Hello to everyone who is reading this! I hope you're all staying safe and healthy! It's been a while since I posted a new chapter, and this one was supposed to be a bit shorter than usual, but it turned out to be the longest one yet! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 58

"Watch it, Nudge!" I grimaced as water sprayed against my face. I gripped my canoe paddle tight. Why had I agreed to this again?

"Oops, sorry, Max!" Nudge apologized from her spot in front of me as she dipped her paddle back into the water. "It's just, these paddle things are so hard to control! I can't help it, you know?" She pushed her paddle back out of the water, splashing me with water yet again.

"Next time, you're sitting in the back so you can't splash anyone," I told her, frowning.

Iggy burst out laughing. "I'm glad I didn't get stuck in the back," he called from his place in front of Nudge.

"Rolling my eyes, Ig."

"Come on, guys! Keep paddling!" Daisy encouraged from the front of the canoe. Easy for her to say. She sure wasn't getting splashed the way I was.

"This is so exciting!" Nudge exclaimed as she sprayed me with water yet again and I winced. "It's like we're on an adventure! We could be explorers or something!"

I rested my paddle on top of the canoe for a moment, wiping the water off my face. We were out in the middle of a huge lake – I could see the shore across the way in the distance. Behind us was the beach we'd launched from. Jaz and Daisy had wanted to kayak, but then everyone in the flock had wanted to go along with them, and eventually the Boy Scout leader guy had just suggested that we all try canoeing instead. None of us besides Daisy had experience canoeing before, but we were steadily making our way across the lake, even with Nudge's constant paddling mishaps.

I glanced around for Fang's group, and snickered when I finally caught sight of his gloomy expression.

"No, Fnick!" Jaz was yelling – they were pretty far behind us, but her shrill voice seemed to echo across the lake. "You have to paddle the opposite way I am!"

"Okay," Fang agreed from his spot in the back. As soon as he moved his paddle to the left side of the boat, Jaz moved hers to the same side.

"What are they doing?" Nudge asked, peering over my shoulder.

"Jaz sounds like she's about to have a meltdown," Iggy offered.

I burst out laughing as their canoe began to turn in a circle. They'd been doing the same thing for the past fifteen minutes. Gazzy was with them, and he wasn't much help either – he just followed Jaz's paddling, occasionally splashing Fang in the face with water.

"I can't watch anymore," Nudge squealed, covering her eyes with her hands. Then she put them down. "Someone needs to help them! I'll just fly over and-"

I grabbed her arm, yanking her back down – she'd already started standing up, rocking the canoe back and forth.

"Whoa! Nudge, what are you doing back there?" Iggy exclaimed.

"Nudge, sit down," I told her. "We're trying to fly under the radar remember?"

"Fly under the radar," Iggy said with a smirk. "I get it."

I shot him a look, which was of course wasted on him. "It wasn't supposed to be a joke."

"Guys!" Daisy sounded like she was losing her patience. Oops – she'd been so quiet, I'd kind of forgotten she was there. "Can we please keep going?"

"No, Fnick!" Jaz shrieked again from the canoe behind us. "Paddle on the opposite side of me!"

"This is fun!" Gazzy cheered, splashing more water onto an already-drenched Fang.

Fang noticed me looking and shot me a death look. I smirked at him and turned away, back towards the front of the boat.

"Does Jaz realize she's the one making them go in circles, or is she just clueless?"

"Let's wait for them to catch up at least," Nudge offered.

"Alright," Daisy agreed. "That's a good idea."

"Yeah." Iggy nodded. "We'll wait until they get closer and we'll splash them. Who's in?"

"That's not why I said to wait!" Nudge insisted, slamming her paddle against the lake's surface and completely soaking me.

"Watch it or you're about to be thrown overboard!" I yelled. Iggy and Daisy burst out laughing. Nudge yelped, yanking her paddle back inside the canoe and almost whacking me on the head with it. I just rolled my eyes at her.

"Hey guys!" Jaz shouted cheerfully as their canoe pulled up alongside ours several minutes later. "Thanks for waiting!"

"This is so fun!" Gazzy exclaimed as he soaked Fang with another paddleful of water. "I bet you wish you went with us!"

"Bet I don't," Iggy murmured, and I snickered.

Fang looked exhausted, but I was pretty sure it wasn't the exercise that had gotten him so tired. He looked like he had a huge headache from Jaz and Gazzy's antics.

