Air Born | Generation Icarus #1

Tyler - Hospital Escape

A/N Sept 2019: I finally committed to overwriting the parts from very first original version of the story, First Flight, from 2014. Now you can time-travel back through the comments to those heady first days, when the Flight's story was raw and unpolished!

And, before you ask, no. The original book won't ever be published again - it would be WAY too confusing, but also my publishers now own the copyright.

BUT, I convinced them to let me share a really long chunk of the final book, so I hope you enjoy!

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Somehow, the day just kept getting worse. There I was climbing onto a window ledge 10 floors high in a hospital gown and my underwear. But with the only alternative being strapped down for scientific experimentation, I decided to take my chances. I knew I'd never get past the guards outside my door, especially as they'd stripped the room of most potential weapons, so there was only one way to go. Calling on everything I remembered from years of martial arts training, I pulled off the greatest side snap kick of my life. The window cracked into a thousand tiny veins under my bare foot. Hissing in pain, I kicked again. The glass crumbled.

The guards shouted, rattling the door against the chair I'd shoved under the handle while praying that trick wasn't another movie myth. With my hand wrapped in a towel, I smashed out the remains of the glass, then nervously clambered out onto the narrow ledge. Struggling with my new centre of gravity, I tried to sucker myself to the wall like a snail as I eased sideways. The breeze hummed with the sounds of the city and played with the back of the damn gown. Once I would have said I wouldn't have been caught dead in nothing but underwear and a hospital dress.

But seeing as being caught dead was now actually an option, I didn't tempt fate by thinking it. Instead, I focused on what I was doing and ignored the shouting mass of people on the ground. After all, I did have a plan. Kind of.

No matter what, I was going home.

Clinging to the side of the building, my heart pounding on my eardrums at a dozen beats per second, I kept inching away from the broken window, my face sliding painfully over the rough concrete. After a sudden slip, I knew I couldn't go any further that way, and my fingers were too sweaty to cling on much longer. The pompous moron in the next room, trying to shoo me back through the other window, got a good look at my favourite finger as I tried to work up the courage to put the next part of my sort-of plan into action.

As the breeze tugged at me again, I felt my balance wobble, and this time my wings flared out. I knew I couldn't fly, not properly, but I could fall. After fifteen thousand feet, the ten foot drop to the roof of the next wing of the hospital was nothing.

Still, it took all my courage to let go of the building and jump. Twisting in mid-air, I threw out my arms and my wings copied faithfully, and with aching muscles I half-glided, half-fell onto the roof. The shock shuddered up through my bare feet and I yelped in pain, but staggered to the far side of the building before the pain subsided.

From there it was another ten foot jump to a small substation built into the side of the hill. Then I scrambled up the slope and down to the road on the other side, trying to put as much space between me and the crowd as possible. I kept running.

In the shadows of an untamed back yard, I dumped the hospital gown and stole an oversized Hawaiian shirt and a pair of cargo pants from a washing line. Two doors down, I grabbed some flip-flops from an open car. I walked until exhaustion overcame me.

In an empty park, I curled up under a bush and finally gave in to the urge to cry. My feathers ruffled against my back as I shivered, and the freaky sensation was weirdly calming. I stayed that way until the sun had properly set and it was as dark as it ever got in Los Angeles.

As the hours passed and the night deepened, I zigzagged my way back home, my newly-sharpened eyes and ears nearly overwhelming me with the amount of information they were sending to my brain.

Two police cars were cruising down my street. I hid in the darkness of the neighbour's garden until they'd gone, then ran across my own front lawn and round to the back door, grabbing the spare key from the birdhouse.

I listened at the door before quietly letting myself in. The clock in the kitchen showed it was after midnight. I put my mouth under the faucet to guzzle a gallon of water and, after a raid of the cookie jar, climbed the stairs toward my parents' rising voices.

My little sister Cherie's night-light shone onto the landing. All I could see was a tangle of dark curls on the pillow. By her deep, ragged breathing, I guessed she'd cried herself to sleep. I desperately wished I could crawl into my own room and do the same — and wake up the next morning to find it had all been a nightmare. But my new wings tucked underneath a stolen shirt were not a dream.

Dad's voice was loud enough to hear even without my newly tuned ears.

"I can't stand sitting here doing nothing. I'm going out to look again."

"But the police said—"

"Julia, the cops don't know what they're doing either! He's our son. And I'm beginning to think we can't trust anyone else where he's concerned."

I heard the trembling clink of ice in a glass and then Mom. "Why? Why us? Why is this happening?"

"I don't know, and I don't care, right now. All I know is that Tyler is out there. He's alone, and scared, and hurt. We have to find him!"

Taking a deep breath, I pushed open their bedroom door.

"I'm here."