beating my wings hard because I was only three stories off the ground. Catching the wind made the cut in my wing feel like it was ripping, and I shrieked inside my head.
“Hawk!” someone shouted. Pietro.
I glanced back and saw him standing on the balcony outside his room on the second floor. He was waving at me almost frantically, but I shook my head and started to bank to head south.
“I know where McCallum is!” he shouted.
Whaaat? I turned in as tight a circle as I could manage, looking everywhere for hidden snipers or soldiers. I didn’t think Pietro would betray me… but I also didn’t know what I could believe anymore, or who I should trust.
I got close enough to yell, “What do you mean?”
Quickly Pietro put his finger to his mouth, telling me to be quiet, and again motioned me closer.
Not sure if this was a huge mistake, I headed for his balcony, soot sliding off my wings in sheets when I landed. “What do you mean, you know where McCallum is?”
He looked me up and down. “What the hell happened to you? You a chimney sweep now?”
“Later,” I said, and got ready to jump off the balcony.
“No!” he said, grabbing my arm.
I turned to stare at him, and he let go, his face flushing.
“Look, I know where McCallum is,” he repeated. “Where he’s got to be. I can take you there, if you want.”
“Yeah?” I said, sneering. “And why would I want to?”
His brown eyes met my darker ones, his face more serious than I’d ever seen it, even than the night he’d come to talk to me at Tetra. I didn’t know if I trusted him then; I didn’t know if I trusted him now.
“We have to kill McCallum,” he told me, in a voice barely above a whisper. “It’s up to you and me. We’ve got to take him out!”
CHAPTER 101
“Kill McCallum?” I exclaimed. “Trust me, I’d love to! But he’s everywhere… yet somehow nowhere. He’s on every vidscreen in the city, but no one’s ever seen him in the flesh!”
“I think I know where he is,” Pietro said.
“Okay, where?” I asked. “Tell me, and I’ll go take care of it.”
“We go together,” Pietro said. “You’ll take me to him.”
I gawked at him. “Like on my back? Are you serious?”
“Not strong enough?” Pietro smiled, his mouth slightly cock-eyed, like he was teasing me.
“I’m strong enough!” I said, offended. “But I swear, if this is a trick, if you’re leading me into a trap—”
Suddenly Pietro took my face in his hands and kissed me. It might have been nice, it might have lasted longer—but he pulled away in an instant, a black halo of soot around his lips. “Hmmm,” he said.
I rolled my eyes to hide the fluttering in my chest. “You’re gonna get a lot dirtier, if we’re flying together. But if you’re serious, then wrap your arms around me. One over, one under,” I said, showing him. “Keep your body in the exact same line as mine. If you’re off to the side and I’m trying to turn—”
“Yeah, okay, like a motorcycle,” he said, his arms tightening around me. My ribs hurt, but I’d positioned his arms so that he wasn’t putting too much pressure where I was injured. As for the weird fluttering in my chest… I’d worry about that another time.
This was just one more thing in a long list of incredibly stupid things I’d done recently. I didn’t know if I could trust him, and I definitely didn’t know if I should have let him kiss me. Plus, there was a big chance we’d jump off the balcony and go splat on the courtyard below, if he was too heavy. I’d never tried anything like this.
“Go!” Pietro said. I took a deep breath to fill my lungs and extra air sacs, moved my wings up and down to test their strength, and then one, two, three…
“Jump!” I said, and we both pushed off from the balcony. Sure enough, we sank very, very low before I got into a rhythm and beat my wings with everything I had. We rose, gaining altitude just as soldiers came tearing around the house. They took aim, then lowered their guns: if they shot me, Pietro would fall hundreds of feet and die. If they missed me but hit their master’s son, they’d be in for a world of hurt at Giacomo’s hands.
Concentrating on a strong upward move and an even stronger downward one, I managed