Chapter Two:
Present day...
Cities were horrible, obnoxious, disgusting places that had no right inflicting themselves on the face of the planet, decided Max irritably. Wherever she looked there were massive, gothic stone buildings looming dozens of stories high. They obscured the darkening, smoke-filled sky, fierce gargoyles leering down over their sides. It seemed like most of the street lights were shattered and spitting sparks, especially in the side streets they'd scoped out. Most ground-floor windows on the buildings they'd passed were broken or boarded up, their walls decorated with graffiti. Some of the paint smelled fresh.
Apparently people in this part of town didn't believe in trash cans; garbage was strewn all along the sidewalk and clogging up the gutter. Thick clouds of steam rose from the sewers, shrouding the streets in noxious fog and making Max long for clean, fresh air. If it was possible, Gotham smelled even more polluted and filthy than New York. Then again, the flock didn't go to the big apple in the middle of a particularly sweltering, steamy July – maybe stink was a seasonal thing.
Somehow, Max doubted it.
There were people everywhere, thick rivers of them walking on the streets, riding in cars, and leaning out of windows. Every single one of them could draw a gun or snap a picture that could make it onto the internet and to the School, and every passing vehicle could veer off the road and try to make feathery flapjacks out of them, or suddenly have Erasers bursting out of those stupid tinted windows each one seemed to have...
"You should calm down," Iggy had advised early that morning with a stupid smirk on his face, "If you keep stressing out like this, you'll go prematurely bald –"
Iggy was then unable to continue talking due to a particularly bad case of fist-in-his-face.
Her nerves being rubbed raw aside, Max – rather optimistically of her, considering – had to admit that they had one thing going for themselves: an Eraser would stick out a mile away here. Everyone around them was tired, gray, and run down in a way Erasers never were, as if Gotham was sucking the life out of them. They hurried to get home before dark, their eyes glued to the sidewalk. It was like they thought if they made eye contact with someone they would be attacked. Max observed each passerby, looking for someone a bit too healthy-looking, too attentive, or simply had that School stench hanging around them. She used reflective surfaces whenever possible to avoid doing obvious three hundred sixty degree checks for danger. The thick crowds and tall buildings with multitudes of shadowy crevices were perfect hiding places for enemies.
However, that also meant it was very easy to get lost here, to become hidden in the darkness of the city. That was what the flock was counting on. With their present condition – Max's present condition – they couldn't afford getting into any fights since an up-and-away would be impossible.
(Escape was impossible.)
Max reached back and scratched at the general area where a regular human would have shoulder blades. Her wings itched, badly. And to add the cherry on top of her perfect day, she had a headache. It throbbed in her temples just on the edge of acknowledgement, hovering over her like a shadow. It was almost more annoying than a full-blown migraine.
Quickly, Max shoved the thought from her head before Angel could pick up on it and feel guilty.
Wearing a less-than-morally acquired black hoodie with the hood up to hide her face (some laundry mats really should protect their customers' clothes better), Max felt very much like an angst-ridden emo kid. Trotting beside her was Angel wearing a pink hoodie and a ruffly purple skirt over her jeans, her smaller hand held inside of Max's. Celeste was tucked into the waistband of Angel's skirt like a baby kangaroo, the stuffed bear's wire halo jiggling with each step they took. On Max's other side walked Nudge, her black hair stuffed under a pink camo baseball hat with a couple of ringlets falling loose, framing her face. As she kept up a running commentary on The World of Nudge, the bird kid's dark brown eyes were unusually sharp as they flicked all over their surroundings. Warm pride bloomed in Max's chest as she saw Nudge keeping herself safe. Here, in the crime capital of America, they all had to be extra careful.
According to Angel, everyone was so scared of the Batman that daytime was now when most 'smaller' crimes were committed. It was safer... for the criminals. Gunshots in the distance were the norm, as were police sirens, and the sky never seemed to be clear of helicopters. Even as they walked down the street, Max saw a couple of figures In an alley exchanging suspicious paper bags.
Max had never seen such a crime-ridden city. Gotham almost seemed to have a rot in it, a sick darkness that clung to the walls and the people like a bad smell.
The three of them plus Total quickly walked the two city blocks to the rendezvous point where they would meet the boys, a subway on Third Street. And no, it wasn't the fun kind of Subway where one could get delicious sandwiches, but the smelly, underground kind that people commuted on and much poorer people lived in.
Max remembered their brief stay among the hobos in a New York City subway and hoped they wouldn't have a repeat experience there.
Angel sat down tiredly on the sidewalk by the stairs leading down into the subway, something that probably would have given a real mother a conniption. Max felt bad; they'd been walking since the early morning and the kids had to be feeling it. She'd offered to carry her littlest bird kid, but Angel had refused. Nudge sat down next to Angel and began flipping through a magazine she had salvaged from a dumpster, making comments that Max hmm'd and nodded to at appropriate intervals.
All they had to do now was wait for the boys.
As the city grew darker the stream of Gothamites on the sidewalk thinned. The children across the street that had been playing with the trash in the gutters began to disperse, not because anyone told them to, but out of good self-preservation.
One of them headed straight toward them, a somewhat dirty little girl around Angel's age. Max watched her sharply. She probably wasn't a threat, but she could easily be hiding some sort of dangerous mutation – it wasn't like the School never used children for weapons or anything.
