Normal’s pretty fleeting around here. But right now, across the room, Gazzy and Angel were doing something totally unevil, working a jigsaw puzzle together, and they smiled at me with similar smiles. Of the five (formerly six) of us, they’re the only real blood siblings. Which I suppose explains why I have brown hair and brown eyes, Fang has dark hair and darker eyes, Iggy is tall and fair and light-haired, Gazzy and Angel are both blond and deceptively angelic-looking, and Nudge is African American, with light brown skin, curly corkscrew hair almost the same color, and eyes like melted chocolate.
I sighed as I took in the cozy, tranquil domestic scene.
“Hi, honey,” my mom said. She came over and pushed my hair behind my shoulders. I tried to remember the last time I’d untangled it, but after I thought back two days, I gave up.
“Hi,” I said.
“Why don’t you go take a nice shower?” she suggested.
“Yeah, I guess,” I said.
Across the room, Angel suddenly cocked her head in a way that made me stiffen and brace myself.
“Someone’s coming,” she said.
“Who is it?” my mom asked.
Angel concentrated, her brows furrowed. “It’s Jeb,” she said. “Jeb and Dr. Hans. Hans Gunther-Hagen.” And how would she know this, you might ask? Her scary mental powers. She can pick up on people’s energy and emotions, from a distance. And close up? Let’s just say don’t have any private, personal, embarrassing thoughts around her. Yeah. Good luck with that.
“How did they—” I began, then looked at my mom. “You told them we were here?! You know I hate seeing Jeb! And the last time I saw Dr. Hans, he’d just accidentally almost sort of killed Fang!”
“I know, honey,” my mom said, looking unruffled. “But Jeb called, and he said he just had to talk to you. Something urgent—he was very insistent.”
I looked into her warm brown eyes that were similar to mine. Her hair was darker and curlier than mine. We didn’t look much alike.
“I’m not talking to him,” I said, starting down the hall to the bathroom.
“If Max doesn’t want him here, he shouldn’t be here,” Dylan said. I looked back to see him swing in gracefully through a large open window. I hated that he was sticking up for me. I’d rather just dislike and mistrust him and be done with it.
“Don’t worry, Max,” Angel said. She came over to me and took my hand. “Whatever he says, we’re in this together. We’re the flock.”
I stifled a heavy sigh. This from one who was alternately a superamazing, then a traitorous, duplicitous, backstabbing seven-year-old. I didn’t exactly trust her fully either.
I looked around. As flock leader, everyone was expecting me to make a decision. Jeb’s presence here would bring uncertainty, chaos, probably danger.
It would perk up my day.
I shrugged. “Let him in.”
6
WE ALL HEARD IT: the drone of a small airplane. It landed in a dry flat field behind my mom’s small house. Gazzy, always hoping for an explosion, seemed disappointed it didn’t crash into the trees or go over the nearby cliff.
A minute later, Jeb was at the door with Dr. Hans, who, the last time I’d checked, was still on our official archenemy list. (Yes, we have to keep a list. It’s kind of sad.)
My stomach clenched as soon as they walked in the door. Jeb and Dr. Hans together? It was wrong on so many levels. This was the same Jeb who had abandoned us as little kids, forcing us to fend for ourselves in the mountains of Colorado. Ever since then, my relationship with him had been tentative. Tentative like the relationship between a spider and a fly. I am the fly in that scenario.
I looked at Dr. Hans warily, and he looked back at me. He’d almost killed Fang—I’d had to jab a hypodermic needle full of adrenaline directly into Fang’s heart to save him. Which, now that I thought about it, was so gross.
Both of these guys could be brilliant, generous, pretty useful, and committed to saving humanity.
