“That’s tower,” I said. “Eiffel Tower. Actually, we’re headed to...”
England, first. Start with England. Look for Schools.
“England,” I said, holding my arms out for Total. He gave a little hop, and I zipped him inside my jacket. Only his small fuzzy face peeked out at the neck. He still looked a little mangy, and I hoped his face fur would fill in soon. “We’re going to look for Schools, gather information. Learn everything we can about this Re-Evolution Plan. And we’re going to have to move fast.”
“I’m on your side,” Ari said, sounding sincere. “I’m going to protect you no matter what.” He looked down, and I caught a glimpse of the scared seven-year-old he was inside. “Until my expiration date, anyway.”
I nodded, not letting any softer emotions through.
“Okay, then,” I said, starting to run down the driveway for a fast takeoff. “We head east!”
As always, I fe
lt much, much better once we were high, high in the air. The land below us was a patchwork of green and brown, with tiny silver threads of rivers and gray clumps of cities. It was cold, and the wind made my eyes water, but I felt calmer, more in control, in the air.
It started to occur to me that England was really far away, over a honking big bunch of water. We’d flown for seven, eight hours straight a couple times, but it was hard, and we’d been wiped afterward. And God knew Ari wasn’t that strong a flier. Not with those weird taped-on wings. Hmm. No place to land and rest over the Atlantic Ocean.
Go to Washington DC. There’s a direct flight from Dulles.
Like, a plane?
Exactly like. Right down to the shiny silver outside.
Us...on a plane. That seemed so wrong, somehow. Redundant.
Plus, there was the whole cooped-up, claustrophobia issue.
You’ll be fine.
“We’re headed to Washington DC,” I told my new miniflock. “We’re going to take a plane from there.”
Everyone looked astonished. I wondered how we would get Ari, with his bizarre and scary appearance, through a busy airport.
“We’re going to take a plane?” Nudge asked, her voice practically squeaking.
Total frowned. “Isn’t that redundant?”
I sighed.
64
Flying west without Max was like flying with one wing missing, Fang thought. He kept seeing her face, furious, confused, and, even though she would never admit it, scared. He’d seen that face just about every day of his entire life. He’d seen it filthy with caked-on dirt, bruised and bloodied, snarling, laughing, sleeping, telling complicated lies with total sincerity...looking down at him with that light in her eyes, that communication between them....
But she had his back against a wall. What did she expect him to do? Just lie back and take Ari? Like, oh, sure, he’d just forget how many times Ari’d tried to kill them, how likely it was that he was wired and tracking them, how dangerous he was to have around. He was a disaster of patched-together body parts, upgrades, twisted emotions, psychological torture. A walking, flying time bomb about to explode.
Fang looked at it this way: If you knew you were checking out in a couple days no matter what, well, what did it matter what the heck you did? You could do crazy stuff, dangerous stuff, break any law, kill anybody. None of it would matter because you’d be cold and stiff in a couple days. Friends didn’t matter, loyalty didn’t matter. You could burn any bridge.
That was who Max was choosing to spend time with. Who she was letting hang around the younger kids.
Fang would have followed Max to the end of the world, wherever and whenever that was. If she’d dropped into the cone of an active volcano, he would have backed her up, no matter what.
But he couldn’t go along with Ari.
“Fang?” The Gasman’s voice was subdued. None of them liked being split up. If they felt as though half of them were missing, it was because they were.
Fang looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
“Where are we going?”