We all heard the horrible, unmistakable sound of Angel’s bone snapping, accompanied by her barely suppressed shriek of pain. My heart leaped into my throat, and I chopped down on Gozen’s hand as best I could. My hand bounced off his grip, and the rebound almost dislocated my shoulder. Way to go, Max. Chop down on solid metal.
Gozen released Angel, and I immediately grabbed her, drawing her to me and holding her against my chest, feeling her trying to stifle her cries. We were still swinging above the ground, and the mesh wasn’t stopping the freezing winds from tearing at our faces, our jackets.
“Move them,” Gozen directed.
Whatever was holding us started moving slowly across the ice. I felt as if I’d been cold forever, had been surrounded by screaming wind my whole life. Inside the swinging mesh, I looked at Fang’s eyes, the only dark things visible in the endless, swirling whiteness.
Wait, he seemed to say. Wait, and when we see a chance, we’ll take it.
Part Three
MOON OVER MIAMI — OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT
60
HOLDING US OFF the ground inside a tightly woven metal net was about as effective as locking us in dog crates. Not infallible, but pretty dang close. Sure, we could move the net by shifting our weight around, but we were too far away from anything to hit.
After a while we stopped shivering and got sleepy again — welcome back, hypothermia! Just as I was groggily debating the merits of freezing to death before anyone could do something awful to us versus actually living, the thing carrying us began to roll up a snow-covered ramp. My eyes were burning, and my lashes were frozen with chunks of ice, but I blinked and squinted. We were going into . . . a building? A large, round, white building?
Inside I saw that it was a really big jet, designed to move troops or cars or something. So we were going somewhere.
“Max?” That voice . . .
The net released us, hard, onto the floor. Angel gasped slightly, but fortunately she was so out of it by now that the new pain barely registered.
In an instant I staggered to my feet, willing myself back to full consciousness. The ramp closed, and my eyes couldn’t see well in the dim light. I’d lost my sunglasses in the skirmish and was now practically snow-blind.
“Max!”
My heart sank, and I peered into the half-light. “Gazzy?”
61
HALF AN HOUR LATER, we were thawed, reunited with the rest of the flock, able to see, and becoming very, very p.o.’d about being captives again. Yeah, pretty much business as usual for us.
“Where are we going?” Iggy asked. “Any clues?”
“No,” I said. This rear area of the plane, intended for cargo, had not been graced with windows, since boxes usually don’t give a crap about where they’re going. We were lucky it was slightly heated.
“Who was the big thug?” Nudge wrapped her arms around her knees, resting her head on them. They’d been grabbed one by one, back at the station. Some of the scientists had tried to fight and had a bunch of serious injuries to show for it. I felt sorry for them, but if you lie down with dogs . . . (No, Total, don’t get offended. The flock were the “dogs” in that metaphor. See, they hung out with — You know what? To heck with it.)
“Don’t know,” I said. Adrenaline had been keeping me alert when we first got here, but now it was gone, leaving me wallowing in the wallow of the deeply bummed. “He’s a big Frankenberry jerk, though.”
“Those things are so weird,” said Gazzy.
“You’re not kidding,” I agreed.
All the short soldiers that had captured us, plus a bunch more, were here in the cargo area with us. When the ramp had locked into place, the big guy had given a command. The soldiers had lined up against the wall, three rows deep, and then just stood there. I couldn’t tell if they were powered down or what.
Then Gazzy had tried to touch one and got a nasty electric shock that knocked him backward about a foot and a half.
Several of the soldiers around that one had seemed to power up then, shifting their positions and aiming their sensors at us. A couple of them had inched forward, and we all froze.
“Back away very slowly, Gazzy,” I said quietly. “To the wall, and sit down, very, very slowly.”
Still rubbing his shocked hand, Gazzy began to back up, then he jumped when a laser beam shot out and burned a hole right through the toe of his boot.
“Yow!” he said, hopping on the other foot.