Chapter XVI

“Hey, check this out,” Rose said the next morning. She was holding the newspaper that she had stolen from outside.

“Read it to us,” I said as I picked up the wrappers we had left from breakfast.

“Okay. ‘Two bodies have been found in the tri-state area yesterday, both with terrible wounds on their necks. One was found in a nightclub north of Blackstone, and the other was found in an alley in Blackstone itself. Both of the bodies were male and both were between the ages of sixteen and nineteen. The first body had been stowed under a bed in a secret room, drained completely of blood. The second had a gaping bite wound that seemed to come from an animal while lying in a pool of his own blood, a broken switchblade in his hand.’ It also says that the police don’t want to release the names of the guys…” Rose looked up at me, as did Dolan, who was strumming a guitar.

“Huh, I wonder what happened to them,” I said sarcastically. Rose flushed heavily while Dolan rolled his eyes. “Still, that took the police a long time to find the bodies…”

“That’s odd,” Rafe said, his fingers messing with his guitar strap. “Usually in a small town, police are fast to find things like that.” He had his wings open fully, which made the garage half the size it originally was.

“Well, maybe a whole bunch of the police are working on the missing children case,” Logan commented as he lit a match and put his hand over it. He kept it there the whole time, not complaining about being burnt or anything.

“Seems likely,” Roxy mumbled and continued to stand on her hands.

“Hey, I’m not done reading it yet,” Rose interrupted and cleared her throat. “Let’s see, where was I…? Oh, right. ‘There are rumors of the police changing the curfew time, though this has not been proven yet. Police are advising that parents keep their children and pets inside before dark. If this truly is a wild animal attacking humans, it’ll most likely be back for more.’…” She seemed to become puzzled.

“What’s wrong, Rose?” Kara asked as she bent over backwards in a bridge.

“I can’t believe they called me that…A wild animal? Me?” she replied.

“Hey, you’re a civilized, elegant princess compared to me, Rose,” Dolan darkly said, then coughed a few times. That reminded me that he wasn’t completely healed up from his mercury poisoning yet. “I’m probably the wild animal.” He went back to being extremely moody, which was probably still because of the suicide issue from yesterday.

I laughed, trying to make him perk up or at least less unhappy. “Dolan, you’re not a wild animal.” He didn’t say anything back.

It had been only two days and I was already getting sick of this garage. It was cold, drafty, and it smelled pretty bad. But I guess the good thing to look forward to was the fact that we were getting out of here soon. It was now the 24th, which meant we only had three more days until the Talent Show. Then we were long gone...

But on the bright side of the garage issue, we had found a few more things that could be of use to us. Up on a high shelf, Dolan found a hunter’s pocketknife (complete with at least a five-inch blade), which he chose to keep for himself. Under the old mattress, Logan had found a book to read that was titled, “Ghosts, Beasts, and Things That Go Bump in the Night”. And finally, in the old, unplugged refrigerator, Rafe had found at least twelve cans of soda. Hey, they were warm, but they still were amazingly good.

We had woken up at around seven in the morning and started to practice for the Talent Show. Kara and Roxy were doing great together, Logan and Rose had talked about fire tactics, and, of course, Rafe and Dolan were fighting. My progress was going great, as well; I had my song memorized by heart. All I needed now was to learn how to sing…it couldn’t be that hard, could it?

So I grabbed the battery-powered stereo, appointed Rose as the temporary leader, pulled my hood over my head, and left the garage to sing alone. Making sure that there weren’t any humans around, I did a running takeoff and pumped my wings in the hot air.

After reaching a nice cruising altitude of one-thousand-fifteen feet, I moved the little stereo under my hoodie so that I could fly and not worry about holding it my arms the whole time. I pressed the play button and waited through the first song to get to mine. Down below, the whole town of Blackstone, Virginia looked like a tiny speck. I could see cars the size of ants going down rivers of roadways. The largest thing I could see were the buildings and houses, which all looked like a child’s building blocks left out on a blanket.

