Chapter 4
When the bell rang later that day, I grabbed Fang and Iggy and practically dragged them out the door. Maybe if we ran, we could get on the bus and avoid Jaz.
"Hi, Max!" Nudge said, walking towards us with Gazzy in tow. "How was your second day of fifth grade? Was it-"
"Nudge, move it!" I yelled at her. "Get on the bus!"
She ran after us, glancing around anxiously. "Why? What's going on?"
"We're ditching Jaz," I hissed.
"We are?" Fang asked in surprise.
I glared at him. "You didn't hear that, lover boy."
His mouth opened, probably to object, but that was when – guess who? – Jaz walked onto the bus.
"Hi, Fnick!" she said, smiling and plopping down next to him – where I was going to sit. "Max runs really fast, doesn't she?"
"I guess," Fang responded.
"Ugh," I muttered, slumping into the seat next to Iggy. He frowned. "What? I'm not that bad!"
I rolled my eyes, then realized he couldn't see it. "Rolling my eyes, Ig. You know why I'm mad."
"No, I don't," he said, and went back to fiddling with the zipper on his backpack.
"Max is jealoooousss!" Nudge said in a sing-song voice, her head popping up from the seat in front of us.
My face started heating up.
"No, I'm not," I replied, crossing my arms over my chest. "Jaz is just really annoying. I don't want her to come over."
"Sure," Iggy said with a smirk. I punched his arm. "Ig! You know how annoying that girl is!"
Unfortunately, that didn't keep Nudge and Gazzy from giggling. I sighed. Was this day over yet?
~~::~~
"You must be Jaz," Jeb said, smiling at the dark-haired girl. "I've heard some things about you."
"He's heard from me that she's annoying," I murmured to Iggy, who laughed.
"Let's go outside!" Nudge said as we ate our snack – Oreos and milk. "We can play tag and go fly-" Nudge realized that we had an…an outsider here and shoved an Oreo in her mouth.
Luckily, Jaz didn't catch that. "Fly a kite, you mean? I love flying kites!"
I breathed a sigh of relief – at least Nudge hadn't let our secret slip.
We ran outside, and I breathed in the fresh air. I loved being outside, especially after a long day at our stupid school. My wings were still pulled tight against my back, and although I wanted to let them out and just fly around for hours, I knew we couldn't.
Angel sat down in a patch of flowers. "Help me make daisy chains!" she said, and I smiled.
"Sure," I responded, kneeling down to help her.
"Tag! You're it!" Gazzy screamed, running up behind me and slapping me.
"Hey!" I yelled, running after him. "You're so dead!"
"No tag backs!" he teased, grinning.
I whirled and found Nudge standing behind me. She screamed, then laughed and ran away. I caught up and tagged her, then zoomed away, behind a clump of trees.
"Oh! Max….hi," Jaz said. I looked up in surprise – what was she doing behind here, anyway?
"We're not playing hide and seek, you know," I told her with a smirk.
She turned a bright red color. "Oh! I know….I was just…checking my phone."
"Right," I said, rolling my eyes. "Now are you going to play tag with us or not?"
As if on cue, Nudge ran and tagged Jaz. Then she stopped and looked back and forth between the two of us and smiled.
"Jaz, did you know that Max likes F-Nick?"
For a second I just stared at her in horror. Then I screamed, "Nudge, you liar!" and ran at her.
"Max, you're not even it!" Nudge screamed as she ran from me.
"You're gonna get it!" I yelled at her.
"Are they…okay?" I heard Jaz ask Iggy.
He responded with, "This is considered normal at our house."
Suddenly Nudge stopped, and I ran right into her. "Nudge, you can't just do that!"
Nudge was staring straight ahead. When I did the same, I saw something terrible – something that had given me nightmares ever since we'd escaped from the School.
He wasn't all animal, or all man – he was more like a combination of the two. Half wolf, half human, with a grin that showed all of his sharp teeth.
"E-Eraser," Nudge whimpered, and I yanked her behind me.
The rest of the flock stood behind me, frozen. My fists clenched. I had to protect them. I even had to protect Jaz.
Then the wolf man lunged at me.