"Can I pet your doggy?" the kid asked, peering hopefully at Total.
Max raised her eyebrows and bit back a completely hypocritical "I don't know, can you?" born out of sheer crankiness. Okay, so the girl probably wasn't dangerous, and Max wasn't getting any bad scents off of her – but if she wasn't a threat, what was wrong with this kid? Didn't she know that in Gotham people just didn't go up to strangers and talk to them? That was like begging for trouble.
Nudge opened her pie hole, and Max placed a hand over it before she could say something ridiculous, like yes.
"That's not a good idea," Max told the little girl, "he's a biter."
In a rare show of support, Total growled a bit, baring his little white fangs when the girl looked doubtful that such a small dog could be dangerous. It was... cute.
Which was probably why the girl had come to bug them in the first place. Much to his chagrin, Total was looking pretty cuddly. The fluffy, black cairn terrier was sitting by Angel's feet and wearing – it was a miracle, truly – a very loose blue leash around his neck in order to keep some do-gooder cop from stopping them for having an improperly restrained dog.
Truthfully, Max doubted that would happen, at least in this city where do-gooder coppers were an endangered species, but when the flock was so vulnerable it was better safe than sorry. Plus, the hilarity of Total on a leash. It couldn't be missed. And Max was tired of being the only miserable one in their kooky bunch of mutants, so bonus.
"He's also got fleas," added Max, and suddenly Total's growl was much more menacing. Also, directed at herself. It was still this-side-of adorable, but it was either the growling or the fleas that did the trick because the girl went away, looking alarmed.
"Max, why couldn't she pet him? She looked so sad, maybe petting Total could've made her happy. I mean, not forever or anything, but just to brighten up her day a bit, you know?" said Nudge immediately, her big brown eyes full of mushy compassion for the girl.
Max tried to contain her annoyance. Nudge was sweet. Too caring for her own good and way too gullible, but sweet. And that was why Max would not snap at her. She wouldn't.
"I don't know if you remember, but Total's got a couple of growths on his back. We wouldn't want anyone petting him to get startled," explained Max.
Of course, by 'growths' she was referring to the completely inexplicable wings the dog had suddenly started growing (like, what the heck nature/whitecoats, whoever) that she couldn't just talk about in the middle of the street.
Because, Total. He's a dog. He shouldn't have wings. To be fair they were all kids with wings and one of them even had gills, so maybe Max shouldn't talk. But still – Total definitely had human DNA in him too, and a canine/human/avian mix seemed like one of those things that should have fallen apart in the lab, probably gruesomely, before it even started. Yet they existed: thin black wings not quite big enough to fly with that folded neatly, just about invisibly against his back like they were meant to be there.
Max had told Total that if the wings became too obvious, she would let Angel buy little doggy sweaters for him. The look of horror he'd given her had been delightful.
"Oohhh, that makes sense," said Nudge in realization.
"Stupid brats... No, you can not... Grubby little hands... Don't have fleas..." Total was grumbling to the concrete quietly enough that only mutants with enhanced hearing could hear him. That along with the fact that he was willingly wearing a leash was the only reason why Max didn't kick him for talking in public.
"Ma-ax!" whined Angel at Max's thoughts, looking up at her reproachfully.
"Deal with it, sweetie," said Max, not unkindly. "If the dog gets us into trouble I get to respond, preferably with violence."
"I'll bite you," threatened Total.
Max considered telling Total that not only would she bite back, but that she would do more damage than his itty-bitty fangs ever could (something that was deeply insulting for a dog) but decided to be the bigger person and say nothing.
And damn – darn, she meant darn, thought Max with a quick glance at Angel – darn Fang for letting Angel keep the dog anyway. They were on the run, they should not have any pets. Next thing she knew Iggy was going to want a talking snake or something. He and the Gasman would probably chase Max around with it too, in an effort to convince her, because they were turds that way.
Max's headache suddenly got worse, preceding Angel's chiding voice in her head, "Max, Total is part of our flock now. He's family, too."
"Yeah, whatever ya say, kid," grumbled Max aloud, resisting the urge to rub her temples.
"Where are Fang and Iggy and Gazzy?" asked Nudge. "D'you think they're okay? What if they got hurt looking for a place to stay? We've been waiting for a long time –"
"Only for about half an hour," said Max, a bit sharper than she'd intended. She softened it by adding, "They're big boys, and my birdie senses aren't tingling. They'll be fine."
Despite what she'd just said, Max still took a deep breath through her nose, concentrating on finding the familiar scent of her flock. Angel and Nudge were the strongest, of course, and smelled healthy. Filtering past the horrible city smells assaulting her was the hard part, but when she did she realized the boys... were closer than she had thought they would be. Only a street or so away. Unharmed, too.
"Oh, good," said Angel, smiling.
"What?" asked Nudge.
"The guys are coming!"
A minute later, the boys turned the corner and were walking toward them. Fang was... well, he was Fang, which meant he was as inscrutable as always. Max noticed that even while wearing blue jeans and an unbuttoned black and white checkered shirt over his green T-shirt (Fang's disguise was to wear color, which Max thought was hilarious) he still looked more emo than she did. Gazzy was much more telling, his young face flushed with excitement over his faded Superman sweatshirt; Iggy, who was bullied into wearing sunglasses along with his light blue hoodie, had a bounce in his step that bordered on cheerful.