The drum solo of the song kicked in, which meant it was time to start practicing. I took a deep breath and sang, “It’s time to fake what you say as you’re turning away, though it’s hard to be fake facing you everyday. With regret, with remorse for the things that were said, but to know how alone we’ll end up in the end. ‘Cause I–”

Unexpectedly, there was a loud, humming sound. Confused, I stopped singing and took the small stereo out of my hoodie. I tilted it around; checking to make sure it was still working correctly. The lead singer continued to sing on, which meant that nothing was wrong with the stereo. I pushed the pause button, hoping that the humming sound would stop.

But it didn’t. Now it seemed to be coming from behind me.

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a huge, black helicopter around two hundred yards back. There was a sign on the side of it that read, “Blackstone News Team”. Now, tell me something: how does a small town such as this afford their own news helicopter?! With my amazing raptor vision, I could clearly see inside the helicopter. Two men, one woman. The woman was holding a camera, and her fingers were just unscrewing the lens cap.

Time to fly out of here…now!

I tucked the stereo back into my hoodie and forced my wings to go faster. With a few deep strokes, I had risen at least eighty feet. The helicopter seemed to be confused as it jolted upwards to follow my movements.

This thing was fast, no doubt about it, but anything it could do, I could do better. I was more nimble than a hunk of metal any day…I could definitely out-fly this thing. Accelerating at an incredibly fast rate, I sped ahead; probably reaching one-hundred-miles-per-hour. The metal monster followed behind me, it’s loud blades making loud, deep thwacking noises. The sounds from its revolving blades reverberated in my chest, causing my heart to jump to faster paces.

This would be a good time to think of an escape plan, the human said.

I’m working on it! I told it.

Glancing down at the earth, I searched for somewhere to hide. Well, it probably wasn’t the best idea to head towards town, considering how many people are there…My best bet was to go to the forest.

Tucking my wings close to my body, I let myself dive down. My speed had again increased; this time climbing to one-hundred-fifty-miles-per-hour. What can I say? Flying is fast, and diving extends speed. The longer you drop, the faster you go.

So I dropped until I was only five hundred feet from the ground. Once there, I soared over the park the group and I had slept in a while back. Above me, I could still hear the helicopter’s blades whirring loudly. Making sure that I still looked like a misshapen bird from a ground view, I performed a serpentine motion. Apparently, this had thrown off the helicopter and made it stop to think.

But that didn’t last long. It was quickly after me again.

Once the hospital on the edge of town was in my sights, I turned to look at the metallic monster again. The woman inside was yelling at one of the men with her fingers pointed to the camera. She promptly dropped the camera onto a small ledge, then started to reach for a new one.

Out of battery? the bird asked me.

Don’t know, but I’m not going to stick around to find out, I said, flapping faster.

The forest had just started to grow over the horizon. If I could make it into the trees, I’d be fine. Dropping altitude again, I evened myself out with the tops of the trees. Glancing back, I saw the helicopter hovering almost directly above me. The lady had just started filming me…the bird hybrid with wings.

Great.

Eryn, you really should do something about that camera…the human muttered.

Really? Because I don’t like the idea of attacking a metallic monster, I growled and stared at the camera, almost as though it was hypnotic.

Maybe you can just steal the camera and bail, the bird suggested.

It’s worth a try! I said and tilted my feathers to spring upwards. I held my breath and grabbed onto the landing stands of the helicopter.

“Where’d that thing go?!” the pilot shouted to the camerawoman. “Find it!”

“I’m looking!” she shouted back. Rocking my legs back and forth, I managed to gather up enough momentum to swing myself up into the helicopter. My wings were too big to fit into the small area, so I had to fold them back up. “Oh, my god! It’s in the helicopter!”

“Thanks for noticing…” I mumbled and pulled my hood farther down over my eyes. “Now, I’ll be taking that.” I pointed a finger at the device that contained evidence of a flying freak. The woman held the camera as though it were her child. “I’m not taking no for an answer, you know.”

“You…you can’t take this!” she shouted over the roar of the wind and the blades. “I need this!” She pulled it closer and backed into a wall. “It’s mine!” Rolling my eyes, I took a step forward and reached for it.

