down, Phoenix!” Max said sharply.
Shocked, I straightened to look at her, and the small wolf seized that moment to leap at me, landing so it could brace its fat, fuzzy paws against my knees.
“Hi! I’m Io!” it said. “An’ you’re Phoenix, but I’m s’posed to call you Hawk an’ I never met you before but you used to know my dad an’ he isn’t here right now he had to stay home and help Mama but he said I could come an’ this is my first mission only I’m s’posed to stay back and be careful.”
I stared down into blue eyes, seeing the pert, triangular ears, the ruff of fur framing a face. A dog’s face? A little dog’s face? Then it hit me: it wasn’t the dog talking. Oh, my god, I was so stupid. One of the Flock threw their voice to mess with me. Those asswipes.
A light, silvery laugh made me look up to see a teenager, maybe almost twenty, coming toward me. She was a good head shorter than me, with fluffy, light-blond hair that curled around her face. She wasn’t vidscreen pretty, but there was something about her that kept my gaze locked on her face.
“It was really Io talking,” she said with a smile. “And that was real bacon, not bacon-flavored krill, and this table is actually wood, not just wood-grain.”
My mouth opened to ask where the mics were, but then I realized that those had been thoughts—I hadn’t said any of that out loud.
The blond woman laughed again. “And yes, certain members of the Flock are often total asswipes.”
“Hawk, this is Angel,” Max said, coming over to us. “The last member of the Flock. More important, she’s the leader of our worldwide group—a group called Freedom.”
CHAPTER 78
“No, no—I want to hear,” Gazzy said. “Which ones of us are asswipes?”
I shook my head, embarrassed. “I didn’t mean asswipes,” I muttered. “More, like, you know, jokesters.”
“She meant asswipes,” Angel said, almost doubling over with laughter. “Oh, my god, you guys—if I wasn’t sure she was your kid, I’d be totally sure now after hearing her thoughts for two seconds!”
My face was red and burning and I didn’t know what to do. I felt a soft pat right below my knee.
“You know, if you sit on the sofa, then I could sit next to you.” Io started trotting to the long sectional sofa against the wall. Numbly I followed her and sat down. She was a little too short and chunky to make it up, so Nudge gave her a boost. She snuggled next to me and put one paw on my leg. “There,” she said. “Isn’t this nice?”
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled, looking at the floor.
“You don’t remember Total?” Max asked, coming to sit on my other side.
“Total of what?” I asked.
Io laughed a kind of doggy laugh. “Total’s my dad, silly! He told me all about you. He says you used to pull his ears when you were a baby.”
I had zero idea of what she was talking about. “So, Total’s a dog?” I asked Nudge, because she seemed the least nuts of all of them. “And he talks?”
Max reached across me to rub Io’s ears. Io preened and closed her eyes. “Total is one of the Flock, and so is his… wife. Yes, he talks. He’s a small, black, Scottie-like dog. You don’t remember him? He used to crawl into your crib all the time so you could nap together.”
I practically gave myself a hernia from trying to remember this, and I couldn’t. Not even a little bit. Now I had Io to deal with. I didn’t like animals. I had never cuddled with a dog—the only ones I’d seen, besides pompom dogs in fancy cars, had been street curs with fleas, ticks, diseases.
“You can pet me if you like,” Io said in her little-kid voice. “Everyone says I’m totally silky.”
“Oh.” I made my hand into a flat shape, experimentally, then lowered it to Io’s head. I gave a couple of hesitant pats, and then Max took my hand in hers and drew it down Io’s head to her side.
“Whoa, you’re all fur!” I said. I’d thought she was chunky because she was basically melon-shaped, but beneath the fluff I felt little ribs, her small shoulder joints. And… something else. Some kind of weird growth on her back. I drew my hand away, not sure what was wrong with her.
“That’s my wing!” Io said proudly and stood on all fours. She screwed up her muzzle