like the kind of thing that needed practice.
Max must have seen my question, because she gave me a quick hug—one tall, bony female to another. “I think you can do it,” she said softly. “We gotta go!”
And with that, she turned, launched herself in the air, and flew through a tunnel too narrow to fly through.
No wonder she was kind of legendary.
And I’m kinda halfway glad she’s my mom.
CHAPTER 110
I was right; it would take practice. I sucked at it. I wiped out so much that Max got way ahead. It was amazing how freaking fast and smooth she could fly through a tunnel too narrow to fly through. I needed a couple of months to practice.
She didn’t come back to me, though once or twice at a cross tunnel she stopped, landed on her feet, and looked back. I waved her on, took another running jump, and tried again. There were times when I could do it for like four or five wing strokes and I’d get so psyched, surging ahead, and then I’d get too close to a wall and tumble to a humiliated, scraped-up halt.
I gathered myself up, took a running jump, and… flew right past a four-way tunnel cross. Which way did she go? Urgently I increased my speed, knowing that if I messed up, I could really do myself some damage. But I needed to find her, make sure she was on the right path.
I got the barest hint of Pater’s scent a split second before an electrical wire, stretched taut across this tunnel, almost sliced me in half.
CHAPTER 111
I landed on the subway tunnel floor, breathing hard, adrenaline lighting up my fight-or-flight cells, scared to move—waiting for my guts to start spilling out onto the cold, dirty ground.
Shit, shit, shit. What happened? I glanced up, saw the wire, saw how it was tied tightly to old hooks on either side, about halfway up the curved wall. I started panting when I saw a bright red pool of blood seeping from where I lay. What… what…
“Hello, freak,” said Giacomo Pater, coming out of the darkness to stand over me.
CHAPTER 112
“You know my son,” he said, looking down at me. I had no energy left, felt my eyes rolling in their sockets as I tried to meet his gaze. My blood reached one of my hands, splayed out on the concrete. I was shocked at how warm it was, spreading past my fingers. Holy shit I was messed up. Where was Max?
“I hate that you know my son,” Giacomo went on. “I’m going to make sure that you never see him again.”
I wasn’t sure Pietro was alive, but I said nothing. Probably not a good time to tell him that.
“Mercenaries think they can take my city from me? It would take so much more than your tiny, mosquito army.”
The “mosquito army,” the Flock, had destroyed his estate and a whole bunch more of the city, but I couldn’t speak. My blood had almost reached Giacomo’s shoe.
“You’re going to die here, today,” he said, like he was having a normal conversation. “And so is that other one. Today you get eliminated from my life. Then things go back to normal.”
He reached into his pocket and took out a pistol.
I’d never been so scared in my entire life. Never had any idea that anything could hurt this much. I wanted to scream and swear and tell Giacomo Pater how evil he was, that he had no home, how much I hated him. But I was a trapped rat, scared stiff and too wounded to move. I was going to die now. Like Clete was dead. I clenched my teeth so hard to keep my lips from trembling. To hell with Giacomo Pater. The city was forever changed, and I’d had a hand in that. It would never go back to being the desolate hellhole it had been.
But… I would never fly above the clouds, never again feel the sun on my wings, my face. Never talk to Pietro again. Never see my mom and dad again.
Giacomo Pater pointed the gun at my head. If he monologued long enough, I would bleed to death, cheating him out of his kill shot. I was light-headed and felt sleepy. I moved one finger a bit to see if there was any forking way I could miraculously leap up and save myself. My body’s feedback was like, No. Find some buckets for us to be carried in.
Oh, goddamnit. Max, Mom, this would