Max was instantly suspicious.
"Don't worry, they haven't blown anything up," Angel assured her. Strangely enough, Max was not very comforted.
Gazzy bounded up and announced, "Max, we got mugged!"
"It was great," added Iggy, grinning.
Max lost some of the tension in her shoulders. Was that all? And there she'd been all worried.
"I bet the poor sucker doesn't know what hit him," said Max.
"Yeah!" said Gazzy, "This guy came up to us and grabbed my shoulder, and Fang –"
"Hang on just a sec," interrupted Max, holding up a hand, "First I want to talk about where we're gonna be staying, then you can tell your story on the way there."
Gazzy made a whining noise, but complied.
"Did you guys find anything good?" asked Iggy.
Max frowned, sticking her thumbs in her pockets. "Best we found was a hotel in the West side of the sweet spot with a little shed on the roof."
The 'sweet spot' was a half circle the flock had drawn on a map. Anywhere along the line was their ideal place to hide out. Between the two ends of the crescent of the sweet spot was Crime Alley, the epicenter of illegal activities in Gotham, and on it's other side was a large river that split the city, Sprang River, beyond which was the newer part of the city that started to be nicer. They wanted to stay somewhere between there, for maximum safety and camouflage. The sweet spot avoided the docks completely, for good reason.
("The docks are where lots of bodies are dumped. Big drug deals go down there too, like between the Triad or the Kobra Cult and the local cartels," Angel had supplied helpfully as the flock was looking over the map.
Max had tried not to wonder how she knew any of that.)
"It looked like no one had been in for a long time," Max continued, "It's still a ton better than the streets, but the place is really seedy and has more people than I'd like..." she trailed off, glancing down at Angel, then up at Fang.
Fang inclined his head, understanding. Neither of them wanted Angel around to hear the thoughts of the type of people who stayed in seedy hotels.
"There's a broken air conditioner up there that me or Iggy could probably fix up, and we'd have access to water 'cause of the giant tank thingy on the roof," offered Nudge, shrugging. "But the shed is super small. Like, we'd be rubbing elbows."
"Well then, you girls will be happy to know that we found the perfect place to stay," said Iggy, buffing his nails on his shirt.
"It's like, a million zillion times better," Gazzy added smugly.
"Hey!" protested Angel, "You can't talk, you don't even know what it looks like. Only Fang has seen it!"
"You split up?" asked Max sharply.
"They waited outside," said Fang quietly with a pointed look at Iggy.
Max nodded, placated. Apparently wherever he'd went wasn't safe for Iggy to explore because he was blind, and he had Gazzy stay behind as well so Iggy wouldn't feel left out or be left alone.
"What is it?" asked Nudge, "What'd you find?"
"You'll see..." Gazzy sing-songed.
Fang walked away, gesturing for them to follow.
It was a forty-five minute walk to their destination, which was stupid because if they could have flown it would have taken less than two. (Max wanted to fly out of there so much.) They stuck close together; Fang took point with Iggy close behind, Nudge and Gazzy were next, Angel skipped slightly in front of Max as they held hands, Total trotted around everyone's ankles (trying his utmost to make them trip on the hated leash) and from the back Max kept an eye on their shady surroundings. People stared at the group of children braving the dark streets of Gotham, and no one except possibly Angel had any idea how jumpy that made Max, but thankfully no one tried to start anything.
Gazzy chattered the whole way, telling them all about being mugged while Iggy interjected here and there. Nudge gasped at all the right places and asked leading questions, keeping Gazzy entertained. The story grew increasingly outrageous, one quickly and ruthlessly dispatched mugger turning into two, then five, then ten, because it was a whole gang that was after them, plus they all had knives, then guns (semi-automatic ones), and of course it was the Gasman that saved Iggy and Fang...
"Gazzy, you're so full of crap you're leaking," snorted Iggy with all of the eloquent charm of a fourteen-year-old.
Honestly, Max would have been very amused if she hadn't been stressing out over every shadow and person who eyed them for a second too long, plus her wings were becoming so fiercely itchy she wanted to crawl out of her own skin. Judging from the amount of giggling coming from Angel, she was enjoying herself easily enough. The Gasman was a pretty good story teller. He was descriptive and used utterly convincing voices for everyone. Max's favorite part was when he depicted Fang begging Gazzy to save him (sounding exactly like him, too).
In response, Fang had simply exhaled in a slightly more exasperated manner than his regular exhalations.
Fang led them a bit closer to the docks than Max would have preferred, but they were still a decent distance away. They skulked through dank, horrible smelling alleyways, past tall, derelict buildings that likely had squatters somewhere inside their crumbling walls, and finally to a tiny courtyard that had seen better days.
"Awesome," said Nudge, craning her neck to stare up at their new hideout; Angel squeezed Max's hand tighter, her eyes huge; Total whistled lowly, and Max didn't bother wondering how a dog could whistle.
The boys looked very proud of themselves.