"Want to take a break?" Daisy asked. She pointed to a rocky shore several hundred yards away. "We can land there and eat our lunches."

"Sounds good to me," Iggy replied, and I nodded.

Nudge grinned, reaching into her backpack. "I packed like ten sandwiches! I'm so hungry I bet I could set a world record for eating the most sandwiches in a minute!"

"Fnick, you have our lunches, right?" Jaz asked as we paddled towards the shore.

Fang looked into his backpack, frowning. "Uh…"

"Oh. Were those sandwiches for lunch?" the Gasman asked. "I thought they were just some morning snacks! They sure were good!"

"You ate them all?" Jaz shrieked.

Fang sighed loudly as he pushed his empty backpack away.

"Can you guys share?" Jaz asked, looking over at me with huge pleading eyes.

I narrowed my eyes at her, zipping up my backpack tight. "No way. You should have protected your food better."

"Maaaaaaaax!" Jaz whined. "Please! I'm starving!"

"Maybe we can go hunting," Gazzy offered. "I can try to catch some fish!"

"Good luck with that," Iggy murmured, snickering.

"Ewww." Jaz made a face as our canoes reached the shore, bumping up against the rocks. "I can't eat fish. It's all slippery and gross."

"If you really were starving, you'd take whatever you can get," I commented.

"Come on, guys!" Daisy nimbly leaped out of the canoe and onto the rocks. "Let's bring the canoes ashore!"

I glanced at her, surprised for a second, before clambering out of the boat myself. I held my hand out to Iggy to help him climb out of the canoe and steady himself on the rocks. Daisy had really surprised me on this trip – I'd always thought of her as a rich girly-girl, but I guess she was pretty good at stuff like this.

Jaz, however, was not doing so well. "Aaaah!" she squealed, clinging onto Fang's hand. He was already out of his canoe and was attempting to help her get out of the wobbly canoe. Gazzy was not helping – he was actually making it worse, standing up in the canoe and leaning from side to side, which made the canoe rock back and forth.

"Gazzy, stop that!" Nudge shrieked. Gazzy cackled and leaped out of the canoe, and Jaz tripped over and fell right into Fang's arms. He managed to catch her right before she could bust her head open on the rocks.

"Max, can I get a hand?" Daisy asked. I turned to see her pulling the canoe up out of the water and onto the rocks. I nodded, grabbing the front and yanking it forward alongside her.

Daisy smiled at me. "Thanks, Max."

"Uh, no problem." I looked over to see Gazzy snooping around my backpack and snatched it away from him. "Wasn't eating Fang and Jaz's sandwiches enough?"

"But Max, I'm hungry!"

"You ate fifteen sandwiches," Fang pointed out.

"That wasn't enough! I thought it was just a snack!" Gazzy pouted.

Daisy laughed as she sat down on a rock, pulling her sandwich out of her backpack. "This is fun."

"What is? Gazzy eating other people's lunches?" I asked as I shot another look at the food thief.

"No." Daisy giggled again. "Camping with you guys. I used to go a lot with my mom, but it's been a while…"

"Oh." We all stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to say. Luckily, Jaz, with her annoying ability to interrupt people, leaped up and yelled, "I gotta go!"

"Go where?" Iggy asked, arching an eyebrow.

"No! You know. I've gotta go!"

I gestured widely around us, hoping she didn't expect to find plumbing out in the middle of the wilderness. "Then go!"

Jaz nodded and raced off into the woods as fast as she could. The rest of us all sat down to eat our lunches.

"Here, you can have some of my lunch," Nudge offered, handing Fang one of her nine PB&J sandwiches.

"Can I-" Gazzy started, reaching his hand out.

"No!" Nudge and I yelled at him at the same time.

I was just finishing off my first sandwich when Jaz came sprinting back out of the bushes, her breathing ragged. "Guys!" she gasped. "You've gotta see this!"

"What is it?" I asked, shoving the rest of my lunch back into my bag, wondering what had gotten her so excited. Maybe she really had managed to find a bathroom out here.

"Oh, I know!" Gazzy looked at Jaz hopefully. "Maybe she's going to tell us she found an all-you-can-eat buffet!"

Iggy rolled his eyes. "Do you really think that's what she's going to say?"

"Just come on!" Jaz said impatiently, motioning dramatically, her eyes wide.

