A couple hours later we were ready. Daniel and Anthony assured us that the scientists always came in at 6:15 to give the normal dosage of numbing medicine. It lasted about 12 hours, which meant our last injection had worn off. I could feel every inch of my wings and could move them freely, but kept them pressed to my back to fool the White Coats if they were watching us with cameras.
It was 5:00, time to go into action. Daniel rolled up his jeans and hid himself from the security cameras at the ceiling corners of the room. He touched the metal tracking device on his ankle and it fell right through his ankle, spinning onto the ground of his cage.
He reached to do the same for Anthony's, phasing through the bars of the cage like a ghost to get closer to him. By this time we weren't sure if anyone had heard us or not.
Thankfully Daniel and Anthony had kept their extra abilities secret just like Flobie had. White Coats just loved trying to find out how we work, although they aren't very good at it. For example, they were going to pry us open at the School Flobie and I were from because they figured out she could teleport. There's no need for more experimentation, thank you very much.
Being able to change the molecular structure of others as well, Daniel grabbed one of us at a time and phased us out of our dog crates. When it was my turn I felt a chill roll through my entire body as I went through the bars. I decided it was almost as weird as teleporting.
"Um, guys? Did we forget to mention we can't fly because we never learned how?" Anthony added at the last second, making me smack my forehead. At least I was behind him and he couldn't see my reaction. I could tell Fang was trying not to grimace at the bad news.
"Flobie?" Fang was already editing his plan to be flexible with the new dilemma. The leader stuff sure kept him on his toes.
"Sure, I can teleport them right now. I'll try to get to that Wal-Mart we saw earlier. I will have to go one at a time I think- it's hard enough to teleport with one extra person." She caught on to Fang's plan immediately, grabbing Anthony's hand. He looked astonished, but that was probably nothing compared to what he would look like in a couple seconds. They disappeared without a sound. Daniel shook his head and stared at the previously occupied space in amazement, trying to decide if he should believe it or not.
"She'll be right back for you." I assured Daniel. Fang was already listening at the door to our room, trying to figure out if anyone was outside. Fang motioned for me to follow him as he turned the handle quietly and walked outside.
The hallway was silent. I'm guessing most people went home from work right about now, same as they did back in our School. Only a team of Erasers monitored the hallways at night back at our old School. Hopefully it wasn't such tight security here. Hah!
It was hard to imagine that these evil scientists had lives outside of the School. They could be eating dinner with their kids right now and getting ready to read them a bedtime story, as if they were guiltless people. If only those kids knew.
We went into a room right next door which held our backpacks from school as well as a couple of desks with computers and papers on them. Fang silently went around the room, looking for any helpful items while I grabbed our belongings. I saw him shuffle through some of the scientists' personal things, pocketing all the money he could find.
"These guys are loaded." He whispered a grim look on his face. "Who knew child and animal abuse could earn you so much money?"
He knew I was getting antsy so decided to help me with the bags after finding his laptop which still held a lot of potential help to finding more experiments. We stood near the door, listening for footsteps. Hearing none, we excited and ran as quietly as possible down the hall. It's times like these that you wish your mind reading best friend was by your side to patrol for security.
We ran up the stairs two at a time and came to a halt. I almost bumped into Fang he stopped so abruptly. He turned around; a finger held up to his lips.
"How was the first day of school, Tim? Did you eat all of your lunch and get to have dessert as a special treat?" a man's voice snickered. "Well, not that you need dessert or anything, am I right?" It echoed down the staircase, making me feel like there were people all around us.
"Hello, Harold." Someone sighed. It was the White Coat who had dropped us off here and had woken me up, back to bust me again! We had to stop meeting like this.
"So how are those new subjects, huh? They seem to be in great shape." Harold continued the conversation, unaware that Tim was as irritated as a rabid bear without food. I could basically feel his annoyance coming down the stairs. Tim wasn't exactly a bend-the-rules exciting kind of guy.
Fang stood a step in front of me and had to bend down at least a foot to whisper in my ear. "I'm turning off the lights. Follow me."
Fang closed his eyes and focused above us. I knew the lights had gone out when Harold yelled "Hey, what happened to the lights? Did someone forget to pay the electricity bill?" We ascended the stairs silently, listening to where their voices came from so we wouldn't bump into them. I meant Harold's voice and Tim's grumbles, by the way.
Harold continued to blab on. I could just imagine the exasperated look on Tim's face as we tiptoed past them down the hall. Fang seemed to have put out all the lights down this hallway, so we had a hard time not bumping into anything stacked up along the walls. We could see better in the dark than a human could, but that wasn't helping us too much now in the pitch black.