There was an unexpected BANG! and a sudden pain in my right hand. I seethed and backed up towards the edge of the door. The man sitting in the passenger seat held a small pistol, and it was aimed at my head. I looked down at my hand to see a sudden blood flow that began to drip onto my jeans.

“Kill it!” the pilot screamed.

“C’mon, that wasn’t even fair!” I told them. “I wasn’t going to do anything to you guys! I just need that camera!” The passenger kept the gun on me, his fingers shaking over the trigger. “Listen, if you just give me the camera, I’ll be on my way and–”

BANG!

This time, I had seen it coming and ducked out of the way. The bullet went whizzing past my ear and hit some technical equipment behind me. “You missed!” the woman yelled.

“That wasn’t nice…” I murmured and dove at the lady. Taking the camera with my left hand, I swung out the door and opened my wings.

“Damn thing!” the pilot shouted behind me. There was another scream from the woman, and more gunshots, but I was too far away to be hit or to care now.

I plunged down until the tops of the trees covered me completely. Flying brutally through the tree trunks, I eventually performed a hard landing on one of the branches. Setting the camera down instantly, I grabbed my right hand and hissed with pain. Blood covered my whole hand, and I could clearly see where the bullet entered.

I needed to get to Rafe…he’d fix me up.

I slowly climbed down the tree to realize that I was missing something. Confused, I felt my hoodie…where the stereo should have been. But it was missing…which meant my music was history. “Dammit!” I shouted and punched the tree with my right hand, which was an obvious mistake. “Ow! Ugh!” Blood splattered onto the edge of my sleeve.

Stop being so angry with yourself, the bird calmly said.

“I lost the only thing that could’ve helped us win money!” I snapped.

You know the words; all you have to do later is sing, the human commented.

Frustrated, I groaned, grabbed the camera, and started my long walk back to the garage. I had no way of practicing now…I couldn’t sing without music! Just relax, Eryn. Take one step at a time…the bird said.

Once I passed the hospital, I realized how so…uncoordinated it was to walk. Flying was so much faster and easier. I could’ve been there in five minutes if I had flown! But walking…jeez, was it slow.

Passing through the center of town was no fun whatsoever. People kept staring at me– some with shock, some with worry– as I pushed my way down the street. But I sent out as many “I want to be alone” vibes as I could, which made a total of seven people leave me alone.

Opening the door to the abandoned garage, I immediately declared, “Dolan, grab Rose.” In one instant, I saw him speed over from the mattress to clutch onto Rose, who was in the far corner. Once he had his hands on her, he coughed three times. Suddenly, all of their eyes landed on my hand. Ignoring their stares, I said, “Rafe, get over here.”

He put his guitar down and rushed over as I slammed the door. Glancing around, I did a quick check-up on everyone. Logan and Rose had apparently been trying something with matches, Kara and Roxy were attempting flips, and Dolan and Rafe had been messing with the guitars. “What happened?” Dolan growled from where he held Rose still. Her eyes widened at the sight of my blood, and she eagerly licked her lips, but she didn’t fight back.

“Damn humans,” I snarled, my blood boiling with anger.

“What?” Rafe asked. He touched my right hand gently, but I jerked it back.

“Ow!”

“Sorry! Let me see…” His eyes searched over the wound, then looked up at me. “Bullet wound?”

“Yeah…” With my left hand, I tossed the camera over to Logan. “Logan, take that tape apart and burn it. Then break the camera.” He looked remorseful, almost like he didn’t want to destroy a piece of technology. But he quietly started to unwind the videotape on the floor.

“Eryn, what’d they do to you?” Kara asked.

“I was flying around when a news helicopter snuck up behind me,” I explained. “It had started to record me flying and– ow, Rafe, watch it– and I needed to get the camera. So I swung into the helicopter and stole it. Some dude shot my hand in there, but at least I had gotten the camera.”

The smell of smoke started to fill our noses, which meant Logan was doing a fine job burning the tape. Leaving the burning film to squirm on the ground like a dying serpent, Logan started to smash the camera with the broken hammer handle he had found yesterday. “They don’t have any evidence of you at all, do they?” Dolan asked. I stared at him to see the flames from the small fire reflecting back in his eyes.

