenged jackals, but I would deal with that later. Whenever that kind of thing became important again. If ever.