Given these revolting developments, there was only one thing to do. Leaving my bandaged left arm outside the shower curtain, I sat in the tub with the water pouring down on my head and cried.
32
“I don’t think you should leave until your arm heals,” said Dr. Martinez, looking worried. “I’m saying that as a doctor, Max.”
“We’ve been gone too long as it is,” I said. “Besides, with our zippy recombinant healing powers, I should be fine, in, oh, about twenty minutes.”
She knew I was exaggerating, but she also knew me well enough to know that little things like healing up and common sense don’t usually affect my decisions.
“I don’t want you to go,” said Ella miserably. “Either of you.”
“I know,” I said. “But we have to. We’ve got to get back to our, uh, situation.”
“Max, is there anything we can do to help?” Ella’s mom’s eyes were filled with a deep emotion that unnerved me.
Saving the world didn’t feel like something I could delegate.
“No, I don’t think so,” I said politely.
Behind me, Fang stood waiting, hating being in the open in their yard. He’d been weird all morning, and I wasn’t sure if it was about my wonky hand, what I’d said by accident, or what. Anyway, I knew he was itching to be off, and part of me was too.
Part of me wasn’t.
There were hugs, of course. These people couldn’t spit without having to hug someone. It felt unbalanced, being able to hug back with only my right arm—that is, my left arm could move up, but it was pretty dead below the elbow. Awkward.
I saw Dr. Martinez step toward Fang, her arms out, but a glance at his face made her stop, then smile warmly and hold her hand out for shaking. He took it, to my relief.
“I’m so glad I met you,” she said to him, looking as if she were visibly restraining herself from hugging him. He stood stiffly, not saying anything.
“Take care of Max.”
He nodded, and his mouth quirked on one side. He knew the idea that anyone needed to take care of me would get my knickers in a twist. I scowled. We would discuss this, for sure.
“Later,” he said to Ella and Dr. Martinez in that gushy, hyperemotional, overdramatic way he had.
Then he ran across the yard, leaping into the air and unfurling his wings right before he hit the woods. I heard them gasp at the sight of his fourteen-foot wings lofting him effortlessly into the sky, so dark they looked almost purple in the sunlight.
I smiled one last time at Ella and her mother, feeling really sad, but not as sad as I had last time, despite my ruined arm. Now I felt like, I found them again; I can always come back.
And I really thought I might, when all of this was over. If it was ever over.
33
Flying again felt as wonderful and life-giving as flying again always did. Fang and I didn’t speak for maybe forty minutes, streaking back toward where we’d left the flock. I was filled with apprehension and started to think through the almost-certainly-impossible idea of us all getting cell phones so we could keep in touch during times like this.
Finally it couldn’t be avoided any longer.
“So what’s with you?” I asked brusquely.
As if he’d been waiting, Fang rose and held his speed so he was almost right on top of me. While flying, it was the easiest way to hand something to someone else.
I held up my right hand, and he reached down, pressing a small white square of paper into my hand.
I looked at it as he shifted slightly so we were side-by-side again.
It was a photo, and I recognized it.
It was the picture of the baby Gasman that Fang and I had found in a deserted crack house, like, a million years ago. I’d left it in my pack, hidden back with the others in the canyon. “Why’d you bring this?” I asked Fang.