A/N: I don't know how many of you have heard of Hot Chelle Rae, a band that's getting pretty popular now. They have a song that's always playing on the radio, "Tonight Tonight." Well, I liked them before that, and they had an amazing CD at first. Anyway, a few days ago they came out with a new CD. My expectations were really low because "Tonight Tonight" and "I Like It Like That" were so horrible (I mean seriously, NEW BOYZ?), but it's REALLY GOOD! I don't even like that kind of music and I still think it's amazing! All you people in Europe, feel lucky – they're touring with The Script! (Omg – a concert I would totally go to) so take your chance! Go see HCR live! Say hi to the bassist Ian for me! 'Cause he's SUPER HOT! Ok I'm done.
Disclaimer: I don't own already!
New York = Freaking craziest city ever.
Not even joking. Literally, there could be a guy walking down the street with two heads and no one would even notice. When I wake up that morning (at dawn, I might add) there's already about a jillion people below me. I nearly jump out of my pants and shake the rest of the Flock awake before some pedestrian happens to look up and see six filthy kids sleeping in the trees.
We slip down out of the trees. No one notices – I mean, what are six kids climbing trees at six in the morning to the rest of NYC? Then we start just kind of casually wandering the paths, acting like we know what we're doing. I keep one eye on the Flock; one on everyone else. Just because there's a bunch of other people around doesn't mean that Erasers will hesitate to attack us. Probably no one will notice the shape-shifting wolfmen either.
"Check out that skater." Max points to a man Rollerblading down the path. "I've always wanted to learn how to do that."
"Check out that skater," Gaz says, pointing to a skateboarder flipping around on the path. "I've always wanted to learn how to do that." He watches enviously as Max harrumphs.
"That lady has six white poodles!" Nudge says, pointing at a woman whose knees down are concealed in the fluffy white cloud of poodles. "Who needs six white poodles?"
"Maybe she sells them to kids with big wide eyes," Max says with a small smirk on her face.
"Something smells awesome." Ig says. I swear he has his nose in the air, sniffing like a dog. He turns his head this way and that, trying to find the source. "What is that? It's over there." He points behind me, and I turn to see a food vendor.
"There's a guy selling food," Max says. "It says honey-roasted peanuts."
Ig's face lights up like a kid on Christmas. "I am so there. Can I have some money?"
Max agrees, the smell obviously making her own stomach growl. She takes Ig and Angel over to get the peanuts, Nudge anxiously reminding her to get enough for all of us. I take her and Gaz over to a clown nearby whose hands are full of balloons.
"Ooh! Can you make balloon animals?" Nudge says eagerly.
"Of course, dear," says the clown in a heavy Northern accent. She sets down her good and quickly pumps up a pink balloon, quickly twisting it into an animal. "See? It's a bird." She smiles and holds it out to Nudge.
"I don't have any money," Nudge says sadly.
"For you, free," says the clown smoothly, and Nudge reaches out for the –
–bird balloon?
Birds can't be popular animals. The back of my neck prickles as Nudge's fingers close around the pink bird. Just then, I look up and see Max's panicked expression, and my hands clamp on Nudge and Gaz's shoulders.
"Fang –"
"No, Nudge," I say. "Leave the balloon." I steer her and Gaz away from the vendor and catch up with Max on the path, speeding our pace.
"What's going on?" I ask, but just then I see it – a man in a dark suit with a headpiece on his ear, talking quickly into it with his eyes locked on us. He's quickly joined by two more – another man and a woman. Max looks back and sees the added people, swearing under her breath.
"Run!' she says, and we take off. If they are Erasers, which they definitely are, they can easily keep pace with us, even with our light and agile bodies. I risked another look back – they were gaining on us, and they weren't even breaking a sweat.
We pelted through the labyrinth of paths, narrowly missing many head-on collisions with bikers and walkers. I look back at the Erasers again.
"Four of them," I yell. "Pour it on, guys!"
We speed up, nearly doubling our speed. Still the Erasers easily keep us in sight, slowly gaining, even. They're all grinning hungrily now, and suddenly those honey-roasted peanuts clutched in Angel's hand don't smell so great anymore.
"Six of them!" Max says, starting to look worried.
"They're too fast," I say quickly. "Maybe we should fly."
Max bites her lip, looking torn. I look back again. "Eight of them!" I yell.
