Hawk - James Patterson Page 0,47

had pushed his face between his bars.

“Yes,” Gazzy answered quickly before I could say anything.

“They took ’im this mornin’,” the prisoner said. “Open these bars and I’ll tell you where.”

“You don’t know where!” I yelled, furious and embarrassed.

“Do, too,” the inmate insisted. “Open these bars!”

“Iggy?” Gazzy said, and Iggy went to the next cell, feeling his way along the bars till he came to the big lock on the cell door.

He pulled some metal picks out of a pocket and put them in the lock. His face was calm concentration, despite the roar all around us. Loose prisoners were everywhere, others shouted to be freed. They pelted us with “gifts” offering the best of what they had in their cells if we’d only let them out—extra toilet paper rolls, dirty pictures, and some (I’ll admit) pretty decent personal artwork. The floor was littered with stunned guards, their hands still on their guns.

“Okay,” Iggy said, and the lock clicked. The prisoner stared and pushed the door open. I grabbed him by his inmate jacket and shoved my face into his.

“Where’s the prisoner from this cell?” I snarled, using my meanest face and voice, the ones that usually made people cry.

“She’s so cute,” I thought I heard Nudge whisper.

“They took him to execution this morning,” the inmate said, cowering a bit.

I stared. “What?”

“They took him to execution,” the inmate said again, starting to look surly. “Over by the mess hall.”

I let go of his collar. “So you’re saying he’s dead? They executed him?”

“I only said that they took him to execution,” the inmate said pointedly. “Don’t know if he’s dead, do I?”

Phoe—Hawk,” Gazzy said. “Where’s the mess hall?”

It took me a second to organize my brain cells and my internal map of Incarceration. Then I pointed to the hole in the ceiling, and we flew up, toward the gray-green night, leaving the riotous wreck of the prison behind us.

CHAPTER 43

The Flock and I landed silently on the mess hall roof, ignoring the blazing searchlights, all of which were below us, the dogs barking hysterically, the shouting, the gunfire. The loose prisoners were making their way to the fences, attacking guards in the yard, and trying to force open more cells to free their friends. Everything below was in chaos; nobody was paying attention to what was going on up on the roof.

“Let me do a quick three-sixty,” Gazzy said, and Nudge nodded.

As silently as we had landed, the Gasman took off, not making a sound with his wings. Nudge, Iggy, and I lay on our stomachs on the roof as I tried not to let stupid thoughts and emotions run though my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about Calypso, and her kaleidoscope eyes, the blank stares of Moke and Rain. They were lost in a dreamworld, waiting on me to save them. And I was stuck on the roof of the wrong building still trying to help free this Fang guy. Their friend, I reminded myself. Not mine. Time was running out for my gang, and we still hadn’t achieved anything. Another couple hours and there wouldn’t be enough left of their brains to rescue. I exhaled sharply, my breath spinning up a cloud of dirt in front of my face. Keep focused, Hawk.

When Gazzy landed, his sneaker dislodged two small pebbles. That was it. I could land without stumbling, but there were usually drag marks. I was going to have to practice takeoffs and landings. If I lived through tonight.

“Found him,” Gazzy said tersely.

“Alive?” Nudge asked.

“I can’t tell,” Gazzy said. “He’s tied to a post in the execution square.”

Ohhhh. It came back to me—the time I’d been flying overhead in the daytime, which was unusual. I’d glanced down at Incarceration in time to see a prisoner get shot, slump down. That was where Fang was.

“He’s not… standing up,” Gazzy said in a low voice.

“Let’s go,” Iggy said.

Nudge let out a breath but said nothing, just got into a crouching position, below the searchlights. One by one they jumped off the roof, swooping low toward the ground and then rising sharply. I tried it, almost face-planted into the ground, then rose shakily after them. There was so much I didn’t know about flying. Because until now, there hadn’t been anyone to teach me.

CHAPTER 44

The execution square was on the edge of the compound, away from everything else. Everything else except McCallum, of course, and his occasional Voxvoce, which went everywhere in this damn city.

For a few moments, the Flock hovered above the

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