I went still and saw the bird girl’s eyes widen in fear too. Did she know Ari? Slowly, I handed her the small whimpering mutant in my arms, then turned.
“Back again? What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought Dad was keeping you on a short leash.”
His hands curled into clawed fists.
I needed time. Behind me, I made “run!” motions with one hand. “So what happened, Ari?” I said, keeping his attention on me. “Who took care of you when Jeb left with us?”
His eyes narrowed, and I saw his canines growing visibly longer. “The whitecoats. Don’t worry about it; I was in good hands. The best. Somebody was looking out for me.”
I frowned, wondering—“Ari, did Jeb give them permission to Eraserfy you or did someone just do it while he was gone?”
Ari’s heavily muscled body quivered with rage. “What do you care? You’re so perfect, the one successful recombinant. And I’m nobody, remember? I’m the boy who was left behind.”
Despite everything, despite the fact that I could cheerfully have kicked his teeth in for what he had done to Fang, I did feel a pang of pity for Ari. It was true—once we were out of the School, I’d never given him a second thought. I didn’t think about why Jeb had left him or what had happened to him.
“Someone did terrible things to you because Jeb wasn’t there to protect you,” I said quietly.
“Shut up!” he growled. “You don’t know anything! You’re dumb as a brick!”
“Maybe not. Someone wanted to see if Erasers would last longer if they didn’t start from infancy,” I went on. Ari was trembling now, his hands clenching and unclenching convulsively. “You were three years old, and they grafted DNA into you and they got a superEraser. Right?”
Suddenly, Ari lunged and swung out with one clubbed paw. Even with my speed-record reflexes, he managed to cuff my cheek hard enough to spin me against the gross tunnel wall. Something like pus stuck to my face.
I sucked in a breath, accepting that I was about to get the stuffing beat out of me. Ol’ Jeb, though clearly an agent of the devil, had taught us the useful art of street fighting. Never fight fair—that’s not how you win. Use every dirty trick you can. Expect pain. Expect to get hurt. If you’re surprised by the pain, you just lost.
I turned slowly back toward Ari. “Out in the real world, you should be in second grade,” I said, tasting salty blood inside my mouth. “If Jeb had protected you.”
“Out in the real world, you would have been killed for the disgusting mutant freak you are.”
Now the gloves were off. “And you’re a . . . what?” I asked in mock polite confusion. “Face it, Ari. You’re not just a big, hairy seven-year-old. You’re much more of an obvious mutant freak than I am. And your own father let it happen.”
“Shut up!” Ari yelled furiously.
I couldn’t help it—I felt bad for him for a second.
But only for a second.
“You see, Ari,” I said conversationally, then launched myself at him with a roundhouse kick that would have caved in the chest of an ordinary man. Ari merely staggered.
Staggered back a half-step. Not even a full one.
He cuffed me again, and I saw circles and stars. He punched me in the stomach. My God, he was as strong as a team of oxen. That would be strong, right?
“You’re dead meat,” Ari growled. “I mean that literally.”
Then he surged toward me, claws out—and he slipped.
His boot slid on the slimy tunnel ledge and he fell heavily to his back. So hard I could hear the wind knocked out of him, a mighty gush of air.
“Get them out of here!” I shouted at Fang, barely turning my head, then instantly dropped my full weight onto Ari’s chest.
I could hear my heart and feel adrenaline snaking through me, turning me into Supergirl. I remembered that Ari had hurt Fang bad out at the beach—and he’d enjoyed it.
Ari struggled to get up, wheezing like a large
animal with pneumonia, trying to push me off. I grabbed his head with both hands, my face twisted with fury.
But he got away from me. He was so fast, faster than I was.