"Left!" Iggy shouts, and we all veer suddenly to the left without question. How he could have known it was there, I have no idea.
The path suddenly opens into a large plaza with a zillion more vendors than at the other paths. We book it toward a brick building with a metal gate saying Central Park Zoo and a bunch of kids outside all in a big crowd, Max hissing "Merge!" in our ears.
Just like that, we melt into the crown of schoolkids, ducking down to be shorter. Knocking kids left and right, we soon make it to the front of the crowd. I resist the urge to turn and punch a girl in the face when she reaches out and touches my hair, whispering, "It's so…soft…" quietly enough that a normal human wouldn't be able to hear it.
Max looks over some girl's shoulder and gives a thumbs up. I let out a tiny sigh as the Erasers tried to get in the gates but were blocked by the cops. What happened went a little like this:
Cop: School day only.
Eraser: -snarl-
Cop: No unauthorized adults.
Eraser: I'm a, um…a chaperone.
Cop: Oh, you're a chaperone? Yeah? Show me your pass.
Eraser: -snarl-
Victory to the NYCPD!
When we reached the gate, I half expected to get the same treatment as the Eraser. But the cop waved us right through, muttering "Pass, pass, pass," without even looking at us.
A second later we burst through the crowd, free of the claustrophobic press of middle and high schoolers. We all scrambled to the side and then slapped a quick high-five.
"Yes!" Gaz cheers. "School day only! Yes! I love this place!" He eagerly accepts his bag of honey-roasted peanuts from Angel and shoves a handful into his mouth, chewing with a huge grin on his face.
"The zoo!" Nudge says, all but jumping up and down with a sudden adrenaline rush. "I've always wanted to see a zoo! I've read about 'em – I've seen them on TV. This is so great! Thanks, Max."
Max looks surprised for a moment, but then adopts a "Yeah I know I'm awesome" look and settles back smugly. I can't help a little snort from escaping.
"Come on, let's get farther in," says Ig, somehow managing to sound nervous and inhale his honey-roasted peanuts at the same time. "Put some distance between us and them. Jeez, was that a lion? Please tell me it's behind bars."
"It's a zoo, Iggy," says Nudge, taking his arm and escorting him farther away from the gate. "Everything is behind bars." She waves her hand in the air like a supermodel and turns to wink at us. Angel laughs and pushes another peanut between her lips, offering me the last bag. I accept and open it, inhaling the scent of the nuts, still warm. Mmm.
It takes about five minutes for me to polish off those peanuts. I start to get a seriously uneasy feeling in my gut. Not hair-prickling weird yet. Just…I don't know. Something's seriously off here. I can't help but do constant perimeter sweeps, scanning over the caged animals, the happy tourists, to see if there's anything I could possibly be missing. But there's nothing. Is it just me? Am I just unbelievably paranoid?
"Oh, man, look at this bear!" Gaz yells, distracting my thoughts. He waves excitedly at us, his nose pressed against the glass. The flock runs to him; I take my time, sweeping the area again. Bizarre.
"I'd love to have a pool," Gaz says wistfully. Wait, what? He was just talking about bears. I whip my head around to stare at him. Oh, he's talking about the habitat. That kind of scared me for a sec. I turn back to my bodyguard duties.
"That would be really cool," I hear Max agreeing.
"Dude." It's Ig. He'd come up behind me without me noticing. "Loosen up."
I turn to look at him. "Loosen up? In a crowd like this?" I close my eyes for a moment. How can I loosen up? We just got chased ten blocks by bloodthirsty Erasers.
Ig studies me. I can tell he knows what I'm thinking. "Come on, man," he says. "Live in the present. The Erasers? The School? That's all in the past. You, my friend, need to relax." He gives a little grin. "Help me find Gasser?"
I sigh and lead him back to the boy. When they're reunited, I slip away towards Max, who looks stressed.
"Omigod, Iggy, you have to let me describe this to you!" Nudge's shrill voice rings across the zoo. Laughing, Gaz and Ig half-run, half-stumble towards her, where she's standing with Angel on her back.
"This place is giving me the creeps," I murmur to Max.
She looks startled for a second. Finally, she blows out a big breath, sending a lock of hair puffing up away from her face. "You too? I'm going nuts," she admits. "It's flashback city. And I have – I have an overwhelming desire to set all these animals free."
