Thanks to my beta, Tokoloshe Monster, and to those who reviewed: LivvyB and AbsolutelyAbbie. Also thanks to Jrits, for helping me go over a passage of Nudge's dialogue.

"Okay," Iggy said, the first of them to speak. "Let's get this on." He sat down on the floor, cross-legged. No need for him to make an ass out of himself groping around the room. It wasn't like they would be here long anyway. "Angel, Fang, you guys are the ones with the maps, the blueprints, right? Jeb's stuff? Let's see 'em."

"Interesting choice of words," Fang said.

Iggy flipped the bird in his general direction. "Whatever. Describe the locations and then give me an idea of the plan so I can figure out what bombs to make."

For a few moments, the only sounds in the room were the rustling of paper and Max's slow but steady breathing.

"There are four basement levels and another five levels aboveground," Fang finally said. "Windows on the aboveground levels. It's surrounded by an electric fence. In the middle of some state park in the Dead Mountains."

"The Dead Mountains," Iggy repeated. "Somebody actually thought it would be a good idea to put a School in a place called the Dead Mountains."

"It's in California, right?" Nudge asked. "Maybe they bury celebrities there. Maybe there's like, Alive Mountains somewhere else. And then Midlife Crisis Mountains with shiny cars and loose women. Hey, Iggy, what's a loose woman?"

"Something that you don't find in the Dead Mountains," Fang told her. "Moving on. They're keeping the majority of the experiments and the major laboratories on the four basement floors along with the computers, the resident scientists on the upper floors, and supplies and the like on the lower floors. The ground floor, like the basement, is a place to store supplies and test experiments."

That was the most Iggy had heard Fang say that week.

"What supplies?" Gazzy asked. "Scalpels and hacksaws?"

"Maybe pens?" Angel suggested. "Clipboards?"

"The latest in lab coat couture?" Nudge chimed in.

"Disposable stuff, most likely." Fang said. "From what I can tell there's no overhead security, so we can go in and out from above."

Iggy nodded. "We can probably bomb our way in, but there's got to be higher security downstairs. I remember… that place was always full of Erasers." It was hell on earth, hearing their threats and heavy breaths, smelling their stink of sweat and bloody meat, but not being able to see them and dodge fast enough. He had learned, but he still had the scars.

But even then, even the cages were pleasant compared to—he cut off that train of thought. "How many Erasers do you think there will be? I'm estimating one grenade to three Erasers for a definite out, one to five for a maybe. Pipe bombs maybe more, like seven to ten, but those are harder to make. Jesus, why did they have to be so big?" He clenched his hands into fists to stop their shaking. "Whatever. When we're done with this, you guys need to get us bomb-building supplies. Fertilizer, wire, plastic casing." Hopefully they wouldn't get pulled aside for questioning, like he, Gazzy, and Jeb had a few years ago.

"We bomb our way in, grab Ari, fly out?" Nudge said. "That sounds like a good idea, but can we even fly, like, inside? Are the hallways gonna be wide enough? Who's going to carry Ari? What if we get lost? There weren't any floor blueprints—floorprints? What if Max gets caught? Her shoulder's busted and everything. What if—mmph!" There was a sound of flesh hitting flesh as somebody, probably Fang, put a hand over her mouth.

"We're going to bomb our way in, split up, find Ari, grab Ari, fly out," Fang said. "Two teams. Me and Max, you and Iggy."

"Hey!" The Gasman protested. "I have to build bombs and I know how to use them better than you and Max and Nudge. You can't leave me out of this twice!"

"Gazzy," Iggy said. "Calm down, okay? Fang's right for once in his life."

"Not you, too," the Gasman muttered. "'S not fair."

"He doesn't want to get left behind just because he's younger," Angel said. "Me neither."

"No, no, you guys are looking at it wrong," Iggy insisted. "We're not leaving you behind, you're covering our backs. Come on; think about it. Somebody's going to need to keep throwing bombs, to create a diversion while we go get Ari. We nab him, meet up with you guys, and then we get out."

"What if—what if you don't get out?" Angel asked, her voice suddenly very small. "What if none of you get out?"