The courtyard belonged to an old stone church that had clearly been abandoned for more than one generation. The walls and the cracked, broken up slabs of rock in the courtyard were all covered in faded graffiti, adding to the whole 'abandoned' image. Like everything in Gotham, the church had been designed to make people feel as small as an ant. Although it wasn't as big in square feet as other churches they'd seen, it was freakin' tall. The main building was one big rectangle with a steeply pointed roof and was easily over six stories, possibly nearing eight or nine. At one side of the rectangle was a great, looming steeple twice as tall as the church itself with a sharply pointed tip and a cross on top. It towered above all the other buildings in the area, looking old and forbidding. On the opposite side of the church was probably the reason why it was abandoned: the ceiling and wall had caved in, taking out a good third of the place. It looked like something had taken a giant bite out of it.
"Fang said that's where the front door used to be," said the Gasman, pointing at the caved-in part.
"Great," said Max dryly, "So how are we gonna get in, Fang? 'Cause I'm not liking the look of those windows –" she looked around, realizing he wasn't there. "Fang?"
Two soft claps echoed from somewhere, and after a couple seconds of searching Max spotted his dark form waving from the shadows next to the church.
'I need to get that boy a bell,' thought Max as she stomped over to him.
"Stop turning invisible all the time or I'm gonna get paranoid," she snapped.
"You, paranoid?" said Fang, a touch sardonically, "And I didn't."
"Yeah, right," muttered Max. For as long as she'd known Fang, he had always been disappearing and sneaking up on her. Now that he could literally turn invisible and Max had that handy scapegoat, she'd use it all she wanted. (What? Someone sneak up on the Maximum Ride? Not without a superpower, they couldn't!)
Pulling aside a plank of wood leaning against the wall, Fang revealed a hole in the wreckage big enough for slim bird kids with wings to crawl through.
Once inside, Max couldn't help but grimace. The church they had visited in New York had been bright, clean, and had a serene air to it. It had felt safe.
This place was creepy as all get out.
Swaths of cobwebs were strung every which way, dirt covered everything, and unseen things scuttled and squeaked in the darkness, making Nudge edge nervously closer to the group. Debris covered the floor, shards of glass and bricks sticking out dangerously. Rows of windows, which were tall, thin affairs that had probably once been very beautiful, were now gaping holes staring out at at the city with knives of stained glass sticking out of their frames like teeth. The caved-in side of the room had thick wooden beams wedged in place from floor to ceiling. They were probably the only things keeping the ceiling and wall from falling in on them.
The flock made short work of exploring the ground floor, Fang helping Iggy avoid hurting himself on all the sharp things on the ground. Max observed them from the corner of her eyes, but did nothing – Iggy was prickly about who he let help him and for some reason he got annoyed when Max tried to.
Their most important discovery was also the most obvious one: the bats. There had to have been a couple hundred of them carpeting the ceiling of the main worship room, and they found more behind doors leading to what might have been prayer rooms or large storage closets, and one larger place that probably used to be an office. Everyone in the flock had developed a fondness for bats when they'd had flown with a colony of them in Virginia. In a way, they were more like them than birds were because they were flying mammals, too. Plus, they had opposable thumbs. Not something many animals could brag about.
"Don't bother them," ordered Max, "This was their home first, we're just staying here for a bit."
Besides that, the most they found were some crusty shells of thick books – maybe Bibles, maybe hymnals, who knew – damaged beyond repair by years of rain; enough bat poop to fertilize a farm; a rusty, broken metal thing with some glass in it that might have once been a lantern; a box of candles, but no matches; and some animal nests they accidentally disturbed.
"Ew, ew, ew!" squealed Nudge as she fled across the room, leaping over pews in her haste. In the distance, Iggy was snickering. "I hate rats, I hate, hate, hate them! They're so gross!"
Of the dozen or so hard wooden pews that weren't crushed, most of them were eaten hollow by bugs. The only thing that remained untouched was a ginormous, dark wooden cross affixed to the wall above the pulpit, so tall it almost disappeared into the darkness of the high, pointed ceiling. It had a presence to it that creeped Max out, like it was staring at her or something.
"Who would want to take a bath in the middle of a church?" Angel's voice echoed from behind the pulpit, making Max jump slightly as she was pulled from her very one-sided staring contest with the cross. The six-year-old was carrying Total in her arms so he wouldn't cut his paws on the glass. (To Max's disappointment, Angel had removed the leash at the earliest opportunity and placed it neatly in her backpack. She had picked it out herself, saying it matched Total's eyes.)
"Maybe it's an exhibitionist church," suggested Gazzy, his hair covered in cobwebs.
"Do those exist?" Angel sounded surprised.
Max went to see what they were talking about and found a small set of stairs leading down to a large in-ground bathtub hidden behind a low wall. It was filled with years of mulch and dead things, like bugs and mouse skeletons. Max wondered if it used to be something's nest.
"It was probably for baptisms," said Max.
Soon, Fang was leading the flock through a stone archway to a set of stairs spiraling up the tower. There was no railing, so they stuck close to the wall – due to the space the stairs themselves took up it wasn't quite big enough for Iggy, Fang, and Max to spread their wings if they fell, though the younger kids could probably have managed it. Inside the stairway it was total, inky darkness, even with their enhanced eyesight, making the occasional bat flying by very startling.
"This would be really easy to booby trap," commented Iggy as they climbed. Obviously, he was the only one not bothered by the darkness.
The staircase ended at a landing that had a bit of light filtering down from above. It probably wouldn't have been enough for a regular human to see by, but the flock had excellent night vision. Overhead, beams of wood at different heights crisscrossed, creating something almost like a lattice. Between them all a latter hung down just above their heads.
