“Through the woods!” Fang called, and I nodded.
“Rendezvous at the bat cave,” I added. “Make sure you aren’t followed!”
The six of us dived into the trees, effortlessly slipping among the branches and trunks. We’d practiced moves like this hundreds of times, and it was exhilarating, like playing a video game, only, you know, in real life. In less than a minute we heard crashes and yells behind us. Several Erasers had already misjudged their wingspans and almost ripped their wings off on unforgiving tree trunks.
It was pretty funny.
“No one touches Max! She’s mine!” I heard Ari shout, and thought, Oh, brother.
We split up, each leading a bunch of Erasers on a crazy zigzag path. Together again, Iggy and Gazzy flew in tandem, with Iggy able to mimic Gazzy’s moves within milliseconds. Angel was a blur of white through the green and brown of the forest. I knew Fang was holding Total and hoped that didn’t cramp his style too much.
“This is where it ends,” I heard Ari snarl, surprisingly close. I took a split-second look back and saw that he was barely thirty feet behind me. Okay, time to pour on the power. I sucked in a deep breath and surged forward, putting some of my newfound speed into action.
And practically almost killed myself, because trees were popping in my way faster than I had ever practiced. Get it together, Maximum, I told myself grimly. React faster. You can do it.
Concentrating fiercely, I aimed myself like a bullet through and over and between the thick trees and scrubby undergrowth. All sound faded away as I focused intently on finding a path for myself through the woods. Again and again I flipped sideways, shooting through impossibly narrow gaps. Several times I clipped my wing tips against something and even ripped some feathers out, making me hiss in a breath.
There was no way Ari could keep up with me at this speed, being such a bad flyer, with patched-on wings. I slowed, and time slowed with me. Sound reached my ears again—I was far away from everyone. Uh, too far, actually. I turned around and headed back.
I came up behind Ari, all stealthy wings, where he was perched on a branch.
“No! I told you—she’s mine!” Ari was shouting into an earpiece. “This time no one’s going to stop me. You take care of the others. I’ll find Max.”
He tapped his com unit off and took out a small pair of military binoculars. He peered through them, and I was practically holding my sides to keep from laughing. Finally he turned enough to see me—a hundred miles wide, filling his vision.
“Ah!” he cried in surprise, and dropped the binoculars.
Then I laughed. “So, what plans do you have for me, dog boy?”
I expected him to snarl and lunge, as usual. But he sat back on his branch and looked at me, seeming almost calm and roughly in the neighborhood of sane.
“Plans,” he said. “I don’t want to kill you. But I will if I have to. If you don’t cooperate.”
“Cooperate? This is me you’re talking to.”
Ari reached behind him and took a large, lethal-looking knife out of his pack. “I’m going to ask you once, nicely. What happens after that is up to you.”
What was he up to? “Uh, okay. Ask away.”
“You come with me. The two of us disappear. We never have to deal with Jeb and the whitecoats and everyone else again.”
“Disappear where?” You know what they say: Curiosity killed the mutant bird kid. But I couldn’t help myself.
“A place I know.”
“And I would be stuck there? With you as my guard? I have to tell you, this isn’t among my top-ten offers.”
“Not as your guard. As your friend.”
“You and me.” This was throwing me for a loop—and then I remembered Angel telling me that she’d picked up on Ari actually loving me. In a hateful, twisted way, of course.
“Yes. This is your one chance.”
“Uh-huh.” I couldn’t for the life of me see where this was headed in his mind. Unless—ick. “Ari, I can’t leave the flock,” I said, straight out. “Not for you, not for Jeb, not for anyone.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ari said evenly, then he lunged at me with the knife.
I let myself fall backward off my branch, doing a flip in the air and unfurling my wings as I came right-side up. I didn’t even look back as I took off through the woods again, fast, heading back to the general area where the flock had split up. I felt sorry for Ari. Or, at least, I potentially felt sorry for him, if he would quit trying to kill me.