Iggy set his jaw. "Then you leave," he told her. "You get as far out as you can, as fast as you can. You find someplace to stay for the night and—"

Fang cut him off before he could finish. "That's not going to happen."

It would have been nice, Iggy thought, if he could have agreed with Fang. If he could be certain that a plan would work out, and that there wouldn't be any last minute hitches that led to lives being ruined. It would have made his life a lot easier. But that wasn't the case. "You can't guarantee that," he said. "But that's not the point. Now, let's get on the bomb-building."

"I'll take Nudge and Angel to Home Depot and get you supplies," Fang said. When he spoke again, his voice sounded further away—he had probably stood up. "I saw one on the map."

"Thanks, man." Iggy nodded in his direction as he reached for his backpack.

As the door closed behind Fang and the girls, Max stirred, rustling the sheets, and mumbled something. Iggy held still, trying not to wake her. They had been quieter than usual while planning, all of them conscious of the fact that she needed her sleep. Bomb-building was usually a quiet activity, but sometimes things went wrong, and Iggy didn't want to be the one responsible for making her lose sleep when it wasn't absolutely necessary. They all needed to be on their A-game for this.

"'Kay, Gasman my man," he said. "Let's get this on."

They took inventory first. Out of everything that they had built on Saturday, barely a quarter remained. They had enough supplies to set up a decent line of attack, but it wasn't going to be enough to raid a place as big as the School. Thank God Fang was taking the girls shopping.

They cobbled together pipe bombs from their remaining supplies, wrapping them in sheets of newspaper taken from the front desk. About halfway through the second one, Iggy stopped and folded his arms over his chest. "You're sniffling," he said to the Gasman.

"Am not."

"Yes you are, don't lie to me. What's up?"

Fabric rustled as the Gasman wiped his nose. "Jeb isn't gonna get mad at us for building bombs this big," he said. "And—and—"

"And?"

"And yesterday, when those Erasers were chasing us, and I blew that one up… his guts were everywhere. They were everywhere."

"Are you upset that you blew him up?" Iggy asked. Gazzy sure hadn't sounded upset.

"No, I felt kind of glad that he wouldn't be able to hurt us anymore. 'Cause he was a bad guy. But his guts were everywhere, and it was my fault."

"Don't worry about it," Iggy said. "Look, if you hadn't done that, they would have gotten me. You did the right thing, and sometimes doing the right thing is really gross. Sometimes it hurts. But you have to do it anyway. Capisce?"

Nothing for a second, and then, "I'm nodding."

"'Kay. Now let's get back to building stuff, okay?"

They worked their way through the rest of their supplies in relative silence. They barely noticed when Fang and the girls showed back up with bags full of plastic casing, fertilizer, and wires.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Nudge asked. "I don't want to just sit here and do nothing, I feel like horrible."

"Do you know how to siphon gasoline?" Iggy responded. "If yes, then get a water bottle and get on it. Don't get caught."

"Alright," Nudge said, and practically sprinted out of the room.

"Is there anything I can do?" asked Angel, not three minutes later.

"Help us organize supplies," Iggy told her. "Neat piles."

Fang didn't say anything. If it weren't for his breathing and the slight rustle of fabric as he shifted his position on the bed, Iggy wouldn't have been able to tell where he was. If he had to describe it, it would be like having a blind spot, except everythingwas a blind spot. Fang was… a deaf spot. Sometimes this made planning difficult, because Fang played his cards so close to his chest and it was hard to see how he would work.

And of course, this wouldn't be a problem if Iggy weren't blind.

Whatever. They had more important things to worry about, and Iggy couldn't let his weakness become an inability to trust Fang.

The morning dragged on, slowly turning into afternoon, as explosive after explosive was assembled and packed up. By two, they had thoroughly exhausted all the available supplies, filled up three backpacks, and even built a fertilizer bomb. The last one might have made Iggy proud, because he had been planning on it for a few months. But right now, it didn't matter. Even if the bomb worked, it wouldn't matter. The bombs were inconsequential and supplementary at best.

The School would have guns, and rounds and rounds of ammunition. A few homemade bombs wouldn't be able to stop squads of Erasers, who could outnumber and outfight them. God knows it was barely enough to stop a group of seven Erasers. They were going to lose. And once they did, they were good as dead. Ari was as good as dead.