Upon climbing it, the flock found the belfry.
It was fairly large, with hot, polluted city air breezing in from windows all around the circular steeple. It smelled like car exhaust and garbage, but it was still slightly better than the stale, rotting stench from below. The floor consisted of a creaky wooden walkway thick enough for three people to walk side-by-side comfortably, going all around the curved wall; there was no floor in the middle of the room, which was where the ladder came up. In the middle of the ceiling there was a dark, square-shaped hole big enough for one person to fit through, and there was an old rope ladder that Max didn't trust slung over the edge. Above the center of the circular hole in the floor, a single huge, tarnished iron bell was suspended on a thick horizontal rod. Nailed to the ceiling next to the bell was a contraption with a pulley, a heavy-looking hammer, and a dangling rope.
"No ringing the bell," decreed Max before anyone had a chance to do anything. "If you do, we're moving to the shed on the hotel roof."
"We have a bell?" said Iggy, interested.
"This is the coolest hideout ever," said Gazzy in awe, his voice echoing in the bell. He grinned, "COOL!"
His voice reverberated loudly in the bell, making Max cringe. "Gazzy, shh! Don't be so loud –"
"This is awesome! We can be like, in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, living in the bell tower!" said Nudge, spinning with her arms spread wide as she observed their cozy little tower. If she tripped on a loose floorboard or something it would be her own fault. "'Cept we can't ring the bell, which is sad, and we don't have a horrible disfiguration, which is not sad but even if we did I bet modern doctors could take care of that anyway. But my point is this place is amazing!" she ran over to a window, bracing her elbows against the sill and leaning half way out of it, "And look at that view!"
"Yup. That view really is something else," said Iggy sarcastically.
Looking out the window, Max saw what Nudge meant. Their immediate area was comparatively dark with lit windows, cars, and street lights dotted around, and tall buildings blocked their view of the Sprang River, but beyond that the skyline was aglow with the shining spires of Gotham's skyscrapers, illuminating the churning clouds above the city with a haze of light.
It was almost pretty, this far away.
"I wish we could always stay in towers," said Angel, looking so adorably enchanted, "like a princess locked away from the world. But we wouldn't be locked up, because we could free fall out of the windows and fly as much as we wanted. I would want a really big tower, with lots of books and toys and animals. We could dance and throw balls..."
"With cute boys and hot dance instructors, 'cause no one here could dance their way out of a paper bag," said Nudge.
"Sounds like my kind of dance lesson," said Iggy, tracing a curvy figure in the air with his fingers.
Max punched him on the shoulder. "Don't be a sexist pig, Iggy," she said, ignoring his exaggerated whining. ("Oww, sadist...")
"And there'd be lots of food!" added Gazzy, oblivious.
"Here, here!" called Total.
Struck by a sudden thought, Max looked at Fang with her eyebrows raised questioningly. Fang nodded.
Good, he had fed Gazzy and Iggy while they were exploring. One less thing for Max to take care of.
"And we'd have cannons to fight off invaders," continued Gazzy, "And a moat. With alligators."
"Sounds like my kind of tower," said Max, her smile strained. Her wings itched so much they burned. "I would want to be far away from cities, and have hawks to fly with. Also, a life time supply of chocolate chip cookies would be wonderful."
"And snickerdoodles!" added Nudge. "And we should have cars, too!"
"We should also have horses to ride," said Angel decisively, clearly considering the matter very seriously. "Hippopotamuses...es, too."
"Massages every day," said Total dreamily. "Also, bacon. Lots and lots of bacon."
"What about you, Fang?" asked Nudge, kicking her older brother lightly. "What would you want in your tower?"
Everyone turned to look at Fang expectantly. He was sitting with his feet dangling down the steep drop down the tower, and Max thought he looked... content.
"...Swords," he answered after a long moment.
"Ooh," said Gazzy, his eyes big. "Playing with swords..."
"My dance instructor could play with my sword any time," said Iggy, wiggling his eyebrows. Max swatted at him, but Iggy flung himself to the floor and rolled behind Angel for protection.
"I'll save you, Iggy!" she promised, wrapping her small arms around his shoulders. It worked, too – they were just so friggin' cute Max was too busy getting cavities to to pound Iggy's skull in.
"And our cannons could shoot fireworks! That me and Iggy make in our private chemical lab!" exclaimed Gazzy.
'Over my dead body,' thought Max, exchanging an amused glance with Fang. Nudge groaned, and Angel's laugh resounded eerily in the bell.
Iggy, who had missed all of the side play, said, "We would do amazing things with our own lab..."
"Amazing things that would get you arrested by the FBI," said Nudge, prompting a laugh from the surrounding bird kids.
"We're not that bad," said Gazzy. Seeing the looks on their faces, he amended, "Well, we wouldn't get caught anyway."
"It isn't illegal if you don't get caught," declared Iggy.
Max laughed with the rest of them, but it was forced and uncomfortable. She loved these moments with her flock when they could find these pockets of happiness, but keeping up a good face for them was tiring in a way that dragged at her bones. The itching in her wings was becoming unbearable. She needed to be alone. To let her walls down for a little while.
"Seriously though guys, try not to get too attached 'cause we're only going to be here for a little while," warned Max in her 'leader' voice.
"Killjoy," complained the Gasman.
"Max, don't be such a sour octopus," said Nudge. Whatever that was supposed to mean.
