For the next week, we stayed on the island. That week definitely made my top three list. I managed to forget for long periods of time that I had a duty to do and had fun for once. Angel talked fish into becoming meals every day like we'd talked about, and I was actually full I felt sorry for the fish, but that was before I'd tasted them. Delish.

Through all of that, I'll give you one guess what still worried me.

Do I hear Fang for $100? Sold!

Each day, he seemed to be getting a little worse, until even Nudge had noticed. Now, instead of just being tired and pale, he was coughing and his skin was dulled. His sense of sarcasm, I'm glad to report, was still there. I found that out after I discovered he had – surprise – a fever on top of everything else.

"Come here," I'd said to him, in one of my daily sessions of trying to figure out his mysterious sickness. He came out of the lake reluctantly, the water clinging in beads to his skin. He knew what I was up to.

He sat next to me and I put out a hand to feel his forehead. I frowned. It should have been a little cooler, since he'd just come out of a lake, but he was burning up – even for us. "You're hot," I said in an astonished voice.

He smirked, and I realized my mistake. Too late. Crap. "I know, but it's nice to hear you say it," he replied smugly.

I'd glared at him and taken my hand away. "Ha ha. No more swimming, you're sick and you'll make it worse." It was his turn to glare at me, but I didn't care.

That was how every day went.

Now, one week was up, I was jogging around the island at dawn while it was still dark, and Jeb decided to chip in.

You have a job to do, Max.

I know that, I replied snidely as I jumped over a log like an Olympic hurdler. It's all you tell me lately.

So get back to it! You haven't been around to hear the news. Everything is going downhill.

Like what? I asked, interested in spite of myself.

Like Canada is planning to declare war on the United States.

I tripped in my shock. What??

You heard me. Canada is fed up with how much of the world's resources that the U.S. is using, and they've decided to correct that problem.

By killing people? I thought indignantly. How is that going to bring resources back?

Less people, less resources used.

That's sick.

It's true.

So what do you expect me to do? I asked him. March up to Canada's government and tell them, 'I'm just a fourteen year old American girl who thinks that you shouldn't declare war on my country'?

Leave the country, Max. You were going to. Leave now before you are all killed. Itex is coming for you.

My body went cold. Itex was coming. They were back on our trail. I knew that close to over a week without any sign of them was too good to be true. We were wanted, and just because we were on an island didn't change that.

Are they close?

They're coming by helicopter. They're around two hundred miles away. Leave now, Max!

I stopped jogging and began to sprint, stretching my legs across the beach. Why did he have to tell me this now? Why couldn't he have said so before, when I was already with the flock?

I abandoned running and snapped open my wings. I was airborne instantly, the wind from my sprint filling my wings and lifting me upward. In seconds I was across the island, surging toward the tiny knot of mutants on the beach. Iggy was up on watch, and he turned his head at the sound of my wings.

"Max?" he called toward the sky. "I thought you were running, what's wrong?"

I landed and ran towards him. "Get everyone up!" I called. "We've got to move!"

"Why?" Iggy asked, alarmed, as I ran past him.

"Itex is coming," I replied, already shaking Nudge awake. Fang was up already, awakened by my shouting, and was packing his things and burying our fire beneath the sand to remove the trace of us.

"How do you know?" Fang asked me.

"Jeb," I replied. "And even if he's lying, we needed to move anyway. They're coming by plane and are only around two hundred miles away. We have to go, now, before they find us!"

"Max," said Fang, his eyes widening slightly, "we can't out–fly helicopters. Maybe you can, but the rest of us can't."

"That's why we're getting a head start," I said, as Nudge stumbled groggily towards her bag and Gazzy and Angel woke up. "I know two hundred miles isn't a lot when it comes to planes, but it's better than nothing." I sent him a significant glance that the others missed, and he nodded once to show he understood.

The glance meant – We're probably going to be caught. Don't let the others catch on.

We rose into the air as quickly as possible. We must have looked wild – our hair and clothes were crazy and stuck up in odd places, Iggy was carrying a dog, and the younger one's eyes were wild with fright. None of us wanted to go back to the School. I knew that they wouldn't even bother to experiment. All we'd hear would be six gunshots and that would be the end.

I drove my flock hard to go as far as we could. I felt bad doing that to Fang when I knew he wasn't at his best, but he gave almost no sign of being in any pain or anything. His jaw was clenched and his face pale, but he flew just as fast as the rest of us.

The flight's silence was broken after thirty minutes by a faint roar. Nudge looked at me, her face haunted. She knew what it was. One look at her face told me everything – she knew we stood close to no chance of getting away.

"Do you think they'll have radar?" Iggy whispered to me so that the little guys couldn't hear.

I nodded. "Probably."

"How far does it extend?" he asked me. His eyes bore insistently into mine, and I could sense that he was onto something.

"I don't know," I frowned. "I don't even know what regular range is, let alone Itex's."

"We should fly higher," he said urgently. "Before the radar picks us up at this altitude."

There was no time to think. I made a snap decision, tilting upward as I called, "Pull up!" Iggy followed me, still talking.

"If we can manage to get high enough," he continued as we flew, "then maybe, just maybe, they'll pass beneath us."

Fang flew closer to me. His wings touched mine. "Do you really think that we have a chance?" he murmured.

"Honestly? No," I replied in an undertone. "But it's worth a shot."

"Max?" This time it was Angel, and I muttered swear words under my breath. I knew she heard my thoughts, and it was absolutely the worst time for her to hear them. "Are they going to catch us?" she asked me.

"No," I reassured her. "They won't."

We flew still higher as the helicopter drew closer. Soon, we could tell that it was nearly beneath us. My eyes were beginning to water from the cold, but I could still breathe well. I glanced at Fang. There was no change in how he had looked before, so I looked down again.

There was the helicopter, buzzing below us. It was the biggest helicopter I've ever seen in my life, and Itex has a lot of them. They really meant to take us back, I thought in shock. I had known that, but seeing the helicopter made it all the more real. There must have been tons of Flyboys in that thing. We wouldn't have stood a chance.

The helicopter slowed and my heart sped up. Maybe we weren't high enough. Maybe they had caught us on the radar anyway. An arm snaked out of the driver's window. It had a pair of binoculars in its hand. I blanched, but they pointed them down, not up.

"Iggy," I breathed. "It's working."

"They're still there. I can hear them," he replied, confused.

"They're looking down," I told him. "But we're not in the clear yet."

I hovered and held my breath. I knew that they couldn't hear me, but I was so freaked that they would. Eventually, the helicopter flew forward again and picked up speed. I didn't move until it had gone from sight.

"That was too close," breathed Nudge, letting out the breath she had been holding. She was shaking all over and her eyes were wide. "I really thought that they had us that time." Her brown skin had lost some of its richness, but it was slowly coming back.

Me too, I thought.

"So which way to Sweden?" Total quipped.

"You don't need to know," I told him, smiling. "You have the bird kids with internal compasses to help you." We flew towards Sweden cracking small jokes, but everyone was still tense. What if they turned back? What if they found us this time?

No one dared to fly lower.

A/N: This was supposed to have more to it, but it ended up like this. Hope that you liked it even though it was short!

FAQ: What's up with Fang?

I'm not going to tell you! It would wreck the suspense!

…but review and you get a quote from the next chapter…