Iggy clenched his jaw and stood, heading for the door. He had to fumble to get it open, which didn't help any, but at least he had the satisfaction of slamming it shut behind him.

"Where are you going?" Nudge called out after him. He didn't answer.

He had mostly memorized the way to the front door from when they had all came in earlier in the morning, and was spared the indignity of having to ask for somebody to open the door for him. Jesus, what kind of a mutant was he? He had wingsbut if somebody put him in a strange town, he'd starve to death.

And now with Jeb gone and the E-shaped house unsafe, every town would be a strange one. He'd have to rely on Max to keep an eye out for him, and God knew that wouldn't go over well. She'd ditch him at the first opportunity—she already had.

Not that ditching him would be the wrong thing to do. He could barely help, crippled as he was. He had needed Gazzy to save his life—what good was he if he couldn't keep his younger siblings safe? In a rescue mission he'd be the first captured. All he had was slightly sharper senses than the others, and even then he hadn't been able to tell that Erasers were coming until Angel had pointed it out.

He stopped walking; made himself breathe in, breathe out. The facts were these: it was sunny, with the oppressive heat of mid-to-late summer. The streets were quiet and relatively free of cars. Some kids were playing basketball down the block. His muscles were cramped from sitting on the badly carpeted floor for hours, there was a crick in his neck, and he was hungry. Probably the others were hungry, too.

These things were manageable.

Iggy rubbed the back of his neck as he set off down the street, following his nose. There was barely any wind, so smells carried easily, and he had the sharpest senses of any member of the Flock. Even so, it took him some time before he stumbled upon the smell of pizza coming from (judging from the sounds of shopping carts squeaking and clanging, of plastic bags rustling, and of little children whining) a grocery store.

He stood at the end of the block, deliberating. To pay or not to pay? Max had spent a fair chunk of the money they had on gas, and then Fang had taken Angel and Nudge bomb-shopping. They'd be likely to spend even more when they had Ari. Stealing would be better for the long-term, but—how did you steal a pizza, anyway? Out of the garbage?

Jesus, he was awful at this. He probably looked like an idiot, too.

"Iggy?"

"Nudge?" He turned to face her, and stumbled backward when she launched herself at him, hugging him tightly.

"Oh my god don't do that again, Iggy, I was like so worried, you've been gone for an hour, oh my god what if you died? What if you got caught? Max would kill us, and we'd be living off of canned food, not to say that you're only good for cooking because you're not only good for cooking you're also really good at other stuff too, oh my god please don't leave us…" She buried her face in his chest and the rest of her words were muffled and caught up in sobs.

"Oh, Jesus." Iggy smoothed her hair down. He really had picked the worst time to have a mental breakdown, didn't he? With Ari kidnapped and Jeb gone, and Max out for the count, and Nudge… well, Nudge being Nudge, that was to say, generally bright but overemotional. "I'm not going anywhere, Nudge. I just needed a walk."

"Is it because of, you know, because Jeb's dead?"

Hearing those last two words felt like ripping off a scab—painful, but relieving. "No," Iggy said slowly. "I think it's not that I miss him so much as… we're never going to be able to go back home again. And he was a part of that home."

Nudge's head moved against his chest—was she nodding? "Yeah," she said after a while. "I feel kinda weird, like, once we get Ari it's going to be over, and we're just going to wake up inside the E-house and I'll have to water the stupid friggin' tomato plants, and the zucchinis, oh my God, they're such a pain. But that's not what's gonna happen." She sniffled again. "And I just want to go home. I don't want to get shot at. I don't want to die. I don't want to be a wimp, you know? But this is scary. Those guns were for real both times. And there are going to be more guns, and I don't want to get shot because the wound gets infected and your arm rots off and you have to cut it off, but what if my wing rots off and I can't fly anymore?"

"I'll make sure that won't happen," Iggy said. "I'll boil your wing. That's what you're supposed to do—you put boiling water on it and it clears out the bugs."

"Bugs? In a gunshot wound? Blech. Do they put the bugs into the bullet?"

Iggy thought about the only bugs that he had seen—spiders—crawling around a gunshot wound, and to Jeb's first-aid lessons. "I don't remember. I'm pretty sure it started with a b."

