Chapter 14

With the atmosphere slightly lighter due to the promised appearance of El, she began to read.

Chapter 19

Despite my growing anxiety, it was glorious up here. Not many bids flew this high – some falcons, hawks, other raptors. Every once in a while some of them would come check us out, probably thinking, man, those are some dang ugly birds. Mom, Ella, and some of the flock laughed at my assumed thoughts. Angel sat there smiled and said, "Yeah, actually. That's what they normally think when we're around them." And then the rest of us joined in the laughter.

This high up, the land below took on a checkerboard effect of Robin Hoodsy greens and browns. Ella said this with a sigh in her voice. Cars looked like busy ants moving purposefully down their trails. Every once in a while I picked something small down below and focused on it. "One of the few ways to pass the time during long flights." I muttered and the flock minus Ig nodded their heads in agreement. It was cool how some little tiny thing, like a swimming pool, a tractor, whatever, would ratchet into focus. "You can do that? That would be amazing to see." Mom said almost wistfully, while Ella bounced her head enthusiastically. At least those maniacs at the School hadn't had time to "improve" my vision like they improved Iggy's. Iggy winced, along with the rest of us.

"Gosh, I wonder what Iggy and the Gasman are doing now?" Nudge babbled. "Maybe they got the TV working again. "Not quite," Iggy said with an impish grin. I hope they don't feel to bad. It would have – I mean, I guess its kind of easier for them to be home. But I bet they're not cleaning up or getting wood or doing any of their chores." "Hey, we were trying to save our lives. So what if we didn't do our chores, does it really matter now though?" Gazzer said. I sighed and took it into my own hands. "Okay, look. Obviously, doesn't matter now what happened then. Okay? So you don't need to cause arguments and fights right now." I said raising my hand into the air as I spoke. Everyone nodded.

I bet they're cursing my name from dawn to dusk. "Yeah, we did that too, though it wasn't shown in that chapter." But at least they're safe. Absently, I chose a flickering shape below and focused on it, watching a small blob beome people, take on features, clothing, individuality. It was a group of kids, maybe my age, maybe older. Who couldn't be more unlike me.

Well, so what? I thought. They were just boring kids "Hey!" Ella said and read on with a somewhat harsh tone that reduced into sadness mixed with obvious envy at the end., stuck on the ground, doing homework. With bedtimes and a million grown-ups telling them what to do, how to do everything, all the time. Alarm clocks and school and afternoon jobs. Those poor saps. While we were free, free, free. Soaring through the air like rockets. Being cradled by breezes. Doing whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. "We will discuss this." I told Ella with a tone of finality signaling her to suck it up and enjoy the life she has.

Pretty good, huh? I almost convinced myself. "Tell me about it." Fang whispered silent as a shadow beside me.

I glanced down again and refocused. Then I scowled. What had, at first glance, looked like just a bunch of boring, earthbound kids schlepping to school together now turned into what looked like several big kids surrounding a much smaller kid. Okay, maybe I'm paranoid, danger everywhere, but I could swear the bigger kids looked really threatening. Ella shuddered remembering what happened.

The bigger kids were boys. The smaller kid in the middle was a girl. "Ella!" shouted Gaz, Nudge, Angel and, surprisingly, Mom. I chuckled.

Coincidence? I think not.

Don't even get me started about the whole Y chromosome thing. I live with three guys, remember? They're three of the good ones ,and they're still obnoxious as all get-out. "Hey! We're not that bad. . . Wait, . . . . Nevermind." Gazzy said. All of us girls chuckled.

I made one of my famous snap decisions, the kind that everyone remembers later for being either the stupidest dumb-butt thing they ever saw or else the miraculous saving of the day. "So you did this often?" Mom said. "yeah." Everyone said with a tone that wasn't the happiest. I smirked and nodded. "They're not all bad though." I murmured. I seemed to hear more about the first kind. That's gratitude for you.

I turned to Fang and barely opened my mouth.

"No," he said. A few laughs.

My eyes narrowed. I opened my mouth again.

"No." and now more. Even one from Fang this time. Stupid annoying purple winged reading my mind Bird brain. Who's only worried about keeping everyone safe. Especially you. I heard in my head. i sighed as El read on.

"Meet me at the northernmost point of Lake Mead," I said.

"What? What are you talking about?" Nudge asked. "Are we stopping? I'm hungry again." "They ever hungry Nudge. Thank you." I said and smiled in her direction as Iggy and a couple others laughed.

"Max wants to be Supergirl, defender of the weak," Fang said, sounding irritated.

"Oh." Nudge looked down, frowning at the ground as if it would all become clear soon.

I had started a wide circle that would take me back toward the girl below. I kept thinking, What if that girl was in trouble, like Angel, and no one stopped to help her? "That is kind of what it was like." I muttered.

