Author's Note: Thank you, KLoves2Read, for your beta reading help.

This one... I'm happy to talk about it via PM if anyone feels so inclined. For the record, the events of this chapter were in the cards from the beginning. Next chapter in two days.

Content Warning: Graphic Violence


CHAPTER 28 – SEVEN SECONDS

Fang rushed into the room the moment he regained control of his limbs. He fell to his knees in front of the large plastic dog crate, pushing his fingers through the wire door and peered inside.

"She's...she's breathing, right?" Dylan stood in the doorway, shifting nervously with one toe keeping the door from falling shut. His eyes were fixed on the hallway.

"Yeah," Fang breathed, eyes drinking in the dark form huddled at the far end of the crate. "Yeah." His fingers found the flimsy spring closure and then it was open and he was leaning inside with outstretched arms, wings arched and reshuffling anxiously. She moaned when his hands found her, palms running along her crushed wings, and when he gripped her shoulders to pull her from the dark she let out a pitiful whimper.

"I've gotchu, I've gotchu, babe...c'mon..."

He pulled her out of the crate and into his lap, releasing her swollen right arm when he saw the tight binding. The skin around it was purpling and shiny. His fingers ghosted across her ribs where they were already visible, uncovered as she was in her dirty bedclothes, hair matted on one side. Her closed eyes fluttered and then opened a crack, blinking dully before settling shakily Fang's forehead.

"You? You're..." Her eyes shifted unsteadily and she caught sight of Dylan. Her breathing picked up and her glassy eyes found Fangs. "S'not safe," she managed. She shifted in an attempt to sit up but rolled over onto her hurt arm. She cried out and curled in on herself, huddling against Fang's stomach.

Fang bent across her to shove at the crate, trying to free Max's gangly legs without letting her go. He couldn't let her go.

"We can't stay," Dylan hissed, fingertips white where he gripped the door handle. He was alternating between watching the reunion and taking darting glances out into the hallway, feathers bristling wildly.

"Gotta go," Max echoed, humid breath spreading through Fang's shirt where her face was still pressed to his stomach. "The Flock?"

"They're at home. Safe." Fang turned to Dylan and implored, "Help me."

He was there in an instant, delicately pulling the carrier away from Max, freeing her enough that Fang could gather her up into his arms and get to his feet.

"Ikin' walk," Max drawled, awake enough now to push against Fang's chest in protest. "Just...gimme a sec."

"We've gotta hurry," Dylan warned, still crouched, balanced with one hand on the top of the crate. Fang nodded, tightening his grip on the body curled in his arms and turning toward the door.

"The pill," Max went on, one hand flopping to point in the general direction of the crate. "I di'n't...I spit it out...lemme walk, dammit."

Dylan glanced inside the crate and then stood, a small white tablet pinched between his fingers.

"Dormosedan?" Fang asked, but Dylan shook his head.

"No, it's something else. Not as powerful." He eyed Max, assessing her as she blinked rapidly, trying to focus. "Can she even stand? We need to hurry."

"Ya said that," Max grumbled, wiggling out of Fang's arms.

"Are we going back the way we came?" Fang gently helped Max to stand, keeping her upper body hugged tightly to him as he lowered her legs to the floor.

Dylan moved past them to poke his head out the door, listening carefully. He ducked back in and nodded. "We should be able to get back to the window quick enough. We'll try to make a run for it."

Fang dipped his head to look at Max. Her face was twisted in a downcast scowl as she gripped Fang's shirt, shifting tentatively on her legs. "Want help?"

"I goddit. Really."

Fang frowned, glancing at Dylan, but the other man had his attention on the hallway again.

"Just a second," Dylan whispered, easing the door shut. "There's a lab tech in the next hall. He's going the other way, though."

Fang turned back to Max, giving her hands a squeeze as she finally released him. "There's an empty lab a few doors down with an open window. I'll help you through first; just get in the air, we'll come after you."

Max stiffened. "I can't-"

"It's okay." He pressed his lips to her forehead, lingering for a moment and letting the frizzed wisps at her hairline tickle his nose. "I'll be right behind you."

Max shook her head frantically, glassy eyes wide. "No, Fang, they-"

"Now!" Dylan hissed. He slipped through the door, Fang right behind with Max's hand clutched in his. Their footsteps slapped on the tile as they ran down the hall, Max stumbling a little and making Fang's heart race. He tightened his grip on her, fingers pressing desperately into her wrist. Someone shouted somewhere behind.

The door to freedom was only ten paces ahead, door slightly ajar. Had they really left it open?

Dylan skidded to a halt, heels scraping the linoleum, already twisting in a new direction. Fang slammed into him with a gush of breath and Dylan turned right, sprinting down the next hall. Max stumbled to a stop and cried out in surprise when Fang jerked her along, pulling her good arm until her strides quickened to match his.

The lab door burst open wide behind them and guttural snarls tore from dribbling maws of the three Erasers that bounded after them. A man in a navy suit followed, turning scarlet with rage, furious shouts echoing down the corridor.

"Erasers!" Fang called ahead.

Dylan took a sharp left, slamming through a door marked as a stair entrance just as more Erasers appeared at the other end of the hall. "No one's on the roof!"

"Wait!" Max's cry cut off when Fang pulled her into the unlit stairwell. The door fell shut behind them, only to swing open with a resounding crack against the cinderblock wall. They took the steps three at a time, feathers lifting, ready to fly. The now fully-morphed Erasers snapped at their heels, eyes glowing red under the emergency lights.

One level. Two levels. Three levels. Fang was suffocating without sky. Max's hand was yanked away and his chest tightened with raw fear. One of the Erasers yelped, tripping on the steps and falling back into the rest of the pack, and then he felt Max tap his shoulder three times, Right behind you.

