was one more thing I could add to my pride column.
“Be good, girlie,” the other guard said as they left. “Someone’ll be back to get you in a while.” The heavy wooden door closed behind them, and I heard keys turning in the two locks.
“Goddamnit!” I swore, standing still as I adjusted to the dim light. This was not a good situation, and by “not good” I meant it was pretty freaking bad. The only window was a thin slit way up on one wall. I could get to it, of course, what with the wings and all, but there was no way I’d fit through it.
I realized just how much my ribs hurt with each and every breath, and how my poor wing was still dripping some cloggy blood every so often. Large, dark drops fell from my feather tips onto the dirty floor. I followed them down, sneezing as clouds of dust reached my nose.
Okay, think! This is a mess. No one is coming for you. Only you can save your own ass. Get on it!! It’s like my own private McCallum Channel in my head. The Hawk Channel.
Could I fly up to the window, break it, and yell for help? Maybe, but what good would it do if I can’t fit through the window, anyway? I could lie in wait for whoever came to get me, but with a bleeding wing and my breath only coming in short gasps, I don’t know if I could take them—and I doubt there’d only be one. I started to feel deflated again, spinning my finger around one of the drops of my own blood. Some slid under the nail, sticking there. I’d been in tight spots before, and more often than not with other people counting on me, too. Where was my confidence? Where was my absolute conviction that I am Hawk, and I will survive? Where was the brilliant, unexpected show of power and brains that would get my sorry butt out of here?
Stuck somewhere in my mind, that’s where.
I just had to get it out.
CHAPTER 97
Max
“They’re just… so pretty!” Gazzy said, lobbing one bomb after another, making sounds to match. “Pyoon, pyoon, pyoon!” He gave me a cheerful smile, his long blond hair streaming away from his face. “It’s like old times.” Fondly, he looked down at the fires, the multiple explosions that his bombs had made. He sighed, his happiness almost overflowing.
Flying by his side, my own arms full of IEDs, I saw the destruction, the few dead people who hadn’t gone to the rally, the shattered glass, crumbled bricks, gnarled and twisted metal studs, the plumes of smoke rippling upward. I couldn’t feel the same way, not when I didn’t know where Phoenix was. Or if she was even alive.
“Outgoing!” Iggy said, hurling a bomb down on a parking lot filled with army vehicles—cars, motor scooters, armored vans. One after another they exploded as their gas tanks heated up. “Better than any video game! Gaz, remember that time at the cabin?”
“That was like three lifetimes ago, but yeah, I remember,” Gazzy said. “These schmucks deserve it, too!” Squinting a bit, he took aim, tilted a wing, and hummed a bomb down onto the biggest McCallum screen. It burst into a thousand pieces of glass, shooting sparks into the air and raining shards onto the people below, who screamed and ran for cover.
Gazzy looked first at me, then at Fang and Nudge. “Did you see that? Gotta say, today’s models are a huge improvement over paper cups taped together, with a push-nail igniter!”
“Yep,” Iggy agreed. “These are way more explosive, much easier to aim. And the feathers are a nice touch.”
Gazzy’s newest inventions were shaped like toilet-paper tubes and had three feathers notched into the end, like arrows. They landed where we aimed them, which was something new and different, and also meant less chance of collateral damage.
“Circle back,” I called, angling my wings to turn in a big circle. I tried to ignore the throbbing pain the flare had made on my wing. I could still use it, which was the only thing that counted. Gritting my teeth, I kept moving on. The five of us flew right below the smoggy clouds of the city, searching for new targets. “God, there are already so many fires,” I said, looking down. Smoke was flowing up from just about every city block.
“You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs,” Iggy said wryly.
We flew in a big