"Oh! Max, remember when you got that little rabbit away from the fox, and we kept it in a carton in the kitchen, and then when it was well you let it go? "awe, did you really do that?" "That's so sweet." the Martinez's said. That was cool." Nudge paused. "Did you see another rabbit?"

"Kind of," I said, my patience starting to wear thin. "It'll take two seconds."

I told Fang, "I'll catch up with you guys before you've gone forty miles. Just keep on course, and if anything weird happens, I'll meet you at Lake Mead."

Fang stared ahead, the wind whipping through his hair. He hated this, I knew. "You would have hated it if it were the other way around." Came from two different places. One: from Across the room from Nudge. And Two: From Fang beside me. I smiled and didn't even try to deny it.

Well, you can't please everybody all the time.

"Okay," I said briskly. "See you in a few."

"I wasn't really in this chapter," Ella said with a half-hearted frown. I stuck my tongue out at her and she handed the book to Mom.

"Chapter 20 She read.

The thing about Iggy was, well, sometimes he could figure stuff out like a real scientist. He was that supersmart, scary smart. "You know it!" Iggy said.

"Do we have any chlorine?" the Gasman asked Iggy. "It seems to be kind of explosive when mixed with other stuff." "Why would we have chlorine? Did your mind show you something that we didn't know about?" Fang said, surprising us all. Gazzy merely shrugged.

Iggy frowned. "Like what, your socks? No, we don't have chlorine. No swimming pool. What color is this wire?"

The Gasman leaned over and examined the tangled pile of stereo guts "Ewe. . . .Did you have to describe it like that?" Ella and Nudge said together. spread out on the kitchen table. "It looks like a robot came in here and threw up," he observed. "That wire's yellow."

"Okay. Keep track of the yellow wire. Very important. Do not confuse it with the red one."' "How could you do that?" Ella wondered aloud. "I thought it was obvious," Iggy said. "I'm just a genius that way." "Yeah," I agreed. "You're probably the smartest bird-brain i've ever known." "Why, Thank y-HEY!" He said and we all chuckled.

The Gasman consulted the schematics he had downloaded off the Internet. This morning Iggy had unfrozen the compressor fan inside the CPU, so the computer now worked without shutting down in hysteria every ten minutes. He had just fixed the computer, presto change-o. "Smartest birdbrain around." I said.

"Okey dokey," Gazzy muttered, flipping through pages. "Next step, we need some kind of timing device."

Iggy thought for a moment. Then he smiled. Even his eyes seemed to smile. "If you ever. EVER. see this face. . . . Lets just say, you might want to do an inventory check on all you have." I said to Mom and Ella. The others nodded solemnly while the pyro boys smiled like maniacs.

"Well, that's an evil grin," Gasser said uneasily.

"Go get me Max's alarm clock. The Mickey Mouse one." "Of course you WOULD go for that one." I said in my most serious, 'don't you ever touch that again' tone. "My ONE SPECIAL ITEM!" I couldn't help it. But then the look on their faces. It was priceless! I couldn't help it again and I burst out laughing, Fang, Angel, Nudge and Ella joining me.

"Hey!" the dynamic duo said in synchronization. That only added to our own fit of hysteria. I took the book from Mom and tried to read calmly, a few giggles slipping through.

Chapter 21

I landed a bit hard and had to run really fast to keep from doing a total face plant. That sentence didn't help us out any. I was somewhere in Arizona, trotting through scrubby brush behind a deserted warehouse. I pulled my wings in, feeling them fold, hot from exercise, into a tight accordion on either side of my spine. I tied my windbreaker around my neck. There. Perfectly normal looking. Most of us laughed a little more with this, knowing we would never really look normal.

When I rounded the corner of the warehouse, I saw that there were three guys, maybe fifteen, sixteen years old. The girl looked younger, maybe twelve or so. "ME!" Squealed Ella and we all laughed more again. at this rate we wouldn't be able to stop until mornings light. . .

"I told you not to tell anybody about my little situation with Ortiz," one boy was yelling at her. "It was none of your business. I had to teach him a lesson." "Sicko" Nudge and Ella said.

The girl bit her lip, looking angry and scared. "By beating him up? He looks like he got hit by a car. And he didn't do anything to you," she said, and I thought, You go, girl. "You heard that?" Ella said sheepishly. "I didn't know that." i smiled.

"He mouthed off to me. He exists. He breathes my air," "Jerk." I said. said the guy, and his jerk friends laughed meanly. God, what creeps. Armed creeps. One of them was holding a shotgun loosely in the crook of his arm. America, right to bear arms, yada, yada, yada. How old were these yahoos? Did their parents know they had guns? "Probably not. . . But it doesn't matter now."

It gets so tiring, this strong-picking-on-the-weak stuff. It was the story of my life – literally – and it seemed to be a big part of the outside world too. I was sick of it, sick of guys like these, stupid and bullying.