She sure seemed flustered about whatever it was. "Come on, guys. Let's go," I said, standing up. The rest of the flock and Daisy and I followed Jaz alongside the edge of the lake. I wondered what could possibly have Jaz so worked up, when suddenly she stopped and I almost ran into her. Then Iggy ran into me. "Max!" he complained.

"Sorry, Ig," I apologized.

"This! This is what I wanted you to see!" Jaz announced. I peered around her to see... a seemingly normal campsite. There were two tents and an extinguished fire pit and no signs of life anywhere nearby. Whoever was staying at the campsite was probably out hiking or boating or something.

"And you wanted us to see this… why?" I asked, irritated.

"Well, it's a campsite! And you know what they have at a campsite?" Jaz asked.

"Tents?" Gazzy supplied unhelpfully.

"No!" Jaz shook her head. "Food! Maybe we can ask them for some lunch!"

"No one's here right now," Fang pointed out.

"Yeah. Who are you gonna ask?" Nudge added. "There's no one to ask. Unless…"

"We could just borrow some food from them!" Gazzy suggested, grinning.

"Borrow?" Daisy frowned. "You mean steal?"

"Gazzy, you ate fifteen sandwiches and you still want more food?" Iggy asked, shaking his head.

"Whoa. Guys, hold on." I held up my hands. "Jaz, I know you're hungry, but we're not about to-"

Jaz made her puppy dog eyes at me again. "Please?"

I rolled my eyes. "That does nothing for me."

But I made the mistake of looking down at Nudge, who was making her Bambi eyes at me. "Please?" she asked, her eyes wide and her lower lip protruding. "Jaz must be so hungry. And Fang, too. And they'll never notice if we only take a little bit of food."

I grimaced, looking away. I hated the Bambi eyes so much. "Fine. Whatever. Maybe we can find a granola bar for Jaz or something."

"And me," Gazzy chimed in.

"No!" we all yelled at him.

Jaz and I crept up to one of the two tents in the clearing. Iggy stood guard nearby, listening intently for the noises of any campers that might be approaching. The rest of the flock and Daisy stood near the edge of the clearing, murmuring among themselves.

I took a deep breath as I unzipped one of the tents, wishing I hadn't made the mistake of looking at Nudge when she was using the Bambi eyes. No one could resist those.

Jaz peeked over my shoulder. "That's weird," she said as I unzipped the tent all the way. "Who brings a bunch of computers and stuff on a camping trip?"

The tent was full of technological stuff – computers, cameras, monitors, microphones, you name it. "Maybe they have a business meeting," Jaz went on. "And they had to bring all this stuff to do their work here."

"That's stupid," I muttered. "Who goes all the way out into the wilderness to have a business meeting?" But it was weird – besides the lack of food in the tent, there was no other camping gear in sight. Then my breath caught. My raptor sharp vision picked out a string of words, written on a white label on one of the computers.

Property of the School. Death Valley, California.

"Crap," I muttered.

"Do you think they have food in the other tent?" Jaz asked, already skipping away. I grabbed her arm, gripping it tight.

"Ow, Max. That hurts." Jaz looked back at me. "Max? What's wrong?"

"We've gotta get rid of this stuff," I hissed. "The School's found us. All the way out here."

"The School?" Jaz asked. She tapped her finger against her chin. "Oh, like that lab you escaped from." Her eyebrows furrowed. "That's… bad, isn't it?"

"Bad's an understatement," I replied, waving Fang over. His jaw clenched when he peered into the tent.

"This sucks."

"You can say that again."

"Max? What's going on?" Nudge called.

I held my finger up to my lips, shushing her. "Up and away. I'll meet you back at the campsite in ten. We've gotta get out of here."

"What about the canoes?" Daisy asked.

I grimaced. "Forget the canoes. We have bigger issues." I ducked inside the tent, grabbing laptops, cameras, whatever I could, and lugging them down to the lake. I hurled them in, cursing under my breath.

"Max! What are you doing?" Jaz shrieked, running after me.

"Destroying their evidence." Fang and I had been right to believe there were Erasers in the woods last night. For all I knew, this place was swarming with Erasers just waiting for the right moment to strike.

Fang came behind me with another armful of tech gear. He tossed it into the lake, grimacing as the monitors and laptops made several huge splashes.

It was then that I noticed another setup in the reeds alongside the rocky shore – a camera, pointed directly towards the side of the lake that our campsite was on. I grimaced, kicking it into the lake as well.

