That night wasn't totally dissimilar to the one before, except we were in a totally different part of America now, who knew a country could vary so much, but I was confident that at the fast pace we'd been keeping up, I could afford to let the flock sleep in for a bit tomorrow and still get to Miami before lunch.
Needless to say, this flock business was exhausting, I forgot what it had felt like to be on the go, battling against your enemies at a near constant rate. We had obviously all gotten out of practice at this, Angel hadn't coped well today at all, Fang and I had basically carried her for the last leg of the journey.
Despite my exhaustion, sleep didn't come easily that evening, so I offered to take first watch, and flew a little way off, keeping the flock in sight the whole time and rested on the low branch of a tree, overlooking a large pool of water. The moonlight glinting off the surface was kind of mesmerising and soothed me right to the core. I was starting to believe that we'd never be allowed to live normal lives – well, normal in the sense that we wouldn't be risking our lives everyday, as opposed to the ordinary non-winged, school kid kind of way, that was never a life I was going to welcome into open arms.
Even so, it would be good for the kids to get some more learning in them, one day – I dreamed – when this was all over (I said dreamed didn't I?) I'd get them into a library. I'm fairly confident that we could learn more in a library for the day than a year in school. I had confidence that these kids could be anything they wanted to be, but what good was confidence, when they weren't going to have a school on their records, and no job to name. In fact, near to no identity, seeing as we could go missing for months on end and still the only people who would notice or care were sitting tied up in a house in Miami right now.
A tear threatened to spill when I thought of Ella, younger than me even, being tied up, basically because of me. Her life would have been so much simpler before I came along, I mean, before she knew me, she would not have been caught up in this. I wished I could say the same for Mom and Jeb, but they kind of almost brought this on themselves in creating me, not that I wasn't glad they had… just maybe sometimes it would all have been easier if I hadn't been such a huge danger to everyone I knew. I was always going to be wanted by someone.
Saying that though, I don't think I could ever even think about giving up my wings. They were a part of who I was. Part of who my flock was. A part of what connected us to each other, stronger than any family bond that there ever could be. Between me and Fang especially – I couldn't imagine how my life would be, how it would have been, without him standing at my side. I'm silently thanking whatever mad scientist decided to graft his DNA in the test tube beside mine all those years ago, though not so silently giving him metaphorical evils for locking us in dog crates. An interesting hypothesis filled my head right then, about whether I'd actually chop a wing off for Fang's sake… but I already knew the answer, wings or not, I'd love that guy forever.
I hadn't even noticed how late it had got, how high and how bright the moons reflection had got over the lake, when Fang came to relieve me so I could get a couple of hours sleep before morning. We spoke no words, but he held me for a few minutes and leaned down to inhaled my scent before kissing me so softly, but alerting my senses in such a way that only he could. We didn't really need words to describe the feelings that had been building up unsaid between us for the last few years… we had many years ahead to do that, and with that I smiled, and went to get some sleep.
