Massive understatement.
35
When Nudge finally opened her eyes, the truck was moving. She couldn’t remember the last several hours, so she figured she’d been asleep.
Squirming around, she saw Gazzy and Iggy lying with their eyes closed, maybe sleeping. Even Total seemed worn out, lying on his side, not even panting.
Angel was gone. Max and Fang had no idea where they were or what had happened. Iggy seemed to have given up.
The Gasman hadn’t said it, but Nudge knew he was more scared than he’d admit. Dried tear tracks streaked his dirty cheeks, making him look younger and more helpless than she’d ever seen him.
By moving slightly, Nudge could see five Flyboys sitting near the front of the truck, their backs against the truck walls. From here they looked almost like regular Erasers, but there was something slightly different about them. Basically, they were metallic robots with a thin Eraser skin over their frames. Their fur wasn’t as thick. And they never morphed into looking semihuman—they stayed in wolf form all the time.
Nudge closed her eyes again, weary and aching all over, too tired to think. They needed a plan. Everything just seemed so overwhelming and scary.
The truck shuddered to a halt, the screech of the brakes hurting Nudge’s ears. Then the ride grew very choppy, as if they had veered off the road and were rolling on dirt now. Ow, ow, ow, Nudge thought, biting her lip to keep from crying out. Gazzy and Iggy groggily opened their eyes, and Total stirred.
“I hope this is a potty break,” he muttered.
There was shouting outside. The three bird kids struggled to s
it up, their hands still duct-taped behind them.
The two back doors of the truck were thrown open with heavy, brain-rattling bangs. Sunlight flooding in made them blink and turn their heads away. The Flyboys in the truck with them strode to the opening.
There was more shouting, raised voices from the front of the truck. Nudge saw nothing outside except a long, empty dirt road with low brush lining it. No buildings, no electricity wires. No one around to help them. Nowhere to run to. Their wings had been bound flat against their backs.
“What’s happening?” Iggy’s whisper was barely audible, but a Flyboy kicked him.
“Shut up!” it growled, sounding like a recorded phone message.
Nudge heard many feet walking quickly toward the back of the truck. She braced for whatever was going to happen next.
Which no one ever could have predicted in a million years.
An overwhelming clump of Flyboys surrounded the back of the truck, furry faces frozen into identical sneers. Nudge swallowed, pretending to be braver than she was.
The crowd shifted restlessly, and Nudge saw that it was parting to let someone through. Max? Her heart jumped at the possibility. Even Max trussed up, in bad shape, thrown into the truck with them, would be fabulous, such a welcome—
It was Jeb!
Nudge felt a twinge around her heart as she looked at the face that had formed so much of her childhood. Jeb had rescued them. Then he’d died—or they’d thought he was dead. Then he had shown up again, clearly one of Them. Nudge knew that Max hated him now. So Nudge hated him too.
Her eyes narrowed.
From behind Jeb an Eraser, a real Eraser, stepped out to stand next to him. It was Ari! Ari, who had also been dead and then not really. Ari was the only real Eraser they’d seen in days and days.
Nudge put a bored expression on her face like she’d seen Max and Fang do a thousand times. Yeah, yeah, Jeb and Ari, she thought. Show me something new.
Someone else stepped out from behind Ari.
Nudge’s eyes widened, and her breath seized in her throat. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Instead her lips silently formed one word: Angel.
Nudge searched Angel’s blue eyes, but they seemed like a total stranger’s. Nudge had never seen her like this.
“Angel!” Gazzy’s face looked happy but at the same time concerned.