“Not that I know of…I did a pretty good job with making sure I didn’t leave anything…” I said. “But bad news, I did lose the stereo.”

“That’s fine…you don’t need it,” Roxy commented. “Where did it go?”

“It must’ve fallen out of my hoodie when I was flying,” I said. “If it did, then it must’ve hit the ground and shattered into a thousand pieces.” Glimpsing at Rose, I asked, “How are you holding up?”

“Fine…” she muttered. “I want blood, but it’s not controlling me right now. I’ll be fine…” Her slightly fading cherry-colored eyes stayed on my hand. “Just fine.”

With a small nod from me, Dolan tightened his grip the smallest bit.

“Well, you haven’t lost enough blood to kill you…” Rafe said, pulling my attention away from Rose and Dolan. “There. That’ll work for now.” He went to the backpacks and found some disinfectant and gauze. Once he sprayed the stinging liquid, my senses went on hyper-drive. Stupid Labs and their smells…I quickly recovered and forgot about it. After wrapping my hand, Rafe said, “You’ll heal fine, you just need to rest it for a few days.”

“Oh, it’s a good thing that I’m right handed…” I muttered. “How’s that fire coming, Logan?”

“Fine…But we’ll need to vent out the smoke somehow,” he replied. Roxy walked over to the door and cracked it open a little bit. I could see some of the smoke float out the breach of the door.

“Eryn, can I say something?” Rafe asked.

“Huh?”

“Maybe we should be practicing certain techniques for when we fight.”

“Since when do you decide what we do?” Dolan snarled.

Rafe spun around to look at him. “Well, considering we’ve all been hurt by humans at least once, we should learn how to defend ourselves and how to fight back.” Rafe glowered at Dolan, who glared back while tightening his grip on Rose.

“That…sounds like a good idea,” I said. Both of their eyes shot to look at me. “I mean, with training, we could probably become lean, mean, fighting machines. Has anyone ever had any specific training for fighting?”

“I took karate lessons when I was…you know, normal,” Logan announced. “But I kinda forgot a lot of it…” I shrugged and gave a small smile.

“I had been taught self-defense when I was younger,” Rafe said. “I remember a lot of it. I could teach everyone a little bit.”

I smiled and nodded. “Yeah, let’s train.” Looking down at my hand, I sighed. “I don’t know how good I’ll be with a hurt hand, but we can try it.” Rafe nodded.

“Well, first things first, we should try sparring,” he said.

“What’s sparring?” Kara asked.

“When people fight for training purposes,” Logan told her. He warily looked over at me. “Kara’s not going to spar, is she?”

“We need to train her, Logan. If a scientist comes, and she hasn’t had any training, how will she know what to do?” He didn’t say anything as I started to take off my hoodie. Once I had thrown it onto the cart, I stretched out my wings. “Now, Rafe, let’s get started.”

“Deal,” Rafe agreed. “Would you be willing to spar first with me so I could teach?” I nodded. “Great. Logan, can you move some of this stuff to give us enough room?”

Logan did, moving the card table, the chairs, and anything else that was in the way. While doing so, I looked over at Dolan, who still held Rose tightly. I told him it was okay to let her go, and he did. Rose calmly sat down on the cart as through she weren’t a blood-sucking vampire.

Cracking my knuckles, I said, “So, Rafe, how do we do this?”

“Stand like me,” he started. I stepped into a fighting stance, just like him. “Hold your fists up.” I put them up. “And just start going whenever you want. You attack, I’ll defend.”

Smiling, I said, “Okay then.”

The other group members sat down on the cart and started to watch as Rafe and I circled each other. “Hey, five jellybeans on the birdbrain,” Logan said.

“Which one?” Roxy asked, chuckling.

Rafe and I speechlessly ignored them and continued to circle. “You want to watch where your opponent will aim. Usually, they’ll go for the obvious spots like your head, your chest, your stomach, and your legs,” Rafe explained. I took a step closer. “My personal favorite is to go for the legs.”

