ANGEL STARED at the heart monitor in horror. A minute ago, its fast, even spikes had showed Fang’s normal heart rate of a 140 beats per minute. Now it was a flat line.
Fang lay still on the bed, his good eye slightly open. Angel grabbed his hand.
“Fang! Fang! Wake up!”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen!” said Dr. Hans, looking upset. “This drug has been tested on many subjects!”
“But were they normal, to begin with?”
“Yes, mostly…” Dr. Hans trailed off.
The drone of Fang’s monitor filled Angel’s head. She smacked her hand down on Fang’s bed, hard. “Do something!” she yelled at Dr. Hans. “You promised me he wouldn’t get hurt! You promised! Do something!”
“It’s too late!” said Dr. Hans. “What can I do?”
Whirling, Angel scanned the lab for a phone but spotted nothing. She sped out of the room and leaped up the steps. Still nothing. She raced outside onto the terrace, and once there, closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and pressed her fingers to her temples. Max, come, she thought as hard as she could. Come here now. Fang needs your help. Come now!
Her eyes popped open and she started scanning the sky, though she knew there was no way Max could be there yet. She didn’t even know if Max had heard her – she’d never tried to send a message that far before. There wasn’t time for her to fly to the safe house to get Max. All she could do was send thought messages.
Even though it was already too late.
78
MAX, COME. COME HERE NOW. Fang needs your help. Come now!
I froze, balanced on the balcony. I turned to Nudge.
“Did you hear that?”
Nudge shook her head.
“Got a message from Angel,” I said. “She said Fang needed my help and to come there now.”
“Fang is there?” Nudge asked, unfolding her wings, getting ready to jump off after me. “What happened?”
I paused for just a minute, thinking. I didn’t trust Angel, and I sure as heck didn’t trust Dr. Nightmare. But if Fang was there… if he really did need my help…
I jumped off the balcony, swearing, and rose into the air. “I can’t take the chance,” I told Nudge. “Angel alone – I might not go. But I can’t take the chance with Fang. I’m going.”
I decided to go into warp drive, leaving Nudge and the others, now clustered on the balcony, behind. Pressing my hands flat against the legs of my jeans, I aimed myself in the direction of Malibu. Then I just… shifted into overdrive. Within fifteen seconds, I was streaking through the sky at upward of 250 miles an hour. I’d be there in minutes.
One thing was certain: If something had happened to Fang, and it was Angel’s fault, we’d never be in the same flock again. I promised myself that much.
79
DOWN IN THE LAB, Dr. Hans was a blur of activity. He grabbed a hypodermic needle of something and shot it into Fang’s IV line. Angel held Fang’s hand, watching the machine tensely. Nothing happened.
“Blast!” Dr. Hans shouted. He dashed into the adjacent supply room.
Angel was in a deep state of shock. When her Voice had given her the premonition about Fang, she had just reported it. She hadn’t known why, when, or how it would happen. Somehow, she’d thought that telling Max and the others would help it not come true.
Then Dylan had shown up, seeming like the perfect answer: The Voice had said that the best way for everyone to survive was to split the flock up, have two flocks. Max could have Dylan, and Fang could join forces with Angel. Angel would be the leader of her flock, and Fang would be second in command. Having Max and Fang in the same flock was overkill.
Dr. Hans had promised that if Fang came here, everything would be perfect. Then his goons had beaten Fang up, and Dr. Hans had started the IV drip into Fang’s arm, telling Angel that Fang was on his way to becoming the most ultimate Fang possible. Lies.
Angel’s back straightened – she felt Max coming. Quietly she left Fang’s side and went to unlock the lab door. She glanced around but didn’t see Dr. Hans’s security team. Then she sat again at Fang’s side and picked up his hand.
Was she imagining it, or was Fang’s hand already becoming cold?
80
I DROPPED DOWN onto the terrace like a bird of prey. As soon as my sneakers thunked onto solid ground, I raced along the terrace until I saw an open door. I rushed through it and immediately down some steps. Somehow, I had seen these steps in the message Angel had sent me – I knew just where to go.
“Fang! Angel?” I yelled, not even trying for stealth. I was storming the castle, not stealing the jewels.
Then through a vast maze of lab tables, metal and glass shelving, gurneys, and all kinds of medical equipment, I saw Fang in a hospital bed, looking beat up, bruised. Way too still and way too pale. Then Angel, rising slowly from beside him like a zombie from the grave and drifting slowly toward me.
“Max, I…”
“Angel! What the -” I sprinted across the lab to Fang’s side.
I grabbed his hand. It was cold. unbelievably cold. One eye was open slightly, unseeing.
Fang will be the first to -
I couldn’t let myself think it. I couldn’t. But he really looked… He felt…
Just then Dr. Gunther-Hagen appeared from a side room holding some medical supplies. “I see you now regret your decision, Max.”
I snarled at the doctor, “What in the name of God happened, you butcher? He looks like he went through a wood chipper!”
“He had a bad reaction to a sedative,” said the doctor stiffly. “He was injured.”
The solid drone of an alarm sank into my brain, and my gaze snapped to the machinery next to the bed. There was no heartbeat registering.
“He’s flatlining!” I shrieked, and grabbed Dr. Hans by the front of his jacket. “Fix him!”
“Why are you so surprised, Max? Your insistence upon being with Fang above all else – well, I warned you quite clearly that no good would come of it. You had the chance to protect all of the ones you love.”
Had he killed Fang? Could he have possibly…?
“There’s nothing anyone can do. It’s too late. I’m sorry.”
He had killed Fang. That sentence made absolutely zero sense to me. It simply did not compute. I shoved the doctor away and turned to Fang.
I wanted to shake Fang’s shoulders, splash cold water on his face, tug on his hair. I stared at him. The parts of his face that weren’t purple and bruised were not… life colored.
It just didn’t make sense.
A remote part of my consciousness registered that the rest of the flock had arrived, were slamming through the lab door. I couldn’t even look up. Fang’s hand was limp and cold in mine. My brain hadn’t kicked into gear yet, had frozen at the entry of the unthinkable thought.
Fang – after everything we’d been through – was…
Gone?
81
THAT SMALL PART of my mind that was still functioning finally made me look up and catch sight of the flock rushing in just as the lab security team flooded the room from another doorway.
The unfriendly familiar face of our old nemesis, Mr. Chu, shocked me out of my daze for a moment.
“Take ’em
“On it!” Iggy shouted. Even though they knew I couldn’t leave Fang’s side, I’d never seen the flock look so confident and determined. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we were in a lab, and we knew our way around labs.
But then again, so did these guys.
Iggy immediately flew across the room, swiping glass jars and tubes off shelves and tables and then knocking over as many freestanding shelves as he could.
The instant hurricane of thunderous chaos gave the flock an advantage. By the time the men had chosen their targets, the kids had spread to all corners of the room. Grown-ups just think too much.
“Skateboard!” Iggy called to Gazzy. The Gasman used his wings to propel himself toward the high ceiling and grabbed the pipes running across the length of the room. Swinging off like a trapeze artist, he landed on a gurney and went zooming across the lab, knocking over two guards as he went.
Then, an encore performance: Gazzy gurney-boarded back the other way, over the two dazed guards. But this time, the gurney flipped as it caught one of the guards’ heads.
Gazzy went flying as though he’d been launched from a cannon, but it was a good shot. He knocked another guard down before he hit the floor.
Nudge had grabbed a metal IV stand and was spinning around with it like a wild whirling dervish. It smashed into a guard’s face and he went down, but not a second later, Nudge took a hard punch to the side of her face from another man, her skin splitting under the impact.