Eventually we turned a corner to find a lighted hallway and saw where we came in at this afternoon, discovering that we had the worst timing ever. As soon as we made it to the exit, six morphed Erasers were piled through the doorway for their security shift. They grinned at us, showing all their disgusting stained teeth.
"It looks like we've found ourselves a little snack." The lead Eraser drooled, pacing towards us. Fang looked up at the lights, making them fade. The two of us stayed close to one another as we heard the snarls from the Erasers around us, searching through the darkness. We decided to put our backs together so if it came to defending ourselves we wouldn't attack one another like idiots.
The hallway wasn't wide enough for us all to move around freely so we ended up kicking our way slowly through, our hands holding our backpacks and unable to throw punches. Occasionally I would feel the air rush past me and the sound of clamping Eraser jaws close by, missing me by inches. My knee rammed into the attacking Eraser's muzzle, making him yelp with surprise.
We ran ahead towards the doors, bursting through them. A complete déjà vu moment hit me as I found more Erasers outside, except these were less prepared. Maybe it was a good thing that Anthony and Daniel never kept them on a constant watch.
"So long, freaks!" I saluted them and extended my wings, running a couple of steps and flew upward. Fang bounded behind me and hurled himself into the air. My wings still felt stiff, but I could make it easily to Wal-Mart without dropping out of the sky.
The Erasers didn't have their guns ready enough in time, probably expecting us to get zapped by the tracking devices that Anthony and Daniel had worn. Fortunately we'd never received our own million dollar fashion anklets so we didn't need to worry about that.
They scowled at us as we passed over the wall without difficulty, too far away for them to shoot at us. Before getting too far away I glanced down to see them on their communicators, planning on recapturing us somehow. Just escaping from the School wasn't hard enough; we still have the chase waiting.
Fang and I flew quietly, concentrating on getting to Wal-Mart without any problems. I could tell Fang was more relaxed. He could be surrounded by flying Erasers in the air by himself and he would still seem to be calmer than he was on the ground. Flying was his happy place.
We started descending a couple minutes later. Flying was a lot quicker than driving and it helped that this rollback store was one of the last buildings before the uninhabited area around the School started up.
Fortunately by now it was getting pretty dark and landing behind the store wouldn't attract any attention from shoppers. We landed in the back parking lot for employees, running a couple steps before gradually coming to a standstill. I folded my wings and called out to Flobie mentally. She appeared behind one of their numerous dumpsters a minute later with Anthony and Daniel.
"Did everything go ok?" she asked, worry stretched across her face. I nodded, trying to figure out how we were supposed to get away from here without flying. As soon as possible we'd teach them to fly, but right now I'm guessing a massive amount of Erasers were about to show up in a helicopter to beam us up. I'd rather have the aliens have me.
"We need wheels." Fang started running towards a nearby van that was big enough to hold all five of us easily. He somehow managed to hijack it, being so quick to start the engine I didn't see how it was done. I'd have to learn that someday too, I thought as Fang was climbing into the driver's seat.
"Get in." His voice had a steel tone to it as we clambered inside. His hands were already on the steering wheel; his eyes looked determined as he put the car into reverse and backed out of the parking space. He brushed a neighboring car, making a pretty loud metal on metal sound.
Fang put the car into drive. If you ask me, with Fang behind the wheel the D on the shift should stand for "Dangerous". He was all over the place! I was surprised to make it out of the chaotic parking lot alive or without killing anyone trying to enter and exit the store. By then all of us passengers had our seatbelts on as tight as they would go, knowing Fang did not have a driver's license or anything close to one.
"I've hardly ever driven a car." Fang replied to our scared faces sheepishly, looking away from the road to check on me, Daniel, and Anthony in the back. Flobie had taken shotgun, looking like she regretted it now.
"Keep your eyes on the road." Flobie pointed towards the front, trying to keep her finger still. He returned his view to the front windshield and had to slam on the breaks to avoid colliding into the car in front of us. We were stuck at a red light waiting for traffic.
"Do you think you can get this van up to 90 miles per hour?" Daniel questioned earnestly, squished in between me and Anthony. Anthony had his hands dug into his seat, probably trying not to yell at Fang for being such a hectic driver. He gave Daniel a poisonous glare as if to say 'Don't tell him to go any faster!'.
"I don't know. Why?" Fang curiously glanced up into the rearview mirror and blinked in shock.
"We have trouble." Daniel answered solemnly, seeing a Black Sedan pull up to us, the window pulled down to reveal a winking Eraser. The same happened on our other side. A grinning Eraser was staring at us from behind us as well, boxing us in.
"Any of you guys up for a race?" Fang asked as the light turned green.