"I'm going up there for a bit to change clothes," said Max, pointing to the hole in the ceiling. "So stay out."
Turning to Angel, who was sitting in Iggy's lap, Max thought, "Sweetie, I'd like some privacy now, okay?"
"Okay. Thanks for letting me hide in here," Angel's voice replied, and in the physical world she smiled sweetly. Max felt Angel withdraw from her mind, leaving a strange, cool emptiness in her wake, and immediately the headache that had been slowly hammering at her all day vanished.
"Any time," said Max aloud, returning her smile with a little one of her own.
The biggest problem with Angel's ability to read minds was that she couldn't turn it off. She heard everyone's thoughts all the time, which was very bad in highly populated places like cities. However, something Angel could do was narrow her focus onto one person, or onto a group of people. They had discovered this back in New York; with millions of minds all in one place, Angel had instinctively tried to block everyone else out by focusing on individuals, just to keep her own mind from being overrun by everyone else's thoughts. That was how she found out she could control minds and search through people's memories, not just listen in on whatever thoughts they were having at the moment.
Max had immediately offered to let Angel focus on her mind when she needed to hide away from the thoughts of everyone in the world. She greatly preferred having her baby in her own brain where she knew what she was hearing, rather than experiencing who-knew-what in a stranger's head. All Max had to do was carefully censor what happened in her own mind, which was pretty much what she did all the time anyway.
Fang had offered to help, but after discussing it they agreed that it was probably healthier for Angel to spend her time in another girl's mind, rather than splitting her time between both of theirs'. Fang had then suggested that they ask Nudge to help out, so that less stress would be on Max, but Max had said she could handle it. Besides, Nudge had less practice controlling her thoughts than Max did. Angel would probably get whiplash if she spent too much time in that noggin.
Forgoing the worn rope ladder, Max stepped back to give herself room, then jumped up (careful to avoid the bell) and caught the edge of the hole, easily swinging up inside the little room at the top of the tower. This one was much smaller with only four evenly spaced windows. In each one a rusty old gas lantern hung. The ceiling was made of four tall triangles arranged like a giant cone, proving the pointy steeple roof was hollow. Little black eyes blinked down at her; the bats really were everywhere.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor where she couldn't be seen if someone looked up, Max eased out of her hoodie and shirt, hissing as the fabric rubbed against her sensitive wings. Clumps of feathers fell to the dirty tower floor, followed by the smaller, insulating feathers that fluttered down individually like fuzzy snowflakes. Painful pins and needles prickled all over her wings as she stretched them out.
Looking at them, Max had to swallow past the agonized lump that rose in her throat. Her wings had once been gorgeous, with rich brown feathers by her shoulders turning to speckled tan and cream towards the tips, but now they looked more like they belonged to a plucked goose than anything. The ugly skin that used to be covered by feathers was pink with large, agitated pores. There were dozens of angry red pimples all over, some of them swelling with yellow, pus-filled centers. Only a few tufts of brown feathers remained, and merely five long, off-white primary feathers were left between them, sticking out awkwardly like a couple of teeth in a mouth that was all gums.
The thing about feathers was, well, they were important. Very important. Without them...
Max couldn't fly.
Something in her chest caved in on itself, and Max buried her face in her knees, hugging her legs. She couldn't fly. She couldn't fly. The thought made her want to claw at herself in anguish. It was like being trapped in a cage all the time, thought Max as long-suppressed panic bubbled up in her chest. Her own personal dog kennel wherever she went. Max's eyes grew warm, her breaths sharp and shallow, and she sat there and simply shook. Resisting the urge to tear at her fucking useless wings. Or scream. Or cry. But there wasn't enough air down on the ground to scream or cry or fight or do anything else, she needed to be up in the sky and surrounded by the crisp, thin air – she couldn't fly, she couldn't escape, she was trapped – it was so hard to find breath past the metal band around her lungs, she couldn't breath – she was a liability to her flock – she was a wretched, featherless thing, putting them in danger –
Max tried taking deep, trembling breaths, rocking herself slightly. Trying to avoid the panic attack she knew she was having (how pathetic, acting so weak and fragile – she should be stronger, but obviously she was not and that was the saddest, most sickening thing of all, besides not being able to fly and her wings being so ugly and broken and painful, and just maybe she deserved it, these decrepit things on her back) and it was gearing up to be a pretty breathtaking one. Like the one she had the first time she had tried flying when her primaries had started falling out a few days ago, and failed miserably.
Max recalled the crippling panic attack with nauseating clarity, shuddering at the memory of the overpowering panic, horror, despair, no, no, nonono, not this –
(Oh God, oh God, I can't fly, why can't I fly I'm a fucking bird kid and I can't fly, what if we're attacked, I won't be able to protect my flock, I can't fly, why did it have to be this, not this, don't take the sky from me God what'swrong with me –)
Thank heavens only Fang had been there. And he wasn't too much of a jerk about it – he'd only called her a crybaby in private. He had then proceeded to run for his damn life, because Max gave a truly admirable effort to end his sorry existence.
There was a thump, and Max jerked her head up to see a large, pale-skinned hand gripping the edge of the hole. Either Fang or Iggy, then.
Max snatched up her hoodie and clutched it to her chest – she was only wearing her bra. "Go away, you creep!" she snarled, thankful that her voice was convincingly steady, "Geez, didn't you hear me say I'm changing clothes?"
