My huge black wings caught an updraft and I rose about a hundred feet farther up. Holly screamed.
"Shush, shush." I tried to feed her with little Honey Nut Cheerios from that altitude, but it was impossible. I started to tilt my wings downward so I could land in a tree and feed her. I folded my wings in and guided myself down with the tips. Holly continued screaming.
Suddenly I remembered the time when Holly had screamed because a couple of Erasers where sneaking up on us. That had been in Maine. I looked around nervously.
Crack! A twig snapped and I jumped.
Crack! Something was walking towards us. I couldn't just flap my wings and lift off the tree branch. I had to have a running start. Especially if I was to carry Holly. Oh, crap. I was trapped.
"Hello?" What the heck was I supposed to do? Jump down? They'd eat me and have Holly for dessert!
A girl who looked about my age came out of the forest. A boy melted out of the tree right below me. God, had he been there the whole time? And I hadn't noticed? I was getting soft. Well, he had on all black clothing. Camouflage. And he was in my blind spot. Directly below me.
The boy strode up to the girl. He told her something with an expression of mild shock. I wondered if he was surprised that I had wings. He didn't look real emotional to me. With my hawk hearing I could hear everything he said to her.
"Max, she has wings." He looked irked at her over something.
"It could be a trap…" 'Max' stared at him.
"They've made a bad mutant just for hunting you down? Gave it a baby to look more cozy? Rather full of yourself, are you not?" The boy stared her down.
"Fine." Max said shortly "You handle her though, you asked for it. I'll tell the kids." There were more of them? Kids like Holly? Max ran through the forest with lightning speed that shocked me. At least Holly had quit screaming. Maybe the people were good. They certainly seemed good from what I had heard. I was now left alone with the boy.
"Care to join me in Hell?" He said, grinning and holding up his hand. My tree branch was low enough that I could reach down and hold it, which is probably what he meant for me to do. But I didn't know that much about him. Yet.
I jumped down on the other side of the tree and looked at him. He was tall and lanky, and his hair looked longer on one side than the other. He had on a black torn-up leather jacket over a black t-shirt. And black jeans. And his hair was black with brown tips. The guy really liked black.
"Hey." He tried again. I hugged Holly tightly, then sat her on my hip, preparing for the fight or flight. Either one was fine. I hadn't punched somebody in a while. Holly never seemed to get hurt in these situations.
He must have noticed my seemingly subtle move, because his face softened a bit and he said "We aren't here to hurt you. This is a chance encounter, I swear." He held out his hand again. This time I took it. "I'm Fang." He told me. Fang? What kind a name is that? I thought.
"I'm Sunny." I said. I didn't think to use a fake name. His dark eyes would have noticed my every move and decided I was lying. "And this is Holly." I motioned with the hand he wasn't holding to the little baby sitting happily on my hip. I firmly believe that Holly has a way of sensing if someone is evil or not. She wasn't crying, so I was trusting.
"Are you from the School?" Fang asked me seriously. Wow, not a beat-around-the-bush kinda guy. It seemed relatively absurd that he should guess so accurately, unless he was from there too.
"So you too?" I asked Fang with a grin. Holly pulled on my hair, probably making me look like one of those super-frazzled soccer moms. I pushed her hand away from my straight black hair. It was probably now covered in honey residue.
"Yeah. Care to tell me about this little tyke?" He said, looking at Holly.
"Well, I don't really know that much about her. I should probably explain it when we get to that girl you were with. How many of you are there?" I was dying to know if they had, like, a whole army back there. Possible? Yes.
"Six" He answered. We walked in companionable silence for maybe two minutes. Then the thick trees around us opened onto a small, and cozy clearing. There was a fire, with six aluminum foil packages cooking in the embers. I extricated my hand from his. I instinctively did a 360, and found five pretty normal looking people gathered around the flames and sizzling packages.
"Goo!" Holly screamed at them, holding up her hands. They stared at her.
"Is that a baby?" A tall boy with blondish-reddish hair swiveled his head toward me. "Where the heck did you find a baby?"
"Don't mind him." Fang whispered in my ear, little trembles going up my spine at the warmth of his breath. Max whipped her head around and stared daggers at me. "Jealous much?" Fang said as he grinned at Max.
I tried not to notice. "So who is he?" I whispered back.
"I'm Iggy!" The boy said brightly.
"Um… Hi Iggy, I'm Sunny." I said nervously. He got up from the ground and held out his hand. I shook it. He was at least 8 inches taller than me.
A little girl, maybe 6 or 7 came up and said "I'm Angel." I didn't know how to respond to that, it seemed a little outright. I just stood there, probably looking really weird and strange. I bounced Holly a little bit on my hip. She giggled. Everyone stared at her again. Hadn't they ever seen a baby with wings before? No, probably not. Angel looked to be the youngest.
Fang motioned for me to sit down. I lowered myself carefully. Fang went over to sit with Iggy. I felt very alone. I heard Iggy mumble something to Fang.
"What does she look like?" Iggy asked. Max now switched her dagger staring from me to him.
"Don't you dare even think about it." She told Fang. Fang didn't seem to notice. He told Iggy all of my stats.
"Shorter than Max, by about 2 inches." Fang took no mind of Max. "Straight black hair, long, about to her waist. Green eyes, cute nose. Jeans, blue T-shirt. You heard the baby, names Holly. Holly has brown hair, brown eyes, freckly kid."
Max seemed to rip her gaze away from the 2 of them, who were still talking. I ignored them. "This is the Gasman, Nudge, and you already met Angel." She said, first pointing to a young blond boy, maybe 8, then a pretty black girl, around 11, or 12.
Holly smiled at them, then blew a raspberry at them. I sat there. That's her, frivolous Holly the entertainer. But the kids laughed, eating it up.
"So, who are you?" Max asked. Man, these people were straight forward. Iggy and Fang stopped talking, everyone stared at me. I nervously shifted Holly into my lap.
"Um… well, I grew up at the School." Everyone nodded, as if knowing exactly what I was trying to convey. Those horrible tests, and those stupid scientists in their impeccable white coats. "I met Holly about 2 months ago. We were still at the school. Then, about 3 days after we met, a project went wrong. There was a mushroom cloud of tears and yells and blood. Horrible kind of experiment.-"
"Best. Damn. Cookie. Ever." Max said from out of the blue. She was lying down with store-bought box of cookies on her stomach. She looked up. "Want one?"
"Shut up, Max. Sunny is telling a story." Said Iggy. Then he turned to Fang and said "Ya, Max'll shut up when pigs fly." They chuckled quietly.
"And so we escaped." I said loudly, so they would all just shut the h up. They did. "We wanted to get away from there, so we went to Maine."
"Ugh. Maine? Why not someplace warmer?" Max interrupted again. She was kicking my last nerve with soccer cleats.
"I don't know! It seemed far, far away from the School. And that's really all I cared about." I put on my 'annoyed' face, hoping she'd stay silent. No such luck.
"You know there's one just like it in New York. You weren't really that far away from the scientists." Stupid smug expression.
"Do you mind if I go to sleep?" I asked them.
"Go ahead." Max seemed surprised by the sudden change in my mood.
I climbed a tree and lay against one of the branches. Holly snuggled against my stomach. We fell asleep peacefully.