I stepped out from beside the building. The girl saw me, and her eyes flicked in surprise. It was enough. The guys wheeled to look behind them.

Just another stupid girl, they thought, relieved. Their eyes lingered a moment on my scratched face, my black eye, but they didn't keep watching me."and there goes strike one." Fang said. Mistake number one. I chuckled with my family and Fang just sat there, of course.

"So, Ella, what have you got to say for yourself?" the lead guy taunted. "Is there any reason I shouldn't teach you a lesson too?" "She didn't do anything you -" Mom cut herself off before she could say anything she might regret.

"Three guy's against one girl. That seems about even," I said, striding up. It was hard to keep the fury off my face. My blood was singing with it.

"Shut up, chick," one of the boys snapped. "You better get out of here if you know what's good for you." "This would be where strike two comes in."

"Can't," I said, walking to stand next to the girl named Ella. She looked at me in alarm. "Actually, I think kicking your stupid butts would be good for me." "I thought you were insane." admitted Ella. "Thank you for being there though."

They laughed. "Uh-oh. They really should be fearing for their lives." the Gasman said. Mistake number two.

Like the rest of the flock, I'm musch stronger than even a grown man – genetic engineering at work. And all of us had been trained in self-defense by Jeb. I had skills. Until yesterday, I'd never had to use them. If I could just get Ella out of here . . .

"Grab Big Mouth," said the head guy, and the other two moved to flank me. "Aaaaaaand, they're dead." Gazzy said.

Which made mistake number three. Bam, you're out.

I moved fast, fast, fast. With no warning, I snapped a high kick right into the lead jerk's chest. A blow that would have only knocked Fang's breath away actually seemed to snap a rib on this guy. Everyone winced. I heard the crack, and the guy choked, looking shocked, and fell backward.

The remaining guys rushed me at once. I whirled and grabbed the shotgun out of one's hand. Holding the barrel, I swung it in a wide arc agains the sid of his head. Crack! Stunned, he staggered sideways as a bright red flow of blood streamed from his scalp. Some sucked in a sharp breath. "Ooooww. I bet he's regretting carrying that thing now." Said Iggy.

I glanced over and saw Ella still standing there, looking afraid. I hoped not of me. "Well. . . maybe a little. . . .but I had a tiny tiny hope that maybe you were on my side." She admitted with a tinge of red shading her face. "I was also afraid that they might hurt you." She added looking at me with a smirk.

"Run!" I yelled at her. "Get out of here!" After a moment of hesitation, she turned and ran, leaving a little cloud of red dust behind her.

The third grabbed my arm, and I yanked it loose, then swung and punched him, aiming for his chin but hitting his nose. I winced – oops – feeling his nose break, and there was a slow-motion pause of about a second before it started gushing blood. "Ewe. . . That was a great description." Jeezum – humans were like eggshells. "Tell me about it." Fang muttered quietly so that only Ig, Angel (since she can read minds) and I could here.

The bullyboys were a mess. But still they staggered to their feet, rage and humiliation twisting their ugly faces. One of them picked up his gun and cocked it, favoring his right arm. "Is that what took you so long? I still never heard the actual part that meant you had to stay down for that long." Nudge asked. In answer to her question I read the two concluding sentences of the chapter.

"You're gonna be so sorry," he promised, spitting blood out of his mouth and starting toward me.

"Bet I won't," I said. Then I turned tail and raced for the woods as fast as I could.

I handed the book over to Fang so he could read, Nudge still not understanding. Oh, well. She'll just have to be a little more patient. She looked at me and then I continued to say: "Why don't we wait for the next chapter to start tomorrow. It's getting kind of late you know." I said and glanced at the clock on the TV, 11:03 P.M. It read. sheesh.

"Okay, Up to bed guys, Max is right. Bedtime." Mom said corralling everyone up stairs to their respective sleeping places. "We'll start bright and early at 8:15 okay guys?" She called up then checked with me, i gave her a thumbs up. Me, being the leader of the Flock, and Fang, because he's Fang, sleep down here in the living room. In SEPARATE places. . .Most of the time. Fang had gone up with the others, after we stacked hands, did the usual, to grab our sheets and blankets. Mom kissed us both good night, then headed up to her own room.

Well, all in all, not a bad day. I think it went okay. It could've gone a heck of a lot worse thats for sure. All I know is, i thought to myself as I laid down on the couch. tomorrow should be fun.

A-N- - - - -

Well, there ya have it! Chapter's 19-21. Sorry they were a day late. . . I kinda . . . spent all day reading Harry Potter . . . I know i know. I'm sorry. :) But here you guy! I'll update again on Friday, most likely okay? :) Thank you to my faithful reviewers! I was a little shocked not to see some names, but it is Summer, and we're only Human. . .(Or partly depending who you are). Well, that's all folks!

Fly on!

~Jezi Raewin