"Ew," complained Gazzy distantly, followed by something about "cooties."
Judging by the lack of a snarky response, it was Fang. Just flippin' great. At least Iggy was blind.
"Don't make me break your fingers," said Max threateningly.
There was a rustling of plastic, and a crumpled shopping bag sailed at her from below. Max caught it mid-air.
"You're welcome," said Fang in lieu of a proper explanation, and the fingers disappeared.
Curious about what made Fang interrupt what had been becoming a truly spectacular pity party (and okay, she knew it was much worse than that, but her composure had been startled back into its locked position and it wasn't going anywhere until it got worn down again), Max opened up the bag and discovered four tubes of Hydrocortisone Anti-Itch Cream and one large tube of Desitin. She stared at the latter for a second, trying to remember where she had seen it before. Then she remembered: years ago, she had used it on Angel.
"Seriously? You got me stuff for diaper rashes?" shouted Max.
Snickers rose from the room below.
"He calls it like he sees it!" called Gazzy, the brat.
"You know what he should have gotten you? One of those special brushes for dogs," said Iggy, and Max narrowed her eyes because he was wandering into dangerous territory, "You're shedding all over the place!"
"I take offense to that," muttered Total.
Looking down, Max realized the breeze was blowing her feathers down the hole. She rolled her eyes. Fan-freaking-tastic. That wasn't embarrassing at all.
"It's like you've forgotten that I know where you sleep," said Max conversationally. "And that I'm so much more vicious than any of you will ever be. And that I taught you all everything you know about fighting."
The flock tittered. Or perhaps twittered would be a better word, Max thought with a little smile.
Ah, bird puns.
Nudge called, "Hey Max, I'm coming up!"
"Uh, no you're not!" snapped Max, but two brown hands had already caught the lip of the hole in the floor, and Nudge swung herself up, landing gracefully on her feet.
Picking up a tube of ointment, Nudge began squirting it onto her hands.
"What do you think you're doing?" said Max grumpily.
"I know it's really hard to get to some places on your wings, so I'm giving you a wing massage. I'll probably be more gentle than you would be anyway. You'd probably just injure yourself more – yikes, that's a lot of pimples," said Nudge, walking behind Max. "What they should have gotten you was some Proactive..."
"Tell me about it," grumbled Max, hugging her knees to her chest again.
"That's more than I needed to know!" shouted Iggy from below.
"Someone hit him!" yelled Max.
The ensuing yelps and muffled exclamations of pain were music to her ears. It sounded like her orders were being followed with relish.
Max sighed in pure bliss as Nudge lathered the ointment onto the bumpy skin of her wings. Cool cream and careful hands soothed her agonized wings and loosened her tense shoulders. No more itching. Sometimes it got so bad Max wondered if it would be better if she scratched them bloody. Pain had to be better than the incessant, torturous itchiness...
"Nudge, you're perfection," moaned Max.
Nudge giggled, "Thanks! Maybe if we could go to school and stuff – the fun kind where you learn, not the School, obviously – like normal kids, I could become a massage therapist. I think I'd be good at it."
"Uh huh..."
"Especially since the problem most massage therapists have is that their hands get all tired and cramped, but we're made for endurance! I could totally do it. Iggy's pretty good at giving massages too, but I feel like he would be creepy if he were a masseuse. Masseuse. That's such a funny word. Angel's also good at massaging, maybe 'cause she can just read their mind and know where they're tense, I dunno, but she gets bored and wants to do something else. I tried to teach Gazzy how to give massages once, but he's like you, he just sort of beats the person up instead of unwinding their muscles. You guys just don't feel where the knots are in the muscle, and then you use way too much force, but you really should only use force sometimes, the rest of the time you should just be gentle with the knot. Like kneading bread. That's probably why Iggy's good at massaging, thinking about it. But the muscle wants to unwind, you know? It just needs to be coaxed into relaxing..."
"Mhmm..." Max was a puddle of happy, happy jello.
"Hey, Max?" said Nudge eventually, speaking quietly enough that the bird kids below wouldn't hear them. Max grunted incoherently in response. "I just wanted to tell you that everything's gonna be okay. You're just molting, we think. If you are, then this is normal, we'll all go through it. You're just the lucky oldest."
"I know," said Max, more alert now. Dang it, she was tensing up again.
Soon after the flock had noticed that Max was losing feathers, they sent an e-mail to Max's mom and then consulted the internet about molting – it had been the first explanation that they could think of, since Max didn't feel sick at all. Not to mention that they had no idea if some mysterious illness that caused baldness in bird kids even existed.
Much to Max's horror, Google had said it could take weeks or even months for molting to finish, depending on the species of bird.
"But we heal quickly, so maybe you'll finish molting quickly, too," Angel had said, wrapping her arms around Max's waist comfortingly. Max knew there was a reason Angel was her favorite.
When Mom had sent Max a reply, it had essentially said there were a few reasons for losing feathers, such as a bad diet and stress, and that molting happened to certain breeds of adolescent birds. She had recommended making sure to eat healthily and to try and relax a little (like that would ever happen), but otherwise to just wait it out.
Max hated waiting. Especially when she couldn't fly.
Geez, she hated this. And there was that panicky, trapped feeling tightening in her lungs. (If they were attacked, there was no escape.) Once again, Max began regulating her breathing.