"But we put boiling water on my wing," Nudge said, her voice only slightly shaky. "And it hurts a lot but I don't lose any limbs. And then we keep moving, and we keep moving, and we keep moving, and we stay together, and we stay alive, and we don't get caught." She exhaled. "Okay."

"You want to help score us some pizza?"

Nudge let him go and sniffed at the air. "Pizza?"

"There's a pizzeria inside the grocery store," he told her.

She squealed and hugged him again. "Oh my god Iggy thanks. I was so hungry but I didn't want to eat any of the canned foods because once I ate them I'd just be like more hungry in five minutes, why is that, it's really annoying, but now you're getting pizza and we can stuff our faces! And Gazzy and Angel were getting kinda hungry too, but not as much because they're kids, and Fang is probably hungry but he like barely talks so it's not like he'd say anything, also Max, do you think she even gets hungry, she's so tough, and I was so worried that you had left but now we're getting pizza!"

"Yeah," Iggy said. "Come on, we're going to dumpster-dive. They might have thrown out some pies by now."

As they headed around the back of the building, Iggy made sure to stay close to Nudge. Who knew how close together the buildings were? There was no need for him to eat bricks. He nearly ended up doing just that when he tripped over something small and round, about the size of a fist, but he caught himself.

When Nudge stopped walking and whistled, long and low, Iggy grinned. "I'm guessing that we just discovered Pizza Mountain." Although everything smelled like garbage, there was a strong smell of pizza. Like pizza pies with garbage as a topping, if that was a thing.

"Oh. My. God," Nudge said. "If you tied all these pizzas together and launched them into space, they would be like… a pizza asteroid. A pizza asteroid that would destroy the planet and usher in Pizza Armegeddon, where the oceans would be replaced by seas of melted cheese. A true heaven on earth."

A grin stole across Iggy's face. "You said ass steroid."

Nudge snorted. "And I thought I was supposed to be the eleven-year-old. But seriously, there's so many! And they even have the little markings on the side, oh my god they have anchovies, I'm totally getting the anchovies." And then she was off, her sneakers banging against the metal of the dumpster.

Iggy headed after her, arms slightly outstretched. As soon as his hands hit the warm metal of the Dumpster, he reached up to get a grip on its lid, swung his legs to the right, and perched carefully on the edge. He reached a careful hand out towards its contents—full of cooling cardboard boxes. "Do you think it's employee training day?"

"Maybe a party cancelled," Nudge said. "Maybe ten parties cancelled?"

"Maybe a group of wandering businessmen ordered but left before they could collect. Who cares, grab a couple of pies. I think we need about five. Maybe another one for the road. So you get three, I get three."

Getting the pies was easy—grab, grab, stack, grab, stack. Getting down, on the other hand, was less so. After a moment of debating how exactly to slide down without rolling his ankle, he gave up and jumped off of the Dumpster. The pizzas were probably going to end up a little messed up, but screw it.

"Hey, Iggy, do you thin—"

Iggy held up a hand. "I think I head something," he said. And he had. Three steps of heavy footsteps were getting closer. Iggy felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift. "Erasers."

Nudge let out a very small squeaking noise.

"No, no, no. Stay quiet. Maybe they won't hear us." How had they gotten here so fast? Were they following the Flock or was this the welcoming committee sent directly from the School? Did they find the others?

No, wait. The pizzas. The still-warm pizzas. It was a trap.

Shit.

His pockets were empty, and he would bet that Nudge's were too. Flying away wasn't an option because that would definitely bring attention to them. So they could try to make a break for it or—

"Hello, piglets." The voices came from near the street where he and Nudge had come from. It was deep and raspy, the voice of somebody who spent most of his time screaming in victory as he ripped out the throats of his enemy with his teeth.

Fuck.

"Nudge, take the pizzas and run!" Iggy snapped.

"Too late to run," another voice, very similar to the first, said. Then the Erasers were surrounding them.

He grit his teeth. He didn't have any grenades, and he highly doubted that Nudge would be able to fight more than one Eraser, but screw it. If he was going down, then he was going down swinging.

