James Patterson - Two Schools Out - Forever

I came up behind Ari, all stealthy wings, where he was perched on a branch.

"No! I told you-she's mine!" Ari was shouting into an earpiece. "This time no one's going to stop me. You take care of the others. I'll find Max."

He tapped his com unit off and took out a small pair of military binoculars. He peered through them, and I was practically holding my sides to keep from laughing. Finally he turned enough to see me-a hundred miles wide, filling his vision.

"Ah!" he cried in surprise, and dropped the binoculars.

Then I laughed. "So, what plans do you have for me, dog boy?"

I expected him to snarl and lunge, as usual. But he sat back on his branch and looked at me, seeming almost calm and roughly in the neighborhood of sane.

"Plans," he said. "I don't want to kill you. But I will if I have to. If you don't cooperate."

"Cooperate? This is me you're talking to."

Ari reached behind him and took a large, lethal-looking knife out of his pack. "I'm going to ask you once, nicely. What happens after that is up to you."

What was he up to? "Uh, okay. Ask away."

"You come with me. The two of us disappear. We never have to deal with Jeb and the whitecoats and everyone else again."

"Disappear where?" You know what they say: Curiosity killed the mutant bird kid. But I couldn't help myself.

"A place I know."

"And I would be stuck there? With you as my guard? I have to tell you, this isn't among my top-ten offers."

"Not as your guard. As your friend."

"You and me." This was throwing me for a loop-and then I remembered Angel telling me that she'd picked up on Ari actually loving me. In a hateful, twisted way, of course.

"Yes. This is your one chance."

"Uh-huh." I couldn't for the life of me see where this was headed in his mind. Unless-ick. "Ari, I can't leave the flock," I said, straight out. "Not for you, not for Jeb, not for anyone."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Ari said evenly, then he lunged at me with the knife.

I let myself fall backward off my branch, doing a flip in the air and unfurling my wings as I came right-side up. I didn't even look back as I took off through the woods again, fast, heading back to the general area where the flock had split up. I felt sorry for Ari. Or, at least, I potentially felt sorry for him, if he would quit trying to kill me.

"Max!" It was Fang. Immediately I zoomed upward and burst through the treetops into the open sky above. He was up there, fighting three Erasers at once. I streaked over and chopped one right where his neck met his shoulder. He cried out, and then I grabbed his wings and pulled them together, hard, in back of him. He shrieked in pain and started to drop like a rock. It was a little trick we'd learned back when we were first starting to fly. I'd forbidden us to do it to one another.

That Eraser crashed down into the trees below and disappeared from sight.

"Where's everybody else?" I called to Fang as I moved in.

"Gone-Total too," he said. "This is all that's left." He circled up to the right and then fell down sideways, landing hard on an Eraser's wing. Their wings were heavier than ours but not nearly as smoothly integrated into their bodies. This one folded also and fell clumsily downward. He tried to get aloft again, but just as his wings extended, he hit the trees. We heard him screaming all the way down to the ground.

"That had to hurt," said Fang.

"Should we go-," I began, but just then Ari shot out of the trees and smashed right into Fang at full speed. He wheeled around surprisingly quickly and hovered in the air, facing us.

"We end this now!" he growled.

"I agree," said Fang in a low, deadly tone, and he rushed Ari.

Remembering what had happened when they'd fought on the beach, I got ready to fling myself between them, but Fang zipped in like a hawk and managed a snap kick to Ari's chest so hard that Ari started coughing. Before I could even say, "Good one," Fang had circled and chopped the side of his hand down on Ari's neck. Ari dropped about ten feet because he momentarily forgot to flap, but then his face set in anger and he surged upward again. His wingspan must have been eighteen feet, because he was a full-size Eraser. I could only imagine how hard he had to work just to stay aloft.

Fang whirled in a tight circle, like a hawk ballet, and flew in sideways before Ari could even react. His fist crashed against the side of Ari's face, and I saw Ari's nose start to bleed. I guessed Fang was remembering the beach incident too.

Ari roared and came right at Fang, claws slashing the air, teeth bared, eyes burning. He had power, hatred, and Eraser strength on his side. But Fang was fast and nimble, and had a truckload of resentment and hunger for revenge.

It was a pretty even match.

I wanted to jump in and help, but I sensed it was one of those boy things and I should stay out of it unless Fang was really getting his butt kicked. So I hovered nearby, scanning the horizon, hoping the rest of the flock was safe at the bat cave. No other Erasers seemed to be around, amazingly, and choppers didn't suddenly appear. It was just your basic one-on-one mutant-vs.-mutant fight.

Which Fang seemed to be winning. I mean, let's hear it for resentment and revenge. Even though Ari was probably actually stronger than Fang, Fang was so quick and so, so mad.

I winced as I heard the bone-jarring crack of Fang's fist against the side of Ari's head. The blow spun his head sideways, and Fang darted in with a fast side kick right to Ari's ribs. I saw Ari's grimacing face and hoped this would be over soon, before he got in a lucky hit.

Again Fang swung a hard left punch. Ari turned at the last minute and caught it right in the muzzle. Blood started dripping out of his mouth. "You-," Fang said as he punched him from the right. "Quit-" Ari tried to back up, but he was clumsy with his wings and ended up dropping several feet. Fang dropped also, with precision, and rammed an uppercut into Ari's ribs. I heard Ari's breath leave in a whoosh. "Attacking-" Finally Fang drew back, gave one big beat of his wings, and shot forward, feetfirst. Both feet connected forcefully with Ari's stomach, and Ari wheezed for air. "Us!" Fang finished, delivering an uppercut to the chin that literally made Ari spin backward through the air.

And he kept tumbling. I got a glimpse of his battered, rage-filled face as he fell toward the treetops, sixty feet below. He tried to catch himself, working his wings, but it was too late. He crashed into the greenery, and we heard branches snapping from up where we were.

He'd hardly managed to touch Fang.

I looked over at Fang. He was panting, sweating, watching Ari's fall with a look of cold satisfaction.

"So-working out some issues here, are we?" I said.

He gave me a dry look. "Let's go find the others."

Fang and I kept a lookout all the way to the bat cave. We had no way of knowing if someone was tracking us with a telescope or whatever. But we took a complicated, mostly hidden route, and ended up shooting quickly in through the overhanging vines at the cave entrance.

"Max!" Nudge said, jumping up to give me a hug. Then we were all hugging one another, and Total was jumping up and down with excited little yips.

"Are they gone?" Gazzy asked.

"For now," I said. "Fang kicked Ari's butt."

"Way to go!" Iggy said, holding up his fist. Fang bumped fists with him, trying not to look too pleased with himself.

"He has issues," Nudge whispered knowingly out of the side of her mouth. I laughed.

"Okay, guys," I said. "New agenda. Forget looking for our parents. We've hit a dead end. And besides, I don't think I could bear to give one of you up again right now. How about moving on to saving the world?"