My heart leaped. I squeezed his hand and nodded. “Me neither.”
For the rest of the flight I didn’t budge from Fang’s side. Sometimes I just sat there and watched his bruised face as he slept. Sometimes I woke from my own dozing to see his dark eyes watching me, as if I were a stranger and he was meeting me for the first time. And the whole time, awake or asleep, Fang never let go of my hand. Not once.
And here’s the weird thing: Even with all the awful stuff that had gone on, that was still going on, I felt content. I felt whole.
I felt right.
I wasn’t afraid of anything anymore. With Fang and the flock by my side, I could face anything. Come what may.
“So, where are we going, again?” Fang asked, yawning. He squinted out the window.
“To the one place in the world where you’ll be safe,” my mom said, turning around in her plush seat a few rows ahead of us. “To paradise.”
Book Four
PARADISE
74
SIX BIRD KIDS and one very jet-lagged flying dog stepped off Pierpont’s plane into glorious sunshine and tropical humidity.
We left Jeb on the plane; my mom said that this place had a medical team who would deal with him, and that they knew to keep him under guard.
“Just a short walk to your new home,” my mom said, and soon we were parading after her through the welcome shade of the rain forest.
I looked around me, struck dumb with wonder. Vines snaked up towering trees fuzzy with neon moss. Birds twittered and trilled all around us. Through a window of branches, we could see distant cliffs falling sharply to a beach of bleached sand and turquoise water.
My mom was right: If you looked up “paradise” in the dictionary, this would be it.
“Whoa,” I breathed.
“To our new life,” Fang said, threading his fingers in mine, his smile implying so many things we hadn’t been able to put into words: Together. Our new life together.
I grinned, dizzy with the possibilities of this place.
“Oh, my gosh!” Nudge said breathlessly. “Iggy! Feel the moss on the trees. Everything is lush and gorgeous and so green. And there’s parrots!” she squealed. “That’s the noise you hear above, that weird cackle. There are tons of ’em—blue and red and yellow. They’re huge!”
Gazzy flew up to join the parrots and started swinging from vines, Tarzan-style, and Iggy zoomed up after him, deftly maneuvering through the trees.
“Quickest way to ruin our first day in paradise? Scraping your feathered butts off the jungle floor!” Total yelled, and Gazzy hung upside down by one foot, giggling maniacally.
“Ooh, I bet there are waterfalls, too,” Nudge continued, ignoring the boys. “Tropical paradises always have waterfalls! Don’t they?”
My mom smiled indulgently. “They do, and there are.”
“Tree house!” Gazzy yelled from above. “Oh, man! You guys, look at all the tree houses!”
The tree houses were camouflaged so well that I hadn’t noticed them at first, but he was right—now I could see their shapes forming a village high in the jungle’s canopy.
A village just for us.
“They have our names on the doors!” Gazzy yelled. “Nudge, this one’s yours.”
“Really?” Nudge bolted up there as fast as her wings would carry her.
Nudge’s tree house was the most chic-looking of all the tree houses: ultramodern, with sleek, clean lines. It was minimal—almost delicate—and seemed to be held together by nothing more than sap. “A canopied bed!” I heard Nudge exclaim from inside. This was followed by a “Gazzy! Off!” I snorted with laughter.
“I think that’s yours over there, Total,” my mom said, pointing to an enormous mansion of a tree house.