Chapter 7
When I finally flew home with the flock, I was feeling happy and enlightened. Fang was babbling like Nudge. It was almost disturbing. Max had put me in between her and Fang, so my left ear was now being assaulted with Nudge-like chatter in both consistency and irrelevancy. Fang finally quashed my mood when he started up on the topic of me and Ella.
"Fang, shut the bloody hell up!" I yelled over at him. My vision chose this moment to appear, in grayscale. He looked at me, shocked, like I was a freak, and started describing the landscape beneath him. I groaned and Max shot me a "sorry-it-was-me-or-you" look that I suppose was intended to be sympathetic. I rolled my eyes as my vision faded out and dropped back, letting Max have full blast of Fang's meaningless talk. I snickered as I almost saw the angry, "why-did-you-do-that" look Max probably threw back to me over her shoulder and beating wings. Just then, I realized when I got home, Ella would be in tears. I knew this, for sure, but I didn't know how I knew it.
When we touched down in front of the Martinez's house I wasn't all too enthusiastic to confront Ella's tears and accusations that I knew she had lined up and planned for me. I heard the front door open, and Ella's light steps come flying toward me.
"Iggy!" she shouted, except I couldn't tell if it was angry or joyous. Angry. "You should control your anger, you no-good, violent—" her next words were smothered by my kiss. She struggled against me for a second, beating my arms with her fists. Then she let me kiss her and actually kissed me back. I heard the "aww"s and "ohh"s as the flock and Dr. Martinez watched us. I let her go and then pulled her into one of my huge bear hugs.
"I'm so sorry I lost my temper. It was my fault I threw myself into that river, knowing full well it would cause all you pain. I did it because I was being selfish and thinking not of others, of the ones I truly love, but just of me. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to attack your mom or the flock. When your mom gave me morphine, someone had put a drug in it that induced rage. I couldn't control it. I'm still really, really sorry about any pain I caused you," I whispered to Ella, so only she could hear. She told me she heard me by squeezing my chest a little.
When I released my hold on Ella, all the others were gone.
"To give us some private time," Ella said when she saw my expression of trying to listen for other people. I nodded. I was listening for other people—other people that I heard, and knew were there. I felt it a second before it happened. I pulled Ella up into my arms and ran into the house just as a heavy hand whistled through the air where Ella had stood a second ago. I bolted the door, not that that would keep the Erasers out for long.
"There are winged Erasers outside! About ten! Ari's with them! Get to a safe place!" I yelled. My vision opened up, to see the confused faces of the flock. Then it closed. I felt that the Erasers would come through the kitchen window. "Away from the window. Now! The Erasers are coming through there!" I shouted. I heard them scramble away from the glass, just as it burst into the kitchen with a roar. I pelted down the hall, through the glass back door with Ella still in my arms. I took off, unfurling my wings and leaping up into the sky. I heard Angel scream, her wings beating frantically. "Get Angel!" I yelled to Max.
I felt the Erasers take off in pursuit seconds before Gazzy yelled,
"They're flying!"
"Who has Dr. Martinez?" I yelled back to the flock.
"Me and Max do!" Fang shouted back, all traces of the sugar rush replaced by battle adrenaline.
"Gasser! Pick up the pace! Swerve left and drop down low!" I shouted to Gazzy as I felt the moves the Erasers would execute to grab the Gasman.
"Iggy? What the hell? You have a sixth sense!" Ella yelled, even though she was in my arms.
"Yeah, I guess I do," I replied tersely. I was concentrating on yelling evasive maneuvers to the flock as I felt the Eraser's plans. I suddenly felt a clear space beneath us. "Land! We can't fly forever! We have to fight them!" I yelled and dropped altitude sharply. Ella clung to me, scared that I would drop her. I came to a running landing, hearing the heavy thuds of the flock behind me. I dropped Ella.
