GAH, once again my ability to create short and insignificant chapters blinds me from the true story I have going on here, but nonetheless, I shall continue on! R&R and enjoy!
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23
"Gotcha, ya little rat!" the headhunter shouted, blowing saliva all over my face. Gross.
Without thinking, I brought my left leg around and slammed my knee into William Pruitt's hip, knocking him aside and surely snapping a bone or two. The headhunter tried to grab at my arm again, but I was too quick, shooting my wings down to push myself into the air. Now I was hovering steadily at about fifteen feet, just out of headhunter's reach. I looked around the room and saw everyone staring at me, including the five Erasers, Roland ter Borcht, the headhunter, and…Anne? I took another hard look and noticed that it was indeed Anne Walker, the same woman whom my flock and I stayed with for a few weeks back in D.C.
So many questions flooded my head, and I was about to ask them all at once, but then remembered the small box I held in my hand. The torture box. With all my strength and rage I flung the box to the ground, and watched satisfyingly as it smashed into a thousand pieces on the tile below.
Roland didn't even blink. In fact, a small grin spread across his face and he raised his hands to clap a few times. "Well done, Maximum. That's just what I would expect from something I created." He laughed a bit as the volcano inside my head began to near eruption.
Anne turned to Roland and glared at him. "You said you wouldn't tell her! Not yet, at least! This could ruin everything if she knows!"
Roland laughed a bit more and turned to me again. "Oh no, I don't think Max will be causing us anymore problems. Type 27 is alive."
Anne and the headhunter stared at Roland with horror in their eyes. "You can't be serious!" Anne said. "Roland…my brother…"
Okay, what? My mind was overflowing as I hovered above the crowd of crazies below me. Roland and Anne…could they really be siblings? Apparently I was also supposed to be afraid of some Type 27 as well. If I was Type 26, and Roland said I was nearly perfect, was this Type 27 really perfect?
Anne crashed to the floor and began heaving and sobbing, holding her head in her hands. She looked up at Roland. "Brother, why? You said you'd never need to resort to that!"
Roland moved towards Anne and gently placed his hand on her head. "I'm sorry, sister. But times have changed. I don't need anybody anymore. I can take care of myself." With one swift move, Roland flipped his hand in a half-circle while clutching Anne's head, snapping her neck instantly. Her body crumpled to the floor, motionless.
I was stunned, as was the headhunter, who screamed in a rage at Roland. "What are you doing? This is insanity! You can't possibly hope to do everything without us!" Roland apparently thought otherwise, pulling the handgun from his pocket; the handgun he had used to kill Jeb Batchelder, his clone, the day before.
"Oh William, you never fail to amuse me," Roland said as he pulled the trigger, firing a bullet into the headhunter's stomach. "You always thought I was the weakest of the family just because I was the youngest." The madman fired another bullet into the headhunter's stomach, who was about to fall, blood trailing down from the wounds. "But I'll surpass you and sister. I'll be better than either of you ever hoped to be!" Another bullet was fired into the headhunter's stomach, and then he crashed to the floor with a loud thunk.
I sat in mid-air (if that was possible) for a few seconds, completely silent and mortified by what I had seen. My mind was still trying to process the scene when Roland looked to me again. "I told them when we were little that I was gonna be better. I was gonna be strongest. Well now I am! I am Type 27!"
Silently I watched as Roland leapt into the air, unfurling four coal black wings that carried him to my level with apparent ease. Okay, on a scale of one to ten, Roland was now an eleven in the "crazy-and-dangerous" category. Things were about to get a little more difficult.