"You know what?" Nudge snapped. Internally Iggy groaned. "At this point I don't care if you want to kill us!" There was a soft thump as she tossed the pizza boxes aside. "You're just a bunch of big bullies, and you're showing off at how much better you are, like oooh I'm soooo scared, but guess what, jerks? I am scared. It doesn't matter. I don't care, because, like, what are you going to do, take me back to the School? I'm already going there. Bring it on." And then there was the soft scraping sound of wood on brick. "And guess what, losers? I have this."

"A baseball bat? Good luck with that, hot dog." One of the Erasers chuckled.

And then another one lunged at Iggy, and there was no more time for talking.

Iggy felt the charge coming. While he wasn't able to dodge it completely, he did manage to slam his knee up in the Eraser's gut and get his hands on its head. Shaking it off wasn't that difficult. He slammed its head into the brick wall once, twice. Then another one was dragging him back by his shoulder. His butt hit the ground and his head—

No. That wasn't how it was going to go. Iggy planted his hands on the ground and kicked his legs up, swinging them around the Eraser's neck. He was sitting on the Eraser's shoulders like the world's biggest little kid in a really weird game of piggyback.

Sometimes he really missed being able to see, because he would have killed for a Polaroid of this. He groped around the Eraser's face for a second, almost got the tip of his index finger bitten off, and then shoved his thumbs into its eyes. It felt like warm Jello.

The Eraser roared in agony, and fell to its knees. Iggy grabbed it by the hair with one hand and put his other under its chin.

Its neck broke with a snap and it crumpled to the ground.

Iggy pulled himself off of its body and turned toward the sound of Nudge battering wolf monsters. She was holding her ground. There was blood heavy in the air, but she wasn't whimpering or stumbling.

Pride surged, and Iggy grinned. Nudge had always been a weaker fighter, and it was heartening to know that she could rise to the occasion. But still, an eleven-year-old against two Erasers wasn't a good situation.

"Hey, send the outfield some love!" he called.

"Gotcha!"

Iggy dropped into a crouch and waited for a half-second. One of the Erasers stumbled his way. He grabbed it, yanked it down to the ground with his forearm against its neck, and kicked it in the head. It groaned and tried to get up, so he stomped on what was probably its face, judging from the amount of bone crunching under his boot and the way that the screaming stopped.

There was a groan, a thud, a cracking sound, and the last Eraser hit the ground. Nudge whistled. "Wow," she said, panting. "That's a lot of blood. Hey, Ig, they're all down now."

Iggy sighed. "Thank God. Okay, now we get the pizzas and go. We pray that the Flock hasn't left or gotten killed. And that those three were the only ones."

Nudge picked up her pizza boxes and headed off. Iggy followed the soft sound of her sneakers on the concrete, trying not to bump into her.

"Where did you get the baseball bat?" he asked her.

She laughed before answering. "Some kid left it there. You tripped over the baseball, and there was a bat and a glove."

Iggy nodded, and they kept going.

"Um, Iggy?" she said as they headed down the street. "Is it, like, normal for people to walk around covered in blood? Because nobody did it on TV. Wait, whoops, sorry Iggy sorry so sorry. But it's just that people are giving us funny looks? Do you think we're going to get arrested? For being delinquents? Because I saw that on the news sometimes, and remember Jeb gave you that long lecture, but there weren't any guys that looked like you being arrested, and I don't mean like tall mutants either… Like they were black? And they weren't just guys? So is it illegal to be a black delinquent? Iggy, am I gonna get arrested? Oh God I don't want to get cooped up in a cell…"

"Nudge, you beat up three Erasers with a baseball bat," Iggy said. "You can handle a few police officers. Most of them don't do anything other than eat donuts. If you hit them in the gut, it would probably be a donut piñata."

"How would you know what they do?" Nudge asked, her voice at a higher pitch than usual. "Did you ever get arrested?"

"No, but Ari and Gazzy watch cop shows sometimes, and they told me."

"But cop shows aren't real, but oh look it doesn't matter because we're back at the motel anyway. That was fortuitous!"

Whatever that meant.

If anybody at the motel had noticed them, they didn't say anything, and they were able to get to the room without any major confrontation.