"They've been watching us this whole time. They know exactly where they are." I clenched my fists as the rest of the flock caught up with us. "Why are you guys still here? I told you to escape!"

"Hold on," Iggy cut in, while Nudge piped up, "We were checking out the other tent. There's just some sleeping bags and stuff. Oh, and maps and things."

"Great," I muttered. They were probably tracking us right now. We'd destroyed their gear here, but I was sure they'd find other ways to find us. "Forget going back to the campsite. We need to get out of here now. Like, back home out of here."

"What about us?" Jaz shrieked, gesturing back and forth between her and Daisy.

"You guys will probably be fine," I told her, exasperated.

"How do you know?" Jaz shot back. "For all we know, they'll attack the campsite whether you guys are there or not."

There was silence after she said it. I hated to admit it, but she was right. The Erasers probably knew about Jaz and Daisy hanging out with us – there was no way they'd let them off easily if they were associated with us. And the same went for the rest of the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts – even annoying Girl Scout Lady Laura. I hated her, but it wasn't like I was going to let her be killed by the Erasers.

"Alright. Alright. Fine." I held up my hands. "But we're still getting out of here. Now. Without the canoes."

"How?" Daisy asked. "It's not like Jaz and I can fly like you do."

I glanced at Fang, and he nodded.

"Hold on tight," I told Daisy, yanking off my jacket and whipping out my wings.

A few moments later, we were zipping high above the treetops, flying back to our campsite as fast as we could.

"I'm not a huge fan of heiiiiiiiights!" Daisy screamed as she clung to me desperately. I winced in pain – trying to fly while carrying another person was already hard enough, and Daisy sure wasn't making it easier.

I glanced around at the rest of my flock. Nudge babbled a mile a minute while Iggy flew nearby, listening for the sound of her voice. Gazzy had a concerned look on his small face as he flapped his wings as hard as he could to keep up with everyone. Jaz was busy talking to Fang as he carried her, saying, "This is so cool, Fnick!" Fang didn't respond, though, and I could see that he was just as worried as I was.

"We're almost there," I murmured to Daisy. I was able to pick out a familiar cropping of tents in a clearing below us and called to the flock to get their attention, swooping downwards. Fang followed behind me closely, with the rest of the flock not far behind. With one last stroke of my powerful wings, I landed nimbly on the ground, setting Daisy down. She let out a huge sigh of relief and collapsed to the ground.

"That was so fun, Fnick!" Jaz yelped, beaming at Fang. "Let's do that again sometime!"

"Let's not," Fang muttered.

"We've got to warn everyone," Nudge cried as she came swooping in, pulling her wings in and untying her windbreaker from around her waist to pull it back on. I nodded as Iggy and Gazzy landed, trying to figure out exactly what to say to Annoying Girl Scout Lady Laura. Somehow, I figured she wouldn't exactly believe me if I said, "We need to all get out of here now because these wolf mutants who are out to bring us back to the lab we escaped from are here."

But luckily, or maybe not so luckily, I didn't need to think of anything to tell Girl Scout Lady Laura after all.

A snarl came from behind me, making my blood run cold. I whirled to see an Eraser, half morphed, approaching us from the trees at the edge of the clearing. "Here, little pigs. Come on. It's time to go home." He held out his hand, his sharp claws protruding from his fingertips.

Jaz grabbed my arm, her fingernails digging into my skin, and I winced and shook her off. Daisy huddled up against her. Around me, the rest of the flock took up fighting positions, fists clenched and out in front of them. I did the same.

"The School is not our home," Nudge cried, her fists shaking but her eyebrows furrowed in determination. "It never will be."

"Yeah!" Iggy yelled as the wolf mutant got closer to us. "We're not going anywhere with you!"

"Oh, really?" The Eraser's mouth formed a gruesome fanged smirk. He tilted his head up and howled to the sky.

I glanced at Fang, frowning.

"Uh oh," Gazzy said suddenly, pointing.

The rest of us all looked in the direction his finger was pointing. And we kept looking, all the way around the clearing, as hundreds of Erasers began emerging from the woods, morphing into wolves as they sprinted towards us at an alarming rate.

We were surrounded.

~~::~~

The "camping arc" should be coming to a conclusion next chapter (but don't worry, it's not the end of this fanfic)! Stay tuned, and thanks again for reading!