spread my wings

chapter 18

"This way!" Nudge yelled, herding us toward a door at the back of the lab. "Don't be afraid."

"I hear voices." The vanilla ice cream blind kid says. "Be very afraid."

"Let's move it!" Max yells, pressing me forward. "Nudge, Fang, Angel. Out, out, out!"

    Nudge jumps, along with dark mysterious kid and little cute angel girl. So now they have names as well, very handy.

    They zip passed us, urging us all forward. "Up the stairs!" Max yells at them.

    Does she have a leadership complex, or am I missing something here? I thought.

    We were pushed up a dark staircase, which dumped us out into... a sewer? I only paused for a moment before scooping up a little girl with cat ears and a tail, who had fallen behind, and continued to run.

"Where are we?" I asked in confusion. Were we still in Georgia? In the US?

    Max looked down at me, and I could tell that she thought I was much younger than I really was. My eye twitched and I stared back hard.

"Sewer system, under a big city. On our way out to fresh air and sunlight." She said shortly. Gee, thanks. I thought.

    I was about to drill her for more information, when a deep voice from my nightmares hissed "But now just yet. First we need to chat, Maximum. You and I, for old times; sake.  

    Maximum? I thought, before I turned to see who was talking.

    My eyes widened in fear as recognition struck me hard.

    Ari.

    Fuck.

    I saw Max and Ari yelling at each other, but there was a ringing in my ears that made me dizzy and blocked out all sound. He had been there last time, only as a little boy. A little human boy. Now he was one of those wolf things, Erasers. What had they done to him?

    I saw them exchange punches, and it looked like Max was going to die, when Ari slipped. "Get them out of here!" Max yelled at Fang.

    Fang shoved us outside, dumping us onto a steep cliff face, that looked like it dumped out into the ocean. I spread my wings and was able to catch myself, leaping into the air, but was amazed as Fang spread a pair of jet black wings too.

"Hey those look exactly like mine!" I called over to him. He raised an eyebrow at my very white wings. "They dyed them!" I yelled back, flustered. "Assholes." He said.

    We flew back and forth, steadying kids along the cliff face so that they could climb down safely. I noticed that none of the other kids with wings were flying.

    When everyone was on the ground, Fang asked me "How can you fly so well?"

"Well, I actually lived with, like, parents for most of my life. I got kidnapped a few days ago, and apparently, I escaped from here when I was younger. What about you guys? Can you all fly?"

"Yup. We all escaped from The School about six years ago."

"The School?" I asked.

"Place like this, over in Colorado."

    I noticed that he looked very uncomfortable. "What?" I said.

"Well..." He held out a piece of paper to me. It was a picture of me, as a child, over a picture of a toddler Fang.

"Its one of the things Max printed out, only I saw me on it, so I grabbed it. It ... It says that I had a sister." He explained.

""But that's me." I said, not comprehending.

"Yeah."

    It look me a second before I realized.

"I - I have a brother?" I kept reading the paper.

"And my name is... Maura?"

And just like that, everything I thought I had known about myself was gone.