When Nudge swung the room door open, the smell of steam and shampoo was the first thing he noticed. The second was the sound of a bad television turned to a cartoon channel. That combined with Max, Angel, and Gazzy's voices mingling—it sounded like a nice Saturday morning. Only it was Monday, probably. Right? Or Tuesday? No, wait… Monday. It was Monday. It sounded like a nice lazy Mondaymorning.

Except Ari was kidnapped, Jeb was dead, they were on the run from mad scientists and the mad scientists' pet wolfmen, he was almost completely ineffective at fighting said wolfmen thanks to the aforementioned mad scientists' experimentations on him, and his thumbs were covered in wolfman eye goo.

"Guys, we have to go and we have to go now," Iggy said.

"What happened to you?" Max asked. "Erasers? Or just kids?"

"Erasers."

She swore, vehemently and at length. Iggy raised an eyebrow. That was… pretty impressive. Not as good as some of the tirades that he had went on, but still up there.

"Fine," she snarled. "Let's get this show on the road. We have the firepower, we have the manpower, we have… is that a baseball bat? Okay. We have a baseball bat. Let's burn those murdering fucks to the ground."

The bedsprings squeaked and fabric rustled as she lifted her bag off of the bed and slung it over her shoulder, and then her combat boots thudded on the ground past him. Fang followed her, and then Gazzy and Angel followed behind them.

"Bombs packed?" Iggy asked.

A pause, and then, "We're nodding, Iggy," Angel said.

"'Kay. Let's go, then."

He headed out behind them, following them as best as he could. It was a relatively short walk from the motel to the car, thank God. Nothing would have sucked more than having to wander through unfamiliar streets, looking for a car, while Erasers tracked them.

He stumbled over the sidewalk curb when he was getting into the car and nearly dropped the pizza boxes. "Fuck!" he hissed. His left big toe had been an inch away from breaking again.

"Iggy!" Max snapped. "Language!"

"Yes, mother," he replied.

"Max is glaring at you," Nudge told him. "Damn, I'm surprised that your skin isn't burning. That looks pretty intense."

"Nudge, language."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, like you didn't just say worse five minutes ago. I mean, come on, I've never said that an Eraser should go—"

Iggy decided to take advantage of the fight that was about to break out and slipped into his spot in the middle row.

"Nudge," Max said slowly, "just because I said it, doesn't mean you have to repeat it. Now shut up and get into the car before I duct-tape you to the roof."

Grumbling, Nudge complied. She slid into the seat next to Iggy, running commentary at the ready. "—thinks she's soooo much better, like, what, no, you're like three years older than me, I don't care, you're not," she sniffed slightly, kept going, "you're not Jeb, literally who cares."

"Hey," Iggy said quietly. "Look, I know it's rough. And we're all kind of on edge. Me especially. But we have to shut up and suck it up, okay? Max is going to be the one who gets us to stick together. She's the one spearheading this operation now. We have to trust her, even if we don't like what she says sometimes."

Nudge snorted. "She's a butt. And an a-hole."

"True, but we all kind of are. Remember that time when you decided not to talk to me for a week because we once wore a shirt that was the same color? Did you expect me to, like, feel the color? With my hands?"

"That was six months ago, God. I'm a totally different person now."

Max started up the car and they scrambled for their seatbelts, the conversation discontinued. But Nudge's hand crept across the pleather seat cover and tapped his twice before drawing out a smiley face.

Pizza was passed out, the radio was turned on, and Fang began to give directions. Iggy rested his head against the glass of the window.

Maybe if they found Ari, if they got him out safely, maybe then… things could go back to normal. Max wouldn't be this snappy, Nudge would calm down, Gazzy and Angel would level out and lose some of their nervous energy.

But even if they did, and even if everybody turned out fine, they would be seven kids on the run, four of them under the age of twelve, and one of them crippled. And while he could try and try to make up for how he weighed them down, he was still a liability.

How disgusting.

Procrastination plus school mean that I'm only five or six chapters "ahead" of you guys, which I'll rectify as quickly as possible. So at the moment, this is the last Iggy POV chapter. Personally I enjoy writing them, but I'm also happy with leaving it at three POV chapters. Basically it's up to you guys. What do you want?

(Also, today's my 18th birthday!)