Kai didn't know how long it would take to die at the hands of the Serpentine, but he did know, or at least was pretty sure, that it was going to hurt. A lot. Like, a lot, a lot.
Next to Kai, Cole was shifting in place. Almost inaudibly, Cole stated, "Up and away."
Up and away? Kai's jaw would've dropped if he wasn't so tensed up with fright. Cole couldn't really mean it, could he? Like, straight up?
A loud crunching noise sounded from Kai's side, and he jerked his head around to see the window and a little of the area around it disappearing into falling shards of glass and wood. A pair of Serpentine grinned through the new opening and began tearing the opening larger, ripping away the wall with their bare hands.
At almost the same time, the Serpentine at the front door pried the door open, poking his head into the cabin. He said almost conversationally, "I've got a little newsss for you. They only want one of you alive. Ssso we get to have sssome fun."
He laughed, and the Serpentine at the back door and the ones at the window joined in, a strangely pleasant sound that didn't fit the situation at all. That's when they started to change, turning more into the snake-men they really were, their faces lengthening out into snouts, their eyes going a strange reddish-purplish color, their teeth growing and growing and growing into fangs.
"Oh, sssilly little birdboysss," one of the window Serpentine said smoothly, breaking away the last of the wall and entering the cabin. "Didn't your parents teach you that you can run, but you can't hide? Oh wait, that's right. You never had parents."
The other Serpentine hissed their laughter, their hair shrinking and disappearing into their heads and their skin breaking out into scales.
"Let's do this." Cole murmured it so quietly, Kai wasn't fully sure he'd murmured it at all. Time felt like it was moving way too fast and achingly slow all at once, and it made Kai's head spin. But yeah, okay. He could do this.
"Little birdboysss, so weak and pathetic. Oh, and thisss one'sss blind to boot," the Serpentine who had come in through the front door stated, waving his hand at Cole, who managed to look disdained and completely above it all. Kai wouldn't have been surprised if Cole had yawned, he looked so bored with the Serpentine. It was a skill Kai would have to practice, if they got out of this alive.
"You should've ssstayed with the ssscientists," the Serpentine at the back door cackled, finally bursting through the door as he spoke. "Then they could've fixed you up right. They could've given to you just what they gave to me, and then maybe you wouldn't have been ssso foolish and ran away."
The back door Serpentine point one scaly finger at his face, specifically one eye where, to Kai's horror, there was no eye. Instead, a metal sphere moved around and around in his eye socket, showing off a small red circle set into the sphere. The Serpentine stopped moving the sphere and focused in on Kai's shirt sleeve.
Kai looked down to see a glow start to burn a hole in his sleeve, and he yelped in shock.
The Serpentine all laughed again.
"Ssso, miccce," the front door Serpentine began. "It can be your choiccce. Who leavesss with usss, and who ssstaysss and rotsss? Or do we get to pick?"
Their faces spread with toothy smirks, the Serpentine began circling them.
"On three," Cole breathed.
Kai's fists balled up at his sides.
"One."
Kai lowered his shoulders and bent his knees.
"Two."
Kai took a deep breath.
"Three!" Cole shouted.
Immediately, Kai and Cole jumped upward, letting out their wings, beating at the air. They sped upward toward the ceiling. The Serpentine jumped at them, but Kai and Cole were already breaking through the roof.
Kai's ragged shirt sleeve caught on the edge of one of the beams, pulling him back to stand on the roof. He tugged at it furiously, but when it wouldn't budge, he tugged harder and ripped right through it, flying up and away.
Above him, Cole was flapping furiously, gaining more and more altitude. "Kai! Come on, quick!"
Kai jumped off of the roof and into the sky, joining Cole in his upward motion. Just as Kai caught up with Cole, Cole reached a hand over his shoulder into his backpack and pulled something out, tossing it down at the cabin.
"Go, go, go!" Cole screeched, hauling feathers away with Kai right behind him.
Then… BOOM!
The two birdboys were thrown through the air by the force of the explosion. Kai regained control just in time to avoid being shot into a nearby tree and just in time to see a huge fireball rise from the cabin. Well, from where the cabin had been just a moment before, before Cole had tossed their homemade bomb at it. There was no longer a cabin there, just splintered bits of burning wood and raining pieces of ash.
It was horrible. It was beautiful. It was done.
"I can feel the heat," Cole said after a few moments. "That does it, right?"
"Yup," Kai said, feeling a little nauseous.
The four Serpentine were lying in the remains of the cabin. One of them was jerking around. The other three were completely still, just dark smears against what had once been the cabin floor. As Kai watched, the still-moving Serpentine slowed in his motions, then stopped completely.
"Yup," Kai said again. "That does it."
He felt all wrong deep down, like instead of exploding in the cabin, the bomb had exploded inside of him and mixed everything up. Then he remembered Zane, the smile Zane had given them all when they were going out to pick strawberries, the little tunes Zane hummed when he was coloring, the hugs Zane gave each of them every night.
Kai lifted his chin. He stared down at the remains of the Serpentine and muttered, "That was for Zane. That was for our brother. That was what you deserved."
As he started to turn to Cole, Kai's gaze went right past Cole and to the road that led to the remains of the cabin. A black truck was speeding along toward them, with a Serpentine poking his head and shoulders out the passenger window, already fully in his snake-man mode.
Kai gasped.
"All right, Kai," Cole said, knowing that whatever had made the boy gasp couldn't have been good. "We'd better get going."