You probably wouldn't understand. Well, I don't understand you, so we're even. But home was a concept I'd never had before, and it was awesome in the full meaning of that word.
Our house was the shape of an E, and everyone had their own room! Living in a dog crate was hard on the body, but you couldn't imagine how good a bed felt after living in a crate all your life.
Now we were standing on the side of a mountain, pretty far from the house. Jeb said he was going to teach us how to fly. Angel and Gazzy had to sit out, since they were too young and their wings hadn't developed enough yet.
"Wow, we're going to fly!" Nudge squealed. "I've always dreamed of flying. But not like the whitecoats or the other mutants dream, since I have wings and all. Do you think flying is easy, or really hard? I hope it's not hard." She's always talked a lot, but I've never seen her so excited about anything. Well, in that case, I've never been so excited about anything either.
"Yeah, no kidding," Iggy responded. Iggy was blind, lucky him, so he didn't see the drop at the end of the cliff.
"I wish I could learn," Angel said, standing away from the drop.
I looked sympathetically to Angel, her curls glowing in the sun. "You'll grow up soon enough,"
We just kind of milled around, waiting for Jeb to give us the signal. I still haven't figured out why a whitecoat would want to help us, but I'm glad Jeb isn't like the others.
"You ready?" Jeb asked. He looked almost as excited as us.
"He is," Angel whispered to me. I smiled. Though it was kind of strange, even for me, to have Angel in our heads, it's helped us survive so far, so I've learned to like her reassurance.
Jeb walked over to me. "Max, you're the oldest. Do you want to go first?"
I bit down hard on my fear. Humans weren't supposed to fly, but I was. "Yes."
I walked to the edge of the cliff. "Remember to flap," Jeb reminded me.
I opened my wings and jumped, trying the catch the air. I moved my wings up and down like Jeb had showed me, and I tried to remember the videos of the eagles and raptors flying, gracefully and perfectly.
The ground was still moving too fast. I panicked. What if Jeb was wrong, and I couldn't fly on first try? I'd be pancakes! I flapped furiously, then I heard a shout.
"GLIDE, MAX. GLIDE!" Angel shouted at the top of her lungs.
Thank God for the youngest member of my flock, Angel. I extended my wings as far as they could go and caught the air. I flapped in tiny movements to stay up in the air, but I largely glided.
I finally landed at the bottom of the cliff and looked back up at Jeb, giving him a thumbs up.
Fang and Iggy flew down as well, so only Nudge was left.
"Oh no," I heard Angel say, then we say the Erasers running towards us on the bottom of the cliff face.
"Oh darn," wasn't exactly what I said, but let's just pretend I said that.
"Let's get up there," Fang said, pointing to the top of the cliff where Jeb and the younger ones were waiting.
I had this need to revenge against what the School had done to us, and what they were doing now. More Erasers was the wrong move.
"Remember the moves Jeb taught us?" I asked Fang and Iggy.
"Yeah," Fang admitted.
"I'm blind, you know," Iggy responded.
"Really?" I sarcastically bit back. "We have to move. Like now."
I charged the Erasers, hitting them head on. I punched one in the gut, then roundhouse kicked it in the face. Surprisingly, he fell. I felt empowered, like I could finally fight back to the stuff of my nightmares.
Over in the corner of my eye, I could see that despite Iggy's blindness, he was doing fine on his own. Fang was darting around like the silent shadow he always was.
In no time, I decimated two other Erasers. It wasn't all that hard, but if I wanted to be faster, I would have to practice.
"Did we actually do that?" Fang whispered over the last Eraser.
"Yeah?" I said. I wasn't all that sure, either. It was good that I could do it, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to do that again.
"Hey, wait for me," Nudge said, flying down to meet us.
"Man, that was awesome!" Iggy yelled. "Did you see that?" he yelled to Gazzy up on the cliff.
Gazzy seemed very enthusiastic about the whole being FREAKING ATTACKED BY ERASERS thing. Which I think is totally crazy, if you haven't noticed yet.
Jeb met us at the bottom of the cliff. "Are you guys okay?" he asked worriedly.
I checked over myself, and I found nothing was broken, though my arm was a bit sore.
We drove home, but Jeb didn't say anything else. I had a felling he was worried about more attacks, and that he didn't like us charging and attacking the Erasers.
"That wasn't that bad, was it?" I asked Jeb.
He looked at me. "Please don't do something like that again until you've got more training. I don't want you getting hurt." Jeb looked a bit uncomfortable. "Or captured."
I hadn't realized the Erasers were there to take us, not kill us. In that case, we would have to be a lot more careful.689Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXXWzv973Jm