He swung his leg behind mine and pulled, making me fall to the ground. I tried to catch myself with my hands, and I succeeded, but it hurt my right hand so bad that I hissed. “Eryn’s down!” Roxy laughed.

Pushing myself off the ground with both hands, I stood back up and glared at Rafe. “You need to watch your opponent carefully. See, I could do something like this–” He swung a left punch at me, which I easily dodged. “–and end it like this.” While I was busy dodging his left arm, his right arm came and punched me right in the side of the jaw. There was a faint throbbing under my skin, but it didn’t hurt.

“Cheap shot,” Logan muttered.

“There are no such thing as cheap shots when you’re in a life or death fight,” Dolan said as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Eryn, fight dirty. Don’t follow the rules.”

I smirked. “Ha, since when did I ever start to follow the rules?” Looking at Rafe, I said, “Bring it, bird boy.” He smiled widely, then took a step towards me.

His foot was suddenly coming straight for the side of my head. I sidestepped and did a fake punch with my left arm, causing Rafe to try to block it. Once he had successfully blocked, I did a round kick with my right leg in the side of his stomach. He flew backwards, opening his wings like a parachute to stop him from flying into the garage wall. “Nice,” he commented.

“Well, thank you,” I said.

Rafe was instantly in front of me, his fist pulling back in a huge punch. I didn’t have any time to react, and his fist came into my chest, knocking the wind out of me. I sucked in a bunch of air, then dodged the next kick that came for my stomach. “You never let your guard down,” Rafe said. “Ever. Or else people will take advantage of you.”

“So, you should never be caught doing something else?” I asked as I started to load a kick.

“Exactly. You should never let your guard down. Never try to do something else while–” he started. I kicked him in the chest, which made him stagger a bit.

“Rafe, you should follow your own advice. Don’t talk when you’re supposed to be fighting,” I said, smirking. He smiled, then threw five punches at me. I dodged all of them, and tried to ram my knee into his stomach. He avoided my knee and kicked me in the back. Using the momentum from his kick, I swung back around and struck my foot into the side of his head. He fell on the ground, and, seeing how he was down, I jumped on him. Sitting on his stomach, I laughed. “Pinned ya.”

“Did not!” Rafe chuckled. He pushed me off, then rolled so that he was on top of me. “There. Now you’re pinned.”

“Not for long!” Rolling, I kicked him off and landed on him again. “Pinned ya again.”

“Okay, mercy,” he laughed sarcastically. I stood up and offered my hand to him. He took it, and I helped him stand. “Who’s next?”

I walked over and sat down on the cart next to Rose. Looking around, it didn’t really seem like anyone had wanted to fight. Rafe wasn’t that tough…I mean, if I had known more about fighting, I would’ve taken him down instantly. Were the other group members afraid of him?

“Me,” Dolan said and stood up. No one said anything for the longest time. “What? You afraid to fight me?”

Rafe blinked a few times, then backed into a sparring stance. “Never.”

Dolan walked over in front of Rafe and stood still, his arms at his side. He looked like he was just some normal human waiting in line at a coffee shop. “Dolan, get into the sparring stance!” Kara told him.

He ignored her and continued to stand still.

This should be interesting…the bird said. I put two fingers to my temple.

Dolan verses Rafe? This I gotta see, the bird chuckled.

I blinked my eyes, and they were immediately fighting. Rafe had performed a side kick into Dolan’s shin, and Dolan had thrown two punches to Rafe’s head. The bird mutant opened his wings, flapped backwards, and tried to kick Dolan’s legs out from under him. My wolf friend jumped to avoid it, but ended up hitting the wall of the garage.

“Eryn…” Rose quietly whispered.

I didn’t even pay attention to her. I was too absorbed in watching Dolan and Rafe fight. “Whoa, I’ll up you ten jellybeans on Rafe,” Roxy murmured to Logan.

“Fifteen jellybeans on Dolan,” Logan hissed back.

They both flew at each other, their fists and legs punching and kicking rapidly. I heard the sickening snap of someone’s separated nose, and there was suddenly blood. Logan and I each grabbed one of Rose’s arms, but she seemed to ignore the blood to watch the fight.