"Get in the air!" Dylan yelled as his shoulder connected with the exit door, shoving it open and flooding the dark stairs with blinding sunlight. Fang stumbled out after him, Max's hand flying to his shoulders.

Dylan's surprised shout pierced him before he got rid of the spots in his vision. He stumbled forward a few steps and walked right into something cold, hard, with protruding curves. Fang's arm flew up to shield him from the sun and his forearm collided with something smooth and round at chest level, knocking the thing off balance. It groaned and clattered and collapsed into a heap at his feet.

The three of them looked down at the robot, panting heavily. Fang chuckled crazily and swept his hand through his hair. "They're not turned on." They were standing at the edge of a motionless robot army, probably a hundred of them, all smooth, sweeping angles and glinting sunlight.

"Not yet," Dylan said darkly. He turned back and took the doorknob in both hands, grunting and tugging until it sheared off. "That can't hurt," he muttered, eyeing the jagged metal stump appreciatively.

Fang jumped when the robot at his feet made a soft whirring noise.

"Oh, shit."

The black infrared reader across its upturned face glowed red and then focused into a pinprick red eye. It danced crazily before focusing on Fang.

Dylan looked up when another whirring noise started nearby, and then another, and another, and then the broken door behind them groaned as something slammed into it on the other side.

"The edge!" Fang yelled, weaving quickly through the ranks, Max behind him, Dylan in the rear.

"Fang!"

Fang yelled back breathlessly, "Get in the air!"

He broke through the last row of robots before the whirring had stopped. He sprinted the final few yards to the flimsy handrail at the edge of the roof, braced one hand on the round steel, and vaulted up and over. The sea was immediately below him, miles of sky ahead, the low green mountains of Japan's mainland on the near horizon. His great black wings pumped once, twice, three times, straining to move huge scoops of air and climbing faster than he ever thought he could. His body fizzled with elation when he caught an updraft, letting himself be carried up and up until the only sound was the wind.

The wind itself pulled his laugh from his lungs and he whipped around to share it with Max and Dylan, but there was only sky. He spun again, heart in his throat, nose over his shoulder, wingtips curling around him, clouds and blinding sun and a seagull just above.

He was alone with the wind.

"Faaaaaaang!"

Max's terrified scream was faint, barely cutting past the wind in his ears, but it lanced through his heart like ice.

She was still on the roof.

He was already a few hundred yards above them, but he'd been in the air fewer than ten seconds. How long to get back down?

One...
Fang searched frantically below. The door to the roof crushed outward, revealing two snarling Erasers jammed shoulder to shoulder in the narrow frame. Dylan was struggling at the edge of the robot army where one had caught him by the arm, wiry fingers encircling his bicep tightly. And there was Max, wings half folded and bracing herself against the railing at the roof's edge on her toes, watching Fang with a mask of terror as he pivoted mid-stroke, angling towards the rooftop and diving down, down, down.

Why wasn't she flying?

Two...
Three hundred yards to go
The Erasers tumbled out of the door as more shoved past, tearing through the robot army and leaving trenches of fallen bots in their wake like dominoes. Fang pulled his wings in tighter, careening towards the roof with increasing speed. Dylan cried out as another bot grabbed his other arm. Max turned and he saw that her wings were outstretched. Primary feathers reduced to choppy stubs.

They'd clipped her.

She was grounded.

Three...
Two hundred yards to go
Fang flung his arms over his face, eyes burning as the wind sliced past, faster and faster. The Erasers were upon Dylan now and he struggled wildly, lashing out with the bony ridges of his wings to punch their soft noses, making them cower. Max was suddenly sprinting towards him, bum arm dangling and the other curled into a fist, and Fang yelled into the silencing wind.

"I got it!"

Four...
One hundred yards away
Save Dylan save Max save Dylan save Max...

There was a sickening crackle like crushed ice as one of the bots took hold of Dylan's left wing at the base, shattering the hollow bones and pulling it from his body with a wet rip. Tore it clean off.

Max screamed, faltering in her step as she watched the wing hit the cement, crumpled like a used towel.

"Run!" Dylan bellowed, eyes wide and wild, single wing flapping frantically, Erasers upon him again. Max turned, took three steps, and stumbled, tearing up her hands and knees on the rough cement.

Five...
Fang opened his wings, swinging his feet forward and yelling under the strain of trying to slow from his bone-shattering speed. He aimed his heels for the head of the Eraser at Dylan's back, but the desperation in Dylan's eyes was not for himself.

"Save her!"

They were both grounded now, and Dylan understood.

Fang couldn't carry them both.

Six...
One Eraser howled as Dylan jabbed it in the eye. Fang's wings strained impossibly as he sailed over the roof's edge and made a hairpin turn, towards Max, away from Dylan's scream as the Eraser dug its claws into his side. There was a sick pop at Fang's shoulder and a shooting pain as his right wing collapsed and folded backward. He collided with Max, legs folding into the concrete, his momentum dragging them, breathless, in a tumbling roll beneath the railing and off the edge.

Dylan screamed, guttural and terrified.

A wet tear, a series of cracks, and it was silenced.

Seven...
Fang's eyes found Dylan's at the last moment before he fell, frozen in time, curled around Max. Dylan's face was taught with pain, mouth wide from his deadened scream. An Eraser's claws had torn from his sternum to his hip, cracking ribs, shredding lung, opening abdomen, insides spilling. He had collapsed, gagging, still held aloft by the spindly wire fingers gripping his arms. Fang watched Dylan blink once, going glassy-eyed before the light went out behind them.

An Eraser lunged, dripping jaws closing over Dylan's neck and mouth with a terrifying crunch.

Fang fell out of sight, Max clutching him tightly, down to the sea below.

They plunged into water like ice.

Dylan was dead.

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