Behind her, Nudge redoubled her efforts on Max's wings and shoulders. "Don't worry Max, I promise we're all being really careful. Even Iggy and Gazzy. We won't draw attention to ourselves. You're like half our sister, half our mom. Even if we do need to run away, we won't ever fly off and leave you behind." Well, that was nice. Impractical and Max would never let them get captured just because she couldn't fly, but nice. "We'll just steal a car or something, it's not like we've never done that before. I'm getting really good at hot wiring things now! But what I'm trying to say is, your feathers will grow back, nothing bad will happen, and you'll fly again, even if you can't right now. So, don't worry, and stop hating your wings."
What? That was personal and... strangely astute. Her wings were a deeply integral part of how she defined herself, and to have them abruptly fail her, placing not only herself but her flock in grave danger – it was galling in more ways than Max could express.
But how did Nudge know that? Could she read minds now, too? Was she talking with Angel behind her back?
"Don't be stupid," dismissed Max. "I just hate that I can't fly. You know that. Um, thanks for the pep talk, though."
"It's funny, the thing about being able to feel emotions off of things is that sometimes you can tell when people are lying through their teeth about something because you can feel the truth off of what you're talking about," said Nudge as she worked her magic on Max's wings. "You know, hypothetically. And by hypothetically I mean I call BS, 'cause that's what's spewing out of your mouth."
Max twisted her head around and glared. "You are not allowed to be snarky. I am snarky. I have the freaking monopoly on being snarky. I have the trademark. If you want to be snarky, you have to pay me."
"Whatever." Nudge rolled her eyes, looking so much like an attitude-saturated teenager that it made Max want to slap her. "My point is, it's gonna get better. We're designed to fly, you know? And even though I hate the whitecoats and I want them to die the worst kind of deaths possible, like in hell or in a nitric acid bath or something, they knew what they were doing. You're not suddenly going to just fall apart."
That... was actually a very good point. Max eased up a little, taking a deep, cleansing breath that for once wasn't meant to fend off a panic attack. Maybe Nudge was right. Maybe everything would be okay – well, as okay as it could be for bird kids on the run, but for Max that was alright.
Yeah, right. And maybe the tooth fairy existed.
But Max still felt better.
And then, because she was Nudge, she ruined it by talking too much: "Well, you won't fall apart unless you've reached your expiration date. But I don't think you have!" she quickly added, "'Cause you don't even have a funky tattoo on your neck, and if the School could make us die from some biological preprogrammed self-destruct sequence they probably would have done that already, at least to some of us. Surely they don't want us all alive. Like, especially after Gazzy blew up that one building. They totally want him dead. And you don't even have any headaches like Ari did before –"
"Nudge, stop talking."
"Yup. Got it. Shutting up."
Nudge was pretty much finished by that point, and she wiped the remaining Anti-Itch cream on her palms off on her bedazzled jeans while Max pulled on her clothes. She would just have to deal with the ointment drying against her shirt, because there was no way she was letting the whole flock see her hideous, naked wings. It was practically indecent.
Using the edge of the hole, Max swung down to the room below at an angle in order to avoid the bell, her landing making a little dust cloud. Nudge followed, and in minutes the flock was ready for bed.
"'Night everyone," yawned Max, sticking out her fist. Everyone stacked their fists on top of her's, saying something along the same lines. Total trotted up, placing two black paws on top. Angel smiled and scratched him on the head, so Max squelched her annoyance – after all, Total wasn't really part of the flock, what business did he have trying to barge in on their traditions? – but he made her baby happy, so she would say nothing. Besides, if Max made a fuss she'd just add a sour note to their night-time tradition for everyone.
"Thanks, Max," Angel's voice said in Max's head with a twinge of pain. "I'm sure you'll come to accept him in time."
Max doubted this, but she said nothing.
The six-year-old came up and wrapped her arms around Max's waist. "Good night, Max!" said Angel aloud, reaching up and giving her a kiss on the cheek.
Max pecked her on the forehead (pun totally intended), smoothing her hand over her head of blonde curls. "Good night, sweetie."
Yawning, Angel went and curled up next to Fang, Total walking around in a few circles before settling at her feet. Nudge and Iggy found their own places to sleep. The Gasman was stretched out by the window for obvious and revolting reasons, and Max ruffled his hair fondly before finding her own patch of floor to sleep on, her backpack becoming an impromptu pillow. Everyone was much more spread out than usual due to the summer heat.
Inches from her face, Max looked at her dark red friendship bracelet, turned black in the darkness.
"G'night Ari," breathed Max, so quietly that even Iggy couldn't hear her.
With Fang taking the first watch, Max slept.
A/N: I love Nudge. I really, really do. I love them all. They're so much fun to write.
Except for Total. If you couldn't tell, I'm not a Total fan. He's just so... pointless. Just this weirdly cultured talking dog that inexplicably grows wings and doesn't contribute in any real way to the plot. Was Patterson trying to go somewhere with that? I don't know. Total was kind of like Dylan in that way, but not NEARLY as bad.
The most experience I have with cities are fleeting glimpses through a car window whenever I pass through, television, and pictures on Google, so if anyone actually lives in one and thinks I messed something up (now or later), please let me know. Same thing if you notice any mistakes or have any questions. Constructive criticism is always appreciated.