Hawk - James Patterson Page 0,94

kicking ass and taking names.”

“Yeah,” I said, my panic only subsiding a little. “What’s first on our shit list?”

Nudge pulled a literal list out of her pocket and tried to read it. Since we were at twelve thousand feet, going fast, it was like trying to read toilet paper. She squinted, held the paper tight. “The dope factory,” she announced at last.

“Let’s hit it,” I said, and pushed down hard with my wings.

Three minutes later we were over a god-awful ugly building, our eyes burning from coming down through the green-gray sludge they called “clouds.” I felt like I was wearing a scuba suit filled with sand, and it wasn’t only the air quality making me feel that way. The unbearably itchy and irritated feeling went below my skin, and since I knew myself horribly well, I knew it was because I was upset that I didn’t know where Phoenix was.

We were expecting bullets to come at us, but it would be okayish; at this altitude, there was too much wind for regular machine-gun bullets to be super accurate. Still, they could now see us, so we could kiss our stealth plan good-bye.

“Okay,” said Gazzy. “Remember to pull their strings at the last minute!”

I had already dropped mine. “Strings? What strings?”

“It’s a new design,” Gazzy called over to me. “An added safety feature! Ya gotta pull their strings or they don’t go off. Cool, huh?”

“Oh, damnit, Gaz!” I said, already dropping out of formation.

“Max, don’t!” Angel’s voice was already fading high above me.

I could see my bomb—just a second ago it had landed on the roof of one of the dope factory’s buildings. I could see it because it was neon pink. Gaz was trying to make them more festive.

Of course, this close, the guards’ aim would be much better—but they weren’t shooting. I landed for a split second, grabbed my bomb, and bounced back up to take flight. I saw the guards’ furious faces, saw them yelling and throwing their guns down on the ground. Of course! I laughed—Phoenix’s friend was supposedly able to dismantle guns. I hadn’t believed it, but it looked like he’d come through.

Now I could see the simple cotton string Gazzy had rigged up. I pulled it, the bomb vibrated slightly in my hands, and I dropped that sucker.

Whoosh! Something fast and hot hit one of my wings, spinning me sideways. Had the bomb gone off too early? I was falling fast, losing altitude and gasping for air. Keeping my head together, I forced myself to straighten in midair and beat my wings—which hurt like hell—something was really wrong with my right wing. I looked sideways—it wasn’t broken—I could move it. But it was burned, and where it was burned, a line of feathers fifteen centimeters wide had been scraped away.

“They’re shooting flares!” Iggy yelled.

“Are you okay?” Angel asked, coming closer to me.

“No,” I said, gritting my teeth and motioning to my wing, now spinning a rivulet of blood into the air.

“Oh, shit,” she said, and deftly pulled a bomb string with her teeth while she did another one in her hands. She hummed them both downward, one, two, and we watched as large chunks of the factory exploded and went up in flames, the hot gust of air buoying us higher. Trying to ignore the burning, searing pain of my wing, I looked behind us and saw a dark figure shooting toward us.

Oh, thank god—Fang.

Then I saw the look on his face.

CHAPTER 94

“What happened, baby?” Fang asked, flying directly over me, matching wing stroke for wing stroke.

“They’re shooting flares. And rockets,” I said tightly. My wing hurt so freaking bad. Using it was definitely making it worse. “Where’s Phoenix?” I craned my neck to look at him, and the dark expression on his face made my stomach knot.

“Next is the so-called Hospice House!” Nudge shouted and motioned where we needed to go. She took point and the rest of us vee’d out in back of her. Gaz was throwing bombs to us—Fang deftly caught his and dropped one into my hands.

“Do. You. Know. Where—” I started.

“I found Clete, the kid she was with, who stopped the guns,” Fang said.

“What did he say? Was Phoenix still with him?”

Fang was silent for several seconds, and I wanted to swing my left wing up and fwap him in the face. “He’s dead.”

I just blinked.

“He was lying at the base of that stupid statue, dead,” Fang went on. “His computer was smashed into atoms.”

“And… Phoe—” I began.

“She wasn’t