She avoids my eyes. She's lying. Again? What will it take for her to tell me the truth? I decide to play along. "Free to do what?" I say, controlling my anger.
"Just to be out, to escape," she says, licking her lips.
"Out in the middle of Manhattan?" I say.I can't help ripping her stupid lie to shreds. "Free to live without protection, without someone bringing them food, with no idea of how to take care of themselves? They're better off here. Unless you want to fly to Greenland with a polar bear on your back."
She bites her lip angrily and glares at me. I stare back at her impassively. You started it. Angry, she stalks off to complain to the others. I watch her, a tiny crease forming involuntarily between my eyebrows.
I couldn't help it. I was worried about her.
Really worried.
A little while later, we've made it out of the zoo. Strolling down the street, eating whatever we wanted – you know, it's kind of the life. Roll call? There's Gaz, chomping on a 'dog. Check. There's Ig, licking a tall vanilla soft-serve in a cake cone. Check. There's Nudge, devouring a carton of French fries. Check. Angel, slurping a soft drink so large she has to hold the cup with both hands. Check. Max, trying to cram way too much of her slice of pizza into her mouth at once. Check. And me, chewing a Greek gyro. Oh, my God. These things are truly my calling. The doughy, warm pita – the juicy, fresh tomato – the crunchy, crisp lettuce – the cool, thick tzatziki sauce – all combined together to make one of the best things I've eaten, basically ever. Including the honey-roasted peanuts.
"You know what I like about New York?" Gaz says with his mouth full of kosher hot dog. "It's full of New Yorkers who are freakier than we are."
A woman with dyed-black hair in pigtails, fishnets, stripper heels, ten pounds of makeup, and about a gajillion piercings glares at him as she strides past. Gaz gives her a large, food-filled grin, and she shudders.
"So we blend?" Ig says uncertainly.
Max glances at him, thinking. "More or less. Of course, that won't help with the Erasers." She does a perimeter sweep at the word, then returns to her NYC slice.
"Speaking of which, we seem to be dealing with version 6.0." I sigh and lick tzatziki sauce from my lips before taking another bite.
"I was thinking the same thing," Max says, her mouth full of pepperoni. "This year's crop looks more human. And there are females. Which is a bummer." She keeps her gaze on the crowd as she speaks, keeping her eyes open for anyone who looks too intent to be casually shopping.
"Yeah. We all know how bloodthirsty females are. Dirty fighting and so on," I say, and Max rolls her eyes, polishing off her pizza.
"Can I have a burrito?" Nudge squeals suddenly, bouncing as she spies another food vendor. She spins so she's walking backward on the sidewalk. "What's a nish? I can have a burrito, right?"
"Ka-nish," Max corrects as Ig rolls his eyes. "It's like a square of mashed potatoes, fried."
"What's sauerkraut?" Angel asks innocently.
"You don't want it. Trust me," Max says darkly.
We each get a different kind of burrito. Guess which kind I get? That's right, the Greek kind. Yum, another gyro.
"I like being able to just buy food as we walk along," Nudge says happily. "If you walk a couple blocks, there's someone selling food. And delis. I love delis! They're everywhere! Everywhere you go, there's everything you need; food, delis, banks, subway stops, buses, cool stores, fruit stands right on the street. This is the best place, I'm telling you. Maybe we should always live here."
"It would certainly be convenient for the Erasers," Max says meanly. "They wouldn't have to track us down in the middle of nowhere." Seeing Nudge's frown, she quickly amends, "But you're right, Nudge. I know what you mean." She lapses into silence, and we walk quietly for a while.
Suddenly, she stops dead. I drop the shiny metal wrapper from my deceased gyro and rush to her, ready to catch her if she falls. "The pain?" I hiss, trying to find somewhere to hide her, my heartbeat picking up, not here, not now, please…
She shakes her head. "Cookies!" she cries.
I look at her. Is she kidding me?
She spins around to see where the smell is coming from and sees a little store with a red awning. "I must have cookies," she says, and blows into the store, the flock following her, leaving me outside, my adrenaline pumping.
Is she serious?
Cookies.
She just gave me a heart attack over cookies?
Fuming, I had to struggle to control myself and not punch the storefront. I took several deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. It's okay, Fang, buddy, just chillax…
What had happened to Max?
And where was the old Max?
I want her back!
You know the drill….
R&R&R&R&R&R!