Dolan jumped backwards, as did Rafe. Dolan had his left hand on his chest as Rafe held his hand in front of his bloody nose. Both of them were panting heavily, but they really didn’t appear to care.

Thinking that it was over, I sucked in a gulp of air. I had been holding my breath ever since they had started. I started to stand up, getting ready to hand Rose over to Dolan.

But of course, they had to keep fighting.

Rafe snapped his broken nose back into place and Dolan spat out a lump of blood onto the ground. Then they leapt at each other again. Dolan’s fist hit Rafe in the stomach, which caused an involuntary action of Rafe’s wings slapping in front of him, hitting Dolan in the head.

Dolan countered unexpectedly with a roundhouse kick to the side of Rafe’s head, right near his temple. Rafe started to fall, but did something of an aerodynamic spin kick that hit Dolan in the chest. There was a loud CRACK! and suddenly Dolan was leaning against the garage wall.

I stared at both of them, shocked. Both of them looked like violent, rabid dogs (quite literal in Dolan’s case) that were fighting for a piece of meat. Both of their eyes were blazing and their mouths pushed into snarls and growls. There was a tangible feeling in the air that I could easily read: if they were fighting for real, against each other to kill, one would die a bloody death.

I’m going to say this openly, just so you know how I feel.

I was afraid of them. They looked murderous and bloodthirsty…and I had never seen them like this.

Rafe abruptly dashed forward and did a jump spin kick, which hit Dolan in the chest again and caused him to slam into the wall. He spat out more blood, pushed off the wall, and jumped on Rafe, tackling him to the ground. Flipping Rafe over, Dolan sat on his back and twisted his arm backwards. Wolf fangs came down on Rafe’s arm, causing him to yell in anguish. Dolan pulled away from the bite and started to twist Rafe’s arm farther.

“Dolan!” I shouted and stood up. They continued to fight. “Rafe!”

Rafe kicked his feet up behind him and hit Dolan in the back of the head. Caught off guard, Dolan yanked hard on Rafe’s arm, making a revolting cracking and popping noise. I cringed at the sound of his now broken arm. Rafe howled with pain and quickly rolled over, throwing Dolan off.

Both of them were gasping for air as they knelt down on one knee. They faced each other, only five feet away from the other. Their eyes connected, and I began to think that they would fight again.

But at the same time, both of them fell to the ground and rested their heads on the cold cement. Their eyes closed, and both of them tried to swallow more air than possible. Dolan started to cough violently, and Rafe moaned in agony.

The fight was over…for now.

“Dolan, Rafe!” I yelled and ran over to them. I touched both of them at the same time with my hands on their backs. At my touch, Dolan’s eyes flew open and he growled ferociously, his coughing stopping. I jerked my arm away quickly and turned to look at Rafe. It took all my strength to keep from puking as I saw his arm warped out of shape. “You guys are idiots! You could’ve seriously hurt someone!”

“Oh, my nose is bleeding, I’ve got a gaping bite wound on my arm, and it just happens to be broken, but it’s fine! I’m not seriously hurt or anything,” Rafe spat sarcastically with his eyes closed. Trying to calm him down, I started to soothingly knead small circles on his back, between his wings.

“What about my broken ribs?!” Dolan snarled, his voice distorted and deeper than it usually was. Concerned, yet terrified, I looked over at him. He didn’t look the same…he looked darker, and maybe more like an animal. “Goddamn motherf–”

“Dolan!” I scolded him. Kara was in the room, and it was bad enough that she heard us swear normally. She didn’t need to hear anymore curse words.

Whoa…the bird quietly said.

Holy crap, the human muttered, sounding scared.

Eryn, they’re vicious! the bird suddenly exclaimed.

I…I know…I thought back to them and continued to stare down at the bloodthirsty mutants that lay at my feet. Dolan and Rafe moved their heads so that they could see each other. Dolan growled homicidally, and Rafe glared mercilessly back.

Thank God they were both too tired and too injured to move, or else they might’ve killed each other.