"Ella! Mom! Climb a tree and hide!" Max yelled. The huge thuds as the Erasers landed were conveyed to me through the shaking ground.
"Using the drug didn't destroy the flock, so we were sent to finish the job . . . and enjoy it." Ari growled. He was going to swing for my head. After all, I'm the blind guy. I ducked and swung my leg, knocking Ari to the ground. I leaped backward into another Eraser as one lunged for me. The Eraser I fell into fell over, and Fang was going to jump on it and break its neck. The Eraser that lunged for me was going to grab my arm. I spun out of the way, but his claws caught me, ripping three bloody furrows in my bare chest. They burned like hell's fire, but I kept fighting.
I couldn't die, not this time. I couldn't die, not for Ella, not for the flock. I swung a hard punch, adrenaline lending me strength. I felt bone give way beneath my knuckles. I felt an Eraser coming up behind me. I kicked backwards like a horse and heard a pop as I dislocated it kneecap. It groaned, but kept limping for me. I felt Gazzy leap for it, and knew it was a goner. I turned back toward the Eraser I punched and grabbed its head. I twisted violently and snapped its neck. I kicked its body out of the way. There were three Erasers left fighting, including Ari, who was locked in fierce hand-to-hand combat with Max. I took off into the air, hitting an Eraser with my wing and knocking him unconscious from the force of the blow.
Once I was a decent twenty or so feet up, I tucked my wings and rocketed down, smashing my feet into the last non-Ari Eraser. The impact shattered his skull and consequently splattered my face and chest in blood. The Eraser I knocked unconscious woke up again and went to leap at me, roaring, but I punched it in the face before it could get to me. It swung both its fists, hitting me in the chin and throwing me backwards where my right temple smashed against a rock.
I felt blood flowing from my temple, chin, and chest, and I felt the pain of all it telling me, "no more," but I had to finish the Eraser. I leaped up and stars swam across the field of blackness. I kicked its kneecaps out and then kneed it in the chin, effectively breaking its jaw and neck. Max took out Ari at the same time I collapsed, exhausted, onto a low-hanging tree branch, panting. The flock came and leaned against the tree beside me. I heard Ella and Dr. Martinez jump down from their hiding spot across the bloody, Eraser-strewn clearing.
We were all worn out from the fight, and all breathing heavily.
"OH MY GOD," Ella said, horrified.
"They wanted to all kill you?" Dr. Martinez asked.
"Yeah. Those Erasers were created for the express purpose of tracking and killing us. See their wings? They were meant so they could follow us. It's a brutal situation: kill or be killed." Max said grimly. My vision flickered for a moment, and showed me Dr. Martinez and Ella standing in front of the blood-splattered, grim, battered flock. That was strange because since I was colorblind, the blood showed up almost black, like chocolate syrup. I looked down at myself, and the full extent of my injuries was shown. The three claw marks across my chest were bleeding profusely, and looked a lot deeper than what I initially thought.
"Oh, Iggy! You're hurt! Oh my god, it's bleeding!" Ella said, hand over her mouth, eyes as wide as saucers.
"Nothing I can't deal with. I'm fine."
"Let's get up and away before more Erasers come," Max said, glancing at the sky before picking her mom up and unfurling her wings. She took a running start and pumped hard gaining altitude. I grabbed Ella, holding her away from the blood, and jumped up after Max. My vision blacked out and I felt Fang brush past me, no doubt to help Max carry her mom. I heard Gazzy, Angel and Nudge flapping their wings behind me, and knew that they had taken off.
For some strange reason, although I was wounded, blind, and in pain, I felt happy and complete.
"Hold on tight," I said to Ella. I tucked my wings in and dropped down, and I felt Ella trying not to scream. I flared my wings and shot up again, borrowing some of Max's super speed.
"Whoa," Ella said, breathless. "That was better than a Disney ride," She was clinging to my neck so tightly, it was starting to hurt.
"Just another day on the job